Turkey’s future
A generals’ election
May 10th 2007 | ANKARA
>From The Economist print edition
The Turkish political crisis, continued
"TURKEY is in the throes of a slow military coup," reckons one seasoned
political observer. How else to describe the past few weeks’ events, which
have forced Turkey’s embattled prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to call
a general election on July 22nd, before the scheduled November 4th date?
The country is certainly in its worst political crisis in a decade. It has
not managed to choose a president to replace Ahmet Necdet Sezer, whose term
formally expires on May 16th: the ruling AK Party’s candidate, Abdullah Gul,
withdrew on May 6th after failing to muster the necessary quorum in
parliament. Meanwhile millions of pro-secular demonstrators have marched
through Turkey’s biggest cities to protest against the mildly Islamist AK
government led by Mr Erdogan.
The trouble escalated on April 27th, when the army general staff posted a
dramatic statement on its website sketching out the dangers posed by
"Islamic fanatics" to Ataturk’s secular republic, and vowing to intervene if
need be. The army has booted out four governments since 1960. Yet its latest
outburst took even the savviest politicians by surprise.
A bigger surprise followed. Rather than roll over like its predecessors, the
government is taking the generals head on. First came a statement reminding
the brass-hats that they were answerable to the government and not vice
versa. Then Mr Erdogan’s AK Party tried once again to elect Mr Gul as
president, even though the army had made clear that it did not want a man
whose wife wears the Islamic headscarf-as Mr Gul’s wife does.
Mr Gul was forced to withdraw after a second round of voting in parliament
was boycotted by the opposition CHP Party under its antediluvian leader,
Deniz Baykal. Thanks to the boycott, the AK fell nine short of the 367
deputies that the constitutional court had ruled needed to be present before
voting could proceed.
These games have prompted Mr Erdogan to push for a constitutional change to
let voters, not parliament, choose the president. Should Mr Sezer veto this
measure, as expected, it may be put to a referendum, to be held with the
election on July 22nd. A combative Mr Gul vows then to renew his campaign
for the presidency.
The AK Party’s bravado stems in part from the continued strong performance
of the economy. Unworried by political shenanigans, a foreign-led consortium
shelled out $1.2 billion for the operating rights of Izmir’s port on May
3rd. An Italian bank is in talks to acquire Turkey’s fifth-largest bank,
Oyak, for $1.5 billion. And foreign investors, who hold around 70% of
floating shares on the Istanbul Stock Exchange, have yet to take fright.
What will the army do next? Much will depend on the outcome of the election.
The dream scenario for the generals and their civilian allies would be if AK
is pushed into opposition and so unable to pick the new president. A
coalition government could then take over. The generals seem unfazed by the
memory of a succession of weak coalitions that took Turkey to the brink of
financial ruin in 2001.
In pursuit of this goal, and after some nudging from the general staff, two
centre-right parties announced a merger last week. Mr Baykal says that he is
on the verge of cementing a deal between CHP and a smaller left-wing rival.
The rising tide of nationalism also means that the ultra-nationalist
right-wing MHP may bag the minimum 10% of the vote needed to get into
parliament seats. In a bid to surmount this barrier, the biggest Kurdish
party says it may field independent candidates in 45 of Turkey’s 81
provinces.
Despite all this, AK Party officials predict that they will pick up a bigger
share than the 34% of the national vote they took in 2002, and return to
power alone. "That won’t necessarily be a good thing for Turkey either,"
says Morton Abramowitz, a former American ambassador to Turkey. "A strong AK
government could have a polarising effect." Worse, it might prompt the
generals to wade in again.