Turkey: from a presidential crisis to a new political landscape?

14/05/2007

Turkey's failed presidential elections sparked two unprecedented developments, which could dramatically change the political scene.

By Ayhan Simsek for Southeast European Times in Ankara – 14/05/07

Nearly one million people rallied on the streets in defense of secularism and against Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul's presidential candidacy. [Getty Images]

Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has suffered a major setback, in the form of a rift with the country's secular establishment. The party, which has roots in political Islam, is now moving to amend the constitution and introduce a significant change: direct election of the president by popular vote.

Meanwhile, in another unexpected development, opposition parties in the centre are putting years of division behind them and joining forces to block the AKP from winning the next parliamentary elections. The trend is towards sharper polarization in Turkish politics and renewed tension between the government and secularists.

The current political crisis erupted on April 24th when the AKP, which has a large majority in Parliament, announced Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul as its presidential candidate. The choice was a surprise, as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had been expected to run, and the AKP appeared to be trying to defuse secularist fears. It didn't work. Almost one million people took to the streets to protest Gul's candidacy. Opposition parties boycotted parliament's first round of voting for president, denying Gul the necessary quorum. Turkey's military weighed in, warning that it would defend secularism and accusing the government of tolerating radical Islam.

The AKP's response was unprecedented. The government publicly rebuked the armed forces over its declaration, called for early elections and initiated major constitutional amendments to make the presidency a popularly elected post. Gul, twice unable to muster a quorum, withdrew his bid, but pledged to be the AKP's candidate in the popular vote.

According to Faruk Logolu, director of the Eurasian Strategic Research Centre, the recent political turmoil amounts to a struggle within a maturing democracy. The crisis, he suggests, is more likely to strengthen the democratic system than undermine it.

"In some ways, Turkey's democracy is not mature enough, compared with the European ones, but this is a process. The military's recent step into politics clearly shows failures in the check and balance mechanism of Turkish democracy," Logoglu says. "Of course from a liberal and democratic point of view, the military's recent move is improper. But criticising the military alone would be wrong. The ruling AKP government also made significant mistakes."

For instance, critics say, the AKP erred by relying on its absolute majority in Parliament, instead of seeking consensus among political groups.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hikmet Cetin is holding inter-party talks aimed at reviving centrism as a political force. [Getty Images]

The AKP has governed Turkey since 2002. It has spearheaded political and economic reforms and persuaded the EU to open membership talks, more than 40 years after Turkey first expressed its wish to join. However, it also has stoked secular anxieties with moves apparently aimed at expanding the role of religion. It has urged lifting the ban on wearing Islamic-style head scarves in schools and government offices, and called for punishing adultery as a crime. Some party-run municipalities have taken steps to ban alcohol consumption.

Outgoing President Ahmet Necdet Sezer is a staunch secularist. Over the past five years, he has played an important role in striking a balance between the country's fiercely secular military and the Islamic-rooted government. Sezer vetoed several bills on the grounds that they violated the principle of secularism, and he also vetoed the appointments of at least 350 Islamist-leaning officials to key positions.

Turkey's political system is a parliamentary democracy, with power vested mainly in the government. But the president can veto laws after their initial adoption by Parliament, and then has the right to file an appeal to the Constitutional Court against legislation he opposes. He also appoints governors, ambassadors, police chiefs, ministry department heads and their deputies, senior judges, members of Higher Education Board, university rectors, and the head of the central bank. He is commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Turkey's military, courts and universities are traditional bastions of secularism.

Given this significant role of the president, the reaction to Gul's candidacy is not surprising. The AKP already controls parliament and the government. If it won the presidency, the party would hold all the key branches of power. Turkey would, practically speaking, be under one-party rule.

Secularists have not welcomed the idea of directly electing the president, seeing the AKP's move as another threat to checks and balances. The influential business association TUSIAD warns that such changes should only be introduced following general elections, after comprehensive discussion and consensus among all the parties.

"The parliamentary system in our country is the result of a historical process. Attempting to change the essence of this system will open the way for uncertainty in our political system," the group said in a statement.

As though in response to the AKP's bid for dominance, the political map is going through some major realignments. Two centre-right parties, the True Path Party (DYP) and Motherland Party (ANAP), reached a deal on a merger, pledging to "reconstruct the political centre". Centrist parties enjoyed around 80% electoral support during the 1980s and 1990s, but the figure has since dropped to around 20%/. Indeed, it was the fragmentation of the secularist electorate that allowed the AKP to grab two-thirds of the seats in Parliament, even though it only received 34% of the vote.

AKP erred by relying on its absolute majority in Parliament, instead of seeking consensus among political groups, critics say. [Getty Images]

Turkey has a 10% threshold which parties must pass in order to gain representation. Only the AKP and the Republican People's Party (CHP) managed to pass that threshold, while the remaining 45% of the vote was divided among 17 parties, none of which made it into Parliament.

The new centre-right alliance poses a threat to the AKP because it could lure away middle-class urban voters who have supported the government's economic reforms and EU oriented policy, but worry about a hidden "Islamic agenda".

On the centre-left, the CHP says it has agreed in principle to include candidates from the small Democratic Left Party (DSP) on its electoral list. That move followed the huge demonstrations in Ankara and Istanbul, during which thousands of protestors called for unity.

Hikmet Cetin, former Turkish foreign minister and a highly respected figure on the Turkish centre-left, says the message of the masses was clear.

"I do not interpret these calls as only directed at the left parties. People are really frustrated with AKP's policies. They do not view the current actors in the opposition as competent. They are looking for a serious alternative."

Cetin is now conducting a series of informal talks with other prominent figures on the centre left and right, including former Prime Minister Mesut Yılmaz and former President Suleyman Demirel.

According to political analyst Erhan Goksel, however, polarization in Turkish politics is now so deep that efforts to rescue the centre may fail or have limited impact. Islamists and conservatives will continue to flock to the AKP, he argues, while liberals and secularists will see no choice but to pin their hope on the CHP. Other parties, even if they join forces, may again find themselves cut out.