| |
Turkey's Gordian knot
By K
Gajendra Singh
Turkey's November 3 elections
shocked many in the West after its electoral system
delivered a quixotic two-thirds majority for the Justice
and Development Party (AKP), which has Islamic roots,
although it polled only a third of the votes cast.
The only other party to cross the 10 percent
threshold and enter the new parliament was the People's
Republican Party (PRP), which won a third of the seats
for its 20 percent of the votes. Parties polling 45
percent of the votes thus will remain unrepresented in
the new 550-seat parliament.
Although the AKP
had been the front runner in pre-election polling, even
its leadership was surprised by the magnitude of its
windfall. Led by the suave Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the AKP
leadership immediately went on a charm offensive to
soothe the anxiety felt in the West over the party's
perceived Muslim affiliations.
They reiterated
that the AKP was a conservative and not an Islamic
party, emphasizing that no drastic changes were planned
for the secular country. The leaders promised to
redouble their efforts to take Turkey into the European
Union and stood by the International Monetary Fund
program to help sort out the country's dire economic
problems, except for some changes relating to help for
the poor.
The leaders even suggested a
Belgian-style model for the sticky Cyprus problem, which
has defied a solution since its independence from
Britain in the 1960s. This was heartily welcomed by the
Greeks and the Cypriots in the Greek portion of the
disputed island, but Turkey's Foreign Ministry and the
military came down like a ton of bricks, forcing the AKP
to do some nifty backpedaling. The Belgian model is
based on a strong center, whereas the UN secretary
general's formula under discussion, based on a Swiss
canton model, is closer to the mainstream Turkish
viewpoint. Cyprus' entry into the EU (confirmed last
month) is linked to a solution to this intractable
problem. Along with a date to discuss the entry of
Turkey into the EU, this, too, will be discussed at a EU
summit in Copenhagen on December 12.
Turkey's
strategic importance to the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) might have declined somewhat, but it
remains a buffer against Islamic lands; Syria, Iraq,
Iran and beyond. Its cooperation is also essential in US
plans for a war on Iraq and a regime change in that
country. Turkey's NATO bases are used to enforce no-fly
zones over Iraq, and they were also used in the war
against the Taliban in Afghanistan, after Saudi Arabia
refused the use of its bases.
The US and the
West, after their initial scare, bent over backwards to
welcome the AKP and its leaders, with messages of
congratulations and invitations for talks, led by US
President George W Bush. As the AKP's all-powerful
leader Erdogan is debarred from entering parliament - he
has a criminal record for reciting an Islamic poem some
years ago - his deputy, Abdullah Gul, has been handed
the premiership and the task of forming the AKP cabinet,
the first single party government in the country since
1987.
Erdogan, nevertheless, undertook a
whirlwind tour of Western European countries to drum up
support for Turkey's entry into the EU, but also to
allay fears about his party and its program and to
establish a personal rapport with the European
leadership. From Silvio Berlusconi in Rome to Greek
premier Costas Simitis and then to Germany's Gerhard
Schroeder, Tony Blair in London and others, the message
was the same. While some "promised" support, the
Germans, with more then 3 million Turkish guest workers
already in the country, were more reserved. Erdogan
might travel on an ordinary passport, but he was treated
like the head of a country wherever he went. The EU's
foreign and defense policy coordinator, Javier Solana,
traveled to Ankara for an on the spot assessment.
The outgoing ruling coalition parties, decimated
in the elections, were thunderstruck by the outcome for
which they were entirely responsible. Their misgoverning
saw a record 10 percent fall in Turkey's GDP last year,
which added millions more to the ranks of the
unemployed. After waiting for some time, the Pashas (as
Turkey's top military brass is called), clearly unhappy
with the outcome, declared, "We will continue to protect
the republic against any threat, particularly the
fundamentalist and separatist [one]." Both President
Ahmet Sezer and the Pashas expressed opposition to
amending the constitution to enable non-parliamentarian
Erdogan to become prime minister. AKP leaders have
talked about the national will (with 34 percent of the
votes?) prevailing over politics to force through an
amendment. They are acutely aware that Gul lacks
Erdogan's charisma, and if the latter is unable to
become premier soon, the seeds could be sown for
divisions within the AKP leadership.
Deniz
Baykal, the leader of opposition, is bit of a maverick,
with some of his ideas in the past ending up in fiasco.
