HARD-LINE GAIN IN TURKISH VOTE POSES CHALLENGE TO GOVERNING PARTY
By Sabrina Tavernise Published
International Herald Tribune, France
July 23 2007
ISTANBUL: The election on Sunday in Turkey gave a substantial
victory in Parliament to the governing Muslim pro-Western party,
which promised more moderation and prosperity. But on the margins,
more hard-line sentiments surfaced, posing a potential obstacle to
this country’s progress.
The Nationalist Action Party, which appeals to voters on the far right,
who fiercely defend the integrity of Turkey’s borders, received 14
percent of the vote, enough to enter Parliament after failing in the
past election.
The party plays on fears, which reach back to the fall of the Ottoman
Empire, that western powers seek to carve up the country. It gained
momentum in recent months when militant Kurdish separatists stepped up
killings of Turkish soldiers in the country’s southeast. The recent
surge in foreign investment into Turkey’s growing economy is also
cause for alarm among its supporters.
"Our country is about to be broken into pieces, and we need to prevent
it," said a textile worker, wearing a button-down black shirt in
the style of Italian Fascists often worn by hard-line nationalists
here. "There are three things – my country, my flag, my prayer. I
can’t let anyone touch any of them."
The killings of an Armenian journalist and of three Christian
evangelists this year were both nationalist-driven crimes. At the
same time, the election swept at least 23 Kurdish candidates into
Parliament, a significant victory for Kurds, nearly a fifth of Turkey’s
population. They have not been represented on a national level in
more than a decade, since a deputy was ejected from Parliament when
she spoke Kurdish during a swearing-in ceremony.
The Kurds could not be further apart from the nationalists, and many
Turks said they could not imagine how the two groups would sit in
the same room, never mind hold negotiations.
This is especially the case because many of the Kurdish politicians
openly admire the militant Kurdish separatist, Abdullah Ocalan, who
led the militant Kurdistan Worker’s Party in a violent fight against
the Turkish Army for years and who is now in a Turkish prison.
For the nationalists, Ocalan is Turkey’s top terrorist enemy. The
central gimmick in the nationalists’ campaign platform was holding
up a rope in a mock fight over who would get the honor of hanging him.
Despite the Kurds’ open support of Ocalan, the Kurdish deputies could
be an important group for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose
Justice and Development Party received about 340 of 550 seats.
Together they could come close to the 367 required to make
constitutional amendments.
Kurds ran as independents to bypass a 10 percent hurdle to get into
Parliament, resulting in the largest number of independent candidates
in Turkish history.
Ferhat Kentel, a sociologist at Bilgi University who recently conducted
a study on Turkish nationalism for the Turkish Economic and Social
Studies Foundation, found that extreme nationalists are bewildered
by the recent changes and unable to find a footing in the economy.
He said the nationalist party, once in Parliament, might overcome
its sense of being lost and unrepresented. "Violence is the tool of
the weakest political actors," he said. "You resort to violence when
you have no more words left."
At a polling station in a nationalist neighborhood on the outskirts
of Istanbul, a thin young man, a member of the nationalist party,
spoke in an intense, emphatic tone on Sunday of his excitement for
the party’s expected success. "Now we have pens," he said, pulling
one from his pocket and jabbing it in the air.
The Kurds may be experiencing a similar relief.
In a poor Kurdish neighborhood in Istanbul on Monday, men playing
cards in a teashop agreed that the new Kurdish candidates would give
voice to Kurdish woes.
"At least it’s a start," said a man with a worried face who gave
only his first name, Nurullah. "I’m more hopeful the conflict will
be debated in Parliament."
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
