As Expo 2010 draws to a close in Shanghai, the Aegean city of İzmir is remounting its bid to host the world’s fair in 2020. But before it faces the international competition, it will have to overcome an internal rival: the capital city of Ankara, which thinks it alone can be successful in bringing the event to Turkey.
“We are contemplating [lobbying for] Ankara to be Turkey’s official candidate for Expo 2020,” Avni Kavlak, the Ankara Metropolitan Municipality’s press coordinator, told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review on Monday.
“There is nothing decided yet. But we are thinking about it and evaluating the idea with other interested parties, such as the Ankara Industrial Chamber and the Ankara Trade Chamber,” Kavlak said. The year 2020 will mark the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Turkish Parliament. “We think İzmir has tried and lost its chance. We think it is now our turn to try our luck.”
Kavlak’s implication that İzmir did not try hard enough to earn the right to host Expo 2015, a battle it lost to Milan by 21 votes, echoed criticism made at the time of the voting in 2008 that nongovernmental organizations and the private sector in the Aegean city were not well organized and were even working at cross-purposes to each other.
İzmir, which has been dreaming of hosting an expo since the early 1990s, will not go quietly, however.
“İzmir has superior qualifications when compared to Ankara,” Bülent Baratalı, an İzmir member of Parliament from the opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, told the Daily News on Monday. “İzmir is a better candidate with its physical location, geography, transportation, promotion campaigns and its overall appeal.”
Speaking from the campaign trail of CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who was in the Aegean region Monday, Baratalı said a delegation from İzmir had visited state and government representatives, including those from the Foreign Ministry, to reiterate that it wants to hold onto its role as Turkey’s official candidate when a decision on the host city for 2020 is made next year by the 157 members of the Bureau International des Expositions (International Exhibitions Bureau), or BIE.
Sources familiar with the BIE, the intergovernmental organization in charge of overseeing the calendar, bidding, selection and organization of world and international expositions, said cities that have previously campaigned to host such events have an advantage over first-timers – a factor that would favor İzmir over Ankara.
“Ankara Mayor Melih Gökçek does not have the capacity to organize such an event. The city’s essential infrastructure is unfinished,” Baratalı told the Daily News, dismissing claims that a lack of coordination between public and private institutions in İzmir contributed to its loss in 2008.
“We lost by a slight margin,” Baratalı said, blaming the Foreign Ministry for not working hard enough to bring the event to Turkey.
İzmir has its own pavilion in the expo area in Shanghai, displaying the large channel project that helped clean up polluted İzmir Bay. The project was chosen as one of the best urban projects by the organizers of the Shanghai Expo 2010.
The respective assets of İzmir and Ankara as potential host cities may be overshadowed in the selection process, however, by internal Turkish politics.
The ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, which controls the Ankara Metropolitan Municipality, could decide at any time to select an official Turkish candidate to submit to the BIE. Or the decision could be postponed until after the general elections scheduled for 2011. İzmir’s supporters hope a delay could work in their favor if the CHP, which traditionally has its stronghold in the Aegean city, wins control of the national government.
“The CHP will be heading the government in 2011,” Baratalı said with confidence.
According to the rules of the BIE, the host city for any given exhibition must be chosen nine years before the event. In addition, candidates have to make their application within six months after the first country declares its candidacy. If, for example, a city puts forward its candidacy this month, Turkey would have to decide on a candidate by March 2011. Barring an early election, that would mean the ruling AKP would be forced to choose between Ankara and İzmir.
If all potential candidates wait until the last minute before the end of the nine-year window to throw their hats into the ring, the BIE will set a schedule for the selection process.
