Page 2 of
2 Turkey's election
has no losers By M K Bhadrakumar
Turkey's social-democratic and
leftist forces, which indeed have a ready-made
electoral constituency that is willing to be
tapped. As Cevik put it, "If there was a real
alternative to the AKP, Citizen Osman would be
inclined to vote for them, but there isn't. So
Citizen Osman will vote again for the AKP, and
hope for the best." It is in this sense that
the resurgence of the ultra-nationalistic MHP in
Turkish politics is to be understood. The dispossessed
sections of society have once
again been drawn to the MHP's appeal to extreme
nationalism couched in a variant of "soft
Islamism". The MHP has exploited the rising
nationalist sentiments building up in reaction to
Kurdish militancy. Curiously, it is the MHP rather
than the self-styled "Kemalist" CHP that has
gained the maximum out of the Turkish military's
covert campaign against the AKP.
This may
appear a contradiction. Why should the
"secular-minded" military have promoted the
ultra-nationalists with a controversial past? But
it isn't altogether an aberration. An intriguing
feature of Turkish politics has been that the
military has had uses for the MHP's brand of
politics, which espouses far-right nationalism
with religious overtones while managing to remain
"secular".
In the 1960s and 1970s, for
decimating the leftist movement in Turkey, the
establishment depended on the fascist group known
as the Gray Wolves, who were the storm troopers of
the MHP's parent party at that time. And today,
when the Islamic elements have sought to fill the
political vacuum resulting from the weakening of
the leftist "Kemalist" movement, the Turkish
military once again appears to lean toward
ultra-nationalist forces.
The MHP's
presence in the new Parliament, therefore, assumes
great significance. On a variety of pressing
issues facing Turkey - membership of the European
Union, northern Iraq, Cyprus, Kurdish insurgency,
human rights and democracy - the MHP's platform is
virtually the same as the Turkish military's.
This is where outsiders run into a problem
in appreciating the range of the Turkish
military's political agenda. It is very simplistic
to view the military's opposition to the AKP as
the manifestation of a straightforward struggle
between the forces of secularism and Islamism. The
military's political agenda is multi-layered. It
is so apparent that "terror" replaced "secularism"
as the hot-button issue for the Turkish military,
even as the election campaign got under way in
recent weeks.
That's because the military
saw that the only way the AKP could be stopped in
its tracks, despite its impressive record of
reform and economic growth, would be by making
Erdogan appear to be "weak on terror". The
Jerusalem Post commented, "Threatening to attack
the PKK [Kurdish Workers' Party] in northern Iraq
has [proved] a powerful propaganda tool for the
Turkish military ... the military has pushed
security concerns to the forefront in order to
reinforce an image of the AKP as indecisive and
soft on terrorism and to benefit the nationalist
and secular parties with which they have close
ties."
The military's muscular
intervention in the political scene in the past
few weeks actually generated electoral support for
the ultra-conservative MHP.
But the
Turkish military has other motives, too. Vincent
Boland of The Financial Times wrote recently,
"There is no question that the military has an
enormous stake in the outcome of this election,
for political, ideological and even commercial
reasons. Its massive economic interests, from
automotive to insurance, held through the armed
forces' pension funds, are a pillar of the secular
business establishment. This entrenched corporate
hierarchy is facing competition for capital and
resources from the Anatolian entrepreneurial
bourgeoisie that forms the core of the AKP's
support."
On an ideological level, though,
the MHP's rise signifies that Turkish politics has
swung to the right. The more the AKP shifts to the
political center, the more the MHP stands to gain.
And every point that the MHP scores additionally
in Sunday's election becomes a handicap for the
new AKP government.
In comparison with the
MHP, the "Kemalist" CHP, which aspired to
represent the social-democratic forces, has simply
failed to inspire despite the social discontent
resulting from the AKP government's neo-liberal
economic policies.
Apart from its
lackluster leadership, the CHP has failed to
become a cadre-based party. This compares poorly
with the AKP, which, according to some Turkish
observers, has 150,000 cadres, mostly young
people, in Istanbul city alone. As one observer
put it, AKP cadres "are constantly on the streets,
talking with the people, listening to what they
say, reporting to the headquarters ... There is
someone responsible for each and every
neighborhood in the city."
It seemed a
couple of months ago that, riding a wave of
"Kemalist" upsurge and enjoying the tacit support
of the Turkish establishment, the CHP had just
about everything going in its favor in the
election. Many seasoned observers thought the CHP
would make a serious bid for power. But, to quote
the editor of Turkish Daily News, Yusuf Kanli,
"The party is in deep sleep ... The entire
election campaign of the CHP consists of ads on
billboards, ads in newspapers ... Now, many people
are saying it won't be a surprise if contrary to
general expectations, the MHP comes second and the
CHP comes third in the elections."
What
lies ahead? To be sure, the incoming
parliamentarians appear to make a highly
combustible mix of Islamists, ultra-nationalists
and militant secularists. The new Parliament will
be highly fragmented ideologically. But in terms
of the alignment of political forces, a curious
sort of political equilibrium can also emerge out
of it if the AKP forms a single-party government,
but a strong CHP-MHP opposition forms in
Parliament.
The Turkish military would,
then, be greatly relieved that the AKP government
could neither make any constitutional changes
leading to assertive civilian supremacy nor elect
a president of its sole choice or push ahead with
any Islamic agenda. Instead, the AKP will be
constantly required to function via political
accommodation with "Atatutrkism".
In such
a scenario, neither would Erdogan have to quit
politics prematurely as per his promise at
Isparta, nor would the Turkish military have any
real need to stage a coup.
M K
Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the
Indian Foreign Service for more than 29 years,
with postings including ambassador to Uzbekistan
(1995-98) and to Turkey (1998-2001).
(Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd.
All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
