SEZER: THE MOST CRITICIZED PRESIDENT EVER
Serkan DemÝrtaÞ

Turkish Daily News, Turkey
Aug 29 2007

It would not be wrong to argue that outgoing President Ahmet Necdet
Sezer was Turkey’s most criticized president. Sezer was harshly
criticized during his seven-year-and-three-month long term in office
not only by anti-secularist circles but also liberals, media gurus
and politicians (except for members of the Republican People’s Party).

There were various reasons for criticizing him. Closing the doors of
Cankaya Palace to women that wore a headscarf, being distant from the
Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) government, not being involved
in foreign policy and in general not behaving in accordance with the
code of conduct of politics were the main sources of criticism.

"I think Sezer’s term will be intensely discussed in the future," Fehmi
Koru said, according to the Web site of the private NTV station. Koru’s
main point is Sezer’s political coldness toward Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdoðan. "Sezer could digest neither Abdullah Gul’s short stay
in the prime ministry nor Erdoðan’s term in office.

But he also had problems with former Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit,
causing Turkey’s gravest economic in 2001," he said.

Modesty in the presidency

The then-president of the Constitutional Court Sezer was elected as
president in 2000 by a three-party coalition under the leadership of
Ecevit, as a result of a compromise deal between the three parties.

>From the first day he was elected, the media started to compare him
with former president Suleyman Demirel. Many were arguing that his
nonpartisan background would be both advantageous and disadvantageous
for the country.

"I think he was a good president," Ali Sirmen, a columnist for daily
Cumhuriyet said. "He introduced modesty to Turkish politics.

Turkish politicians should have taken lessons from him," he said.

What Sirmen refers to is Sezer’s sensitivity to frugality. He made
huge amounts of savings in the presidential budget, paying his own
expenses, registering the gifts presented to him during his tenure
with the presidency including paintings worth millions of Liras.

Unlike the prime minister, ministers and military elite, Sezer never
allowed his motor convoy to violate traffic rules.

"No one can deny this, he has really shown a good example," Koru said.

Third man?

For many secularists, on the other hand, Sezer could be counted
as the third man after the founder of the republic Kemal Ataturk
and his closest aide, the second president of the republic, Ýsmet
Ýnonu. "I realize that I’ve placed Sezer in third rank of my list of
‘the presidents in my heart,’ after Ataturk and Ýnonu," Orhan Birgit
wrote in his column in daily Cumhuriyet yesterday.

No ‘exclusives’ to media

Sezer, during his long term in the presidency, refused to give
exclusive interviews or hold press conferences. He signaled that
he would keep his distance from the media in the very first days
following his election. On the sidelines of a reception he was quoted
as saying to Ankara representatives of the media: "Please do not take
it personally, but I won’t give any interviews to any of you." He
kept his word and preferred to convey his messages through written
statements on national days.

But he never cut his ties with a group of journalists known for their
secular views. But these journalists never wrote about their meetings
with the president. "He directly called me when I was home.

It was him and he called personally," Umur Talu wrote yesterday in
daily Sabah.

Talu also pointed at Sezer’s veto of a decree introduced by the Ecevit
government after a demand by the military, which could pave the way
for the state to investigate almost all public servants.

"Those who are criticizing him today were applauding him then and
those who support him were very much in anger," Talu said.

Weakest point: Foreign affairs

As a former diplomatic correspondent who witnessed Demirel’s active
foreign policy contributions to Turkish foreign policy, Koru said
it is fair to say that Sezer’s weakest point was his ignoring of
foreign affairs. His main argument was that foreign policy was the
responsibility of the government and he could only provide additional
support to it, of course if needed.

He was hesitant to participate in international meetings or
conferences. The number of his visits to foreign countries was nearly
half that of his predecessor. He never traveled to the United States,
an indicator of the anti-U.S. feelings in Turkish society.

"President Sezer’s main contribution to Turkish foreign policy was
his efforts to disapprove of a motion introduced to Parliament for
participating in the Iraq war led the U.S.," Koru said.

Ignoring Pamuk’s achievement

Another remarkable point was his stance toward Orhan Pamuk, Turkey’s
first and only Nobel laureate. Sezer refused to congratulate Pamuk
and totally ignored the achievement. The reported reason for that
were Pamuk’s words on the Armenian genocide and Kurdish issue.

"President would never forgive such indecent words," a source in the
presidency said to daily Radikal, when the issue was in the limelight
last year.

Ozal, Demirel, Sezer

President Sezer had many points on which to be criticized but he
surely introduced to Turkey a different way of engaging in politics
with his modesty, with his efforts to use more "Turkish words" and his
commitment to the Constitution. It would be futile to compare Sezer
with his predecessor Turgut Ozal who said, "nothing will happen by
violating the Constitution once" or Suleyman Demirel who played a
major role in the ousting of Islamic-rooted Necmettin Erbakan from
government. President Sezer will be remembered for his own deeds.

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