Turkey has been spared the political uncertainties of having to call early
general elections following Wednesday's news that the ruling AKP (Justice and
Development Party) will not be closed down by the Constitutional Court over
alleged infringements of the secularist constitution.
Six of the 11 judges supported closure, one short of the seven required.
Instead, the AKP has been given a stern warning and will be deprived of part of
the generous state funding enjoyed by Turkey's main political parties.
The verdict means that possible plans for an early election will now be
shelved. Fresh elections would almost certainly have been won easily by the
AKP's successor, though probably with a
reduced minority because of the more difficult economic climate in 2008.
Welcoming the news, Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan said the AKP would do
whatever necessary to comply with the ruling and that its immediate emphasis
would be on revitalizing Turkey's bid for European Union membership. He denied
that the party had ever been the "focus of anti-secularist activities".
This may signal that the party will abandon or delay legislation aimed at
ending the ban on Islamic headscarves for women in government offices, courts
and universities. This issue sparked nationwide controversy when announced at
the beginning of the year and triggered the Constitutional Court's prosecution.
The Istanbul stock exchange and money markets, where investors had been nervous
on the eve of the ruling, responded enthusiastically, with sharp rises in share
prices and a fall in the value of the US dollar against the lira.
Not all Turks are easily convinced that the political crisis is over. Turkey's
main opposition leader, Deniz Baykal, chairman of the CHP (Republican People's
Party) said the decision showed that according to 10 of the 11 judges, the AKP
was breaching the secularist system and the problem had not been solved. "It's
a crisis, it's a very serious crisis and the Constitutional Court has not
settled it," Baykal said.
However, the political balance appears to be shifting steadily in favor of the
AKP, which may be gaining the upper hand in civil-military relations, something
unknown to its predecessors. In recent weeks, military leaders, widely
speculated to be close to intervening in the political arena, have been
steadfastly silent. This contrasts to their strong declarations in the not too
distant past. Asked for his view of the ruling on Thursday, the chief of
general staff, General Yasar Buyukanit, politely declined to comment.
Since the Turkish military has traditionally been universally regarded as the
guardians of the separation of politics and religion, this could open the way
for further changes. However, the risks of doing this by piecemeal legal
changes have now been made glaringly apparent to the AKP. Instead, the party
may take up proposals floated a year ago for constitutional reforms, but which
were abandoned without explanation during the winter.
Turkish public opinion and government attention, though, is temporarily
focussed on another issue: terrorism. A bomb explosion in a busy lower-income
Istanbul shopping district on Tuesday killed 17 people, reviving fears of an
urban terror campaign by the Kurdistan Workers' Party, the Kurdish
revolutionary organization fighting to set up a breakaway state in eastern
Turkey. The movement has carried out similar blasts in both Istanbul and the
Turkish capital, Ankara, as well as in seaside resorts. Politicians on all
sides have strongly condemned the bombing.
There is less certainty about how to respond to what could be an even greater
threat - the upcoming trial of 86 leading critics and opponents of the
government accused of belonging to a shadowy organization called Ergenekon,
said to be aimed at overthrowing the government.
The arrests of well-known pro-secularist generals, businessmen, journalists and
others have aroused considerable surprise. The group, whose members are staunch
secularists and nationalists, is also accused of links with al-Qaeda, leftwing
and pro-Kurdish terror organizations.
Most of those arrested appear to have little in common except outspoken
opposition to the AKP. A prosecutor's indictment, published on July 26, added
to doubts about the case already expressed by lawyers and opposition
politicians.
The extensive document consists largely of transcripts of bugged conversations,
interspersed with suggestions that the organization was responsible for most of
the major political murders in Turkey over the past quarter of a century,
including several on which courts handed out verdicts years ago. "If the
prosecutor in this case has found new evidence in these older cases, it should
be handed to the courts that tried them. That is the correct procedure," an
Ankara lawyer, who declined to be identified, commented.
Critics have pointed out that some persons and institutions appear both as
intended victims of the group's alleged terrorist plans and as its masterminds.
Much of the evidence on the key point of links with actual terrorist
organizations will come from anonymous witnesses.
David Barchard is a British historian and journalist who teaches at
Bilkent University in Ankara.
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