In 1974, after then prime minister Bulent Ecevit had
sent Turkish troops into Cyprus, Baykal persuaded him to
dissolve parliament in the hope of coming back with a
clear majority to be able to rule without Islamist
leader Necmettin Erbakan, who was deputy premier in the
coalition.
But wily politicians such as Suleiman
Demirel delayed the elections, and Republican People's
Party (RPP) did badly in the elections and Demirel was
able to form the next coalition government. Similarly,
in 1995, when Baykal took over the leadership of the
RPP, then in coalition with prime minister Tansu Ciller,
he created a situation leading to early elections.
Again, his party did badly in the 1999 elections,
failing to cross the 10 percent mark, and ended up with
no deputies in the House.
The latest quirky
results in Turkey's elections are an excellent
demonstration of the maxim that errors tend add up in
the same direction. Turkey's d'Hont electoral system,
which is based on the German pattern with a very high
threshold, was selected to provide stability to
governments in a highly fragmented polity. If the
threshold were 5 percent, the True Path Party (DYP), the
National Action Party (MHP), the Young Party (GP), the
Democratic People's Party (DEHAP- Kurdish) and even the
Motherland Party (ANAP), would have been in the new
parliament. The unrepresented votes, at 45 percent now,
would have come down to a more acceptable 10 percent. On
the other hand, independent candidates, who polled only
1 percent of the total votes, have won eight
parliamentary seats, whereas the DYP, with almost 9.5
percent of the votes, does not have a single deputy.
In Turkey's fragmented political spectrum, there
are two major parties, on the left and on the right of
center, apart from the Islamic roots of the AKP and the
nationalist/fascist MHP. Then there are many smaller
splinters, which, unwilling to toe the party leader's
line or his authoritarian ways, have left to form new
parties. The Saadet Party (which won 2.5 percent of the
votes), led by Recai Kutan, a proxy for Erbakan,
Turkey's first-ever Islamist premier who was forced from
power by the military in 1997. Indeed, Erbakan
established the first "Islamist" party in 1969, but he
and his Virtue Party were banned last year. Both Erdogan
and Gul made their careers under Kutan's autocratic
stewardship.
The high threshold produces
surprises after every election. The RPP (in Turkish the
CHP - Cihat Halk Party), established by Turkey's founder
Kemal Ataturk and which was his instrument for policy
implementation, was the only party until 1946. But it
did not cross the threshold - for the first time - in
1999, although, like other parties, it was banned after
the 1980 military takeover and revived only in the
1990s. The MHP has been in and out of parliament, doing
well when it can exploit nationalist xenophobia and
anti-Kurd feelings, which it did in the 1999 elections,
but is now out again. The Democratic Left Party (DSP)
was established by outgoing premier Ecevit when the RPP
was banned. Ecevit is now seriously ill, the last of the
dinosaurs with Demirel, Necmettin Erbakan and Turgut
Ozal, who have dominated Turkish political life over the
past 40 years. Ecevit saw his DSP plummet to an ominous
1.5 percent of the vote. His poor health was the reason
for the coalition's collapse and the early elections.
Apart from the fond wish that each party leader
has of seeing others not crossing the 10 percent
threshold, there appears a tacit understanding not to
lower it to 5 percent as Kurdish parties, on the basis
of their strength in the southeast, could consistently
manage to beat the 5 percent mark, so they are kept out.
With over 20 percent of the population of Turkey Kurds,
they can count on nearly 100 MPs among various parties,
but they cannot raise questions concerning Kurds and
their problems. When elected in seat sharing
arrangements, as Kurdish party members, they have been
persecuted. Many times, their parliamentary immunity has
been withdrawn and some taken directly from parliament
to jail. Many have escaped to Europe to work for the
Kurdish cause.
Symbolism in politics is
important everywhere, more so in Eastern societies. Take
for example the scarf; the most well known symbol of
Islamic identity in Muslim countries and among
minorities in Western societies.
In a defiant
gesture, wearing a scarf, the wife of the new AKP
speaker of parliament accompanied him to see off the
Turkish president to the NATO summit in Prague last
week. Pashas and others take note. According to the
Turkish constitution, scarves are forbidden for public
servants and in public places. Many a women has lost her
job, and some woman their seats in parliament, for
defying this provision. AKP members and supporters might
insist on regular prayers in public places during
working hours, and thus aggravate the war of symbols,
which could lead to a critical situation.
In
secular Turkey, as parties based on religion are banned,
to attract religious and conservative votes, most
parties resort to symbols with Islamic meanings and
nuances, even the mainline secular parties. The first
Islamic party established by Erbakan was called the
National Order Party, hinting at Islamic order. When it
was closed in 1971 after the military intervention, he
named the next party the National Salvation Party
(remember the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria, which,
if it had been allowed to contest the second round of
voting, would have won a thumping majority in Algeria.
It had proclaimed that it would do away with elections
and usher in Islamic Sharia rule).
When the
National Salvation Party was banned after the 1980
military takeover, Erbakan named the next one the
Welfare Party (zakat for welfare). It won nearly
21 percent of the votes, with the largest number of
deputies, in the 1995 elections. The shotgun coalition
government of two right of center secular parties formed
under pressure from the secular establishment and the
army (and the US) collapsed within three months. Then,
in coalition with Ciller's DYP, Erbakan formed in June
1996 the first-ever Islamist-led government in the
republic's history.
But the Pashas made Erbakan
resign the next year, accusing him of promoting Islam.
When Erbakan offered support to Ciller becoming the PM,
in spite of their having a majority, under the
military's pressure the offer was not accepted by
President Demirel. When the Welfare Party was closed,
Erbakan established the Virtue Party. After its closure,
and the ban on Erbakan from politics last year, younger
and more moderate leaders such as Erdogan and Gul formed
the conservative AKP. They have repeatedly proclaimed
that it is not a religious party. They do not even meet
with Erbakan.
But by naming his party AKP,
Erdogan is also trying to lure voters loyal to the
Justice (Adalet) Party of Demirel, who led Turkey's
right after the 1961 coup and retired as president in
2000. He had claimed that his party was the successor of
the right wing conservative Democratic Party when
multiparty politics were introduced in 1946. The
Democratic party ruled Turkey from 1950 to 1960, and by
the end had become autocratic. It was banned after the
1960 military coup and its popular premier Adnan
Menderes was hanged (like Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto later in
Pakistan). The word AK in Turkish means white.
The nomad Turks named the Mediterranean, the
white sea, Ak Deniz. The Democrat Party's symbol was a
white stallion. After the 1980 military takeover, the
Justice Party was banned by General Kenan Evren and was
not revived as the DYP had been established as its
successor. To contest the 1983 elections, Evren's
successful civilian prime minister, Turgut Ozal,
established the Motherland Party, ie, the Anavatan
Party, which he had wanted to call AP to remind voters
of the Justice Party, but Evren, who had got two retired
generals to establish right of center and left of center
parties, refused point blank, so Ozal had to call it
Anap. And Anap won a majority in the 1983 elections.
Evren wryly commented that raising political parties was
not like raising new battalions or assembling brigades.
Most political parties treat municipalities as
mulch cows and milk them shamelessly. The AKP, though,
has Erdogan's excellent track record as mayor of
Istanbul and of others elsewhere, apart from Erbakan's
clean government in 1996-97, so people are now hopeful
and optimistic.
Members of the Gul cabinet are
highly educated, many with a background in economics and
management. Unless something goes amiss, the AKP should
be able to consolidate its vote. Its backers are
upwardly mobile conservative trading and industrial
classes from central Anatolian towns such as Kayseri,
Konya and beyond, who want a share in the economic cake.
It also has the backing of the poorer sections of
Istanbul, Ankara and other big cities. Erdogan in
Istanbul and Welfare mayors in Ankara and elsewhere had
provided cheap bread and medical facilities to poor
areas. These people had earlier been looked after by
communist and leftist parties and have now come over to
the AKP. During the past three decades, Istanbul's
population has risen from 3 million to over 12 million,
the majority being poor migrants or their children
looking for work in the commercial and industrial
metropolis.
One important observation about the
AKP: it should not try to amend the constitution without
consensus to make Erdogan prime minister, or take
similar steps. It should not let power go to its head.
The president can call for a referendum, as he has done
on other issues in the past. The AKP received 34 percent
of the total votes in the country, so with some help it
could pass important amendments. Legally, this would be
correct, but morally it would be wrong.
Erdogan
and Gul have talked of the nation's will and appear to
be carried away somewhat by the two-thirds majority in
parliament. There is the 1992 example of another Islamic
party, the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria, which
failed. Or take the armed forces in Pakistan, Indonesia
or even Christian nations in Latin America. Their will
cannot be trifled with. In China, the armed forces are
well provided for.
Turkey is certainly at the
crossroads again, simply because it is at the crossroads
dividing Europe from Asia, at the Dardanelles and the
Bosporus, forming a bridge to the Middle East and
Central Asia via the Caucasus and Africa via the eastern
Mediterranean. It has always attracted conquerors and
invaders, and been buffeted by winds from all around.
Throughout history, Europe, which the Turks had
ruled, had enticed them with its science and political
systems, specially when the Ottomans were being rolled
back. And it still is. Turkey has had a secular
constitution since 1923, it is a NATO member, and it has
a customs agreement with the EU, apart from being a
member of the Council of Europe.
But this time
around it is quite different. The November elections
have produced, however quixotic, a two-thirds majority
for a party with Islamic roots. The electoral algebra
now is like the 1950s when the conservative Democratic
Party won. In the 1970s, when Erbakan was deputy premier
and later premier during 1996-97, he planted
religiously-educated cadre in the bureaucracy, many of
whom are now in senior positions. The AKP will take the
process further. The secular establishment and the armed
forces will carefully watch these measures and try to
counter them.
How Turkey and the West handle the
present situation will have important consequences all
around, internally and externally. Turkey's secular
polity and democracy is the most advanced in the Muslim
world. If Turkey has no credible assurance of entry into
the EU, it would be disappointed and might vote for the
MHP and leftists, as it did after Turkey was denied
candidate status in 1998, or it might hurtle further to
the right. By ostensibly going all out for EU
membership, Erdogan is undermining parties like Anap and
the DYP, which had been taking credit for the drive to
join the EU. This will also help establish its
credentials as a mature conservative party with which
Europe can do business. Improvements in freedom of
expression and human rights norms now on the anvil will
make it difficult to ban the AKP and similar parties, or
more open Kurdish formations. The AKP could also call
the EU's bluff of leading Turkey up the garden path if
denied even a distant date for entry into the EU. The
unfolding situation remains fraught (pregnant) with
unexpected developments.
The bottom line on
Turkey's entry into the EU has been honestly but
brutally underlined by former French president Giscard
d'Estaing. He said that Turkey was not in Europe (as if
Cyprus is) and its culture was different. Its admission
would be the end of the EU, he said. He is now helping
write a constitution for the EU. The EU has said that
democracy should not be under the army's shadow. EU
politicians will go through many contortions and make
soothing noises, but visa-free entry to Turks and
freedom to work in EU countries is out of question, and
the AKP might attempt to drive a hard bargain and
consolidate its position.
After talking to
various European leaders gathered for the NATO summit in
Prague, a frustrated Turkish President Ahmet Sezer
complained that they were not serious about Turkey's
entry into the EU or on the Cyprus problem. In his
talks, almost everyone said that they favored Turkey's
entry, but blamed others for raising obstacles. The
aftermath of the December 12 Copenhagen EU summit could
be a messy affair.
According to legend, it was
at Gordian, 60 miles west of Ankara, where Alexander the
Great cut the knot with his sword - the warrior's way -
instead of laboriously untying it. So the oracles said
that had he untied it, his empire would have lasted for
ever (in any case, he left behind no sons).
And
it was just across the Dardanelles at Gallipoli in
Europe that another soldier with Macedonian origins
earned his spurs by standing up to the mighty British
navy in World War I. He was equally fearless in defying
death, and only a medal came in the way of a bullet to
his heart. And it was near Gordian where, from a
position of material weakness, Ataturk, with great
courage and strategic skill, turned back the invading
Greeks in 1922.
It made him all powerful among
his nationalist, albeit mostly conservative colleagues,
and he was able to carry out his reforms and create a
modern republican Turkey. He did not untie the religious
knot, though, preferring to methodically cut it. He
outlawed the Caliphate, banned religion and turned
mosques and sacred tombs into public museums. He, too,
left behind no son, but his generals have inherited the
secular ideology of Kemalism and continue to guard it.
K Gajendra Singh, Indian ambassador
(retired), served as ambassador to Turkey from August
1992 to April 1996. Prior to that, he served terms as
ambassador to Jordan, Romania and Senegal.
(©2002 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights
reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com
for information on our sales and syndication
policies.)
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
