TURKEY’S POLITICAL TRENCH WARFARE
Ralph Boulton

Reuters
009/05/19/turkeys-political-trench-warfare/
May 19 2009
UK

With court charges of corruption against President Abdullah Gul,
Turkey’s conservative establishment opens a new front in what amounts
to a form of trench warfare between the AK Party and its opponents. One
way or another, a showdown of sorts appears to be approaching.

You’re a Turkish patriot. You’re a hardline general, civil servant,
judge or a militant nationalist politician. Like everyone you met
at the cocktail party last night, you’re convinced Turkey’s AK Party
government is turning your country into an Islamist state; backward,
oppressive and isolated.

You despair. The population voted for AK in their millions in 2002. As
if that weren’t bad enough, they re-elected them by a landslide five
years later, disregarding the dire warnings of the General Staff. Worse
still, those ‘modern’ secular middle classes of Istanbul, the mainstay
of military influence, joined the religious conservatives of Anatolia
in backing AK. They were lulled by the country’s economic success,
EU-inspired democratic and financial reforms, and by stability. The
West, in its embrace of the AK, is either naïve or hell bent on
the end the West always sought – the humiliation or dismemberment
of Turkey. Extraordinary how many times, I’ve heard that last one at
dinner parties and receptions.

So what can you do, you worried ranks?

When the East Germans rose up against communism in 1953, the Party
leaders, after crushing the revolt with Soviet tanks, told the
population in no uncertain terms how badly the working classes had
failed them. Writer Bertolt Brecht, speaking ironically on behalf of
the communist masters, suggested they dissolve the people and elect
a new one.

In the absence of that as a realistic option, the course for the
Turkish hardliner seems to me to be clear enough. Discredit, undermine,
sow division in the AK Party, by whatever channels available – the
military, the courts, parliament, the streets.

The Justice and Development Party (AK), after all, is not really a
party, at all.

AK emerged more as an ’emergency coalition’ months before 2002
elections and just as the entire structure of the Turkish party system
was collapsing.

Years of petty personal feuding and coalition squabbling, economic
incompetence, corruption and general self-destructive folly had robbed
the traditional parties of all credibility.

The cracks in a coalition are always vulnerable to an insistently
probing knife.

Many labelled the Justice and Development Party, which likes to be
known by initials that spell out the word for pure and clear, an
Islamist party, pure and simple. Leaders Tayyip Erdogan and Abdullah
Gul had a well-documented past in the Islamist movement. But it
wasn’t that simple. AK rallied together centre-right politicians and
economists as well as nationalists and the conservative religious
core. Erdogan and Gul declared their Islamist days over and pledged
loyalty to secularist state founder Ataturk; a blasphemous crime in
itself for some.

AK in 2002 was for many simply the last political home standing,
as it remains for many.

For the first time in ages the country was ruled by one parliamentary
party, held together firmly by the towering figure of Tayyip
Erdogan. It pushed through an IMF programme where so many had failed
before, reformed rights legislation, promoted business. The AK people
were for many Westerners, diplomats, businessmen and journalists
alike, a breath of fresh air. You could talk to them about sensitive
subjects like the Kurds, Armenia, Cyprus or clashes with the EU without
that haunting feeling they would march out in pique. They were more
"pro-Western" in their dealings than an ambivalent military, the
civil service or the judiciary of those times.

The sceptics would say they were just pulling the wool over our
eyes. For those who feared the worst — for the general, the judge —
AK provided ample evidence of fickleness from the start. There were
the silly things. There was that impromptu prayer meeting in the lobby
of the Hilton, local restrictions here and there on drinks licences
for restaurants. Then the ill-fated move to lift a ban on Islamic
headscarves for women in public buildings.

What has followed is a form of trench warfare, the battle lines being
the constitutional strongholds of state.

When AK nominated Gul as president in 2007, the armed forces
commander posted a warning on his website that secular democracy
was in danger. Surrender of the presidency to an AK leader would
remove one of the last checks to its power, allowing it to appoint
senior judges and exert influence even over that holy of holies —
the armed forces. Not only did AK publicly defy the General Staff,
but the electorate had the audacity to back them with a landslide
general election victory soon afterwards.

The months passed. There were mass demonstrations in Istanbul warning
of a Sharia state. The battle continued in the courts, where AK
narrowly evaded a ban on accusations of Islamist activity. A fine
however was imposed, the sense of the accusation may have stuck.

The ‘Ergenekon’ coup plot scandal is seen by some as an
attempt to discredit AK enemies and the army as power-hungry and
anti-democratic. Hundreds, including senior retired officers, have
been arrested over alleged plans for a campaign of demonstrations,
bombings and assassinations that would clear the way for a military
coup. AK holds up its hands, denying any involvement, and says the
judicial process must take its independent course.

The courts, though, are arguably the second trenchline, following the
military’s failure to bring AK to order. The outright military coups
of the 20th century, no-one wants to contemplate, not least against
a government with broad popular backing. Parliament, where AK faces
only a weak and inept opposition, can play no real role; that is,
for the moment.

So, what’s new?

A court’s ruling that Gul should face trial in a case dating back over
a decade, involving millions of dollars in political funds, opens a
new chapter in the book. Whether there is a case or not, the move will
probably founder on Gul’s immunity. Supporters will see it as another
attempt by the judiciary to persecute AK, sceptics will see a coverup.

The AK Party, Pure and Clear, came to power promising to sweep away the
graft and corruption of the ancient regime. So endemic is corruption
in public life, this was always going to be a tall order. If clouds of
corruption gather over AK, real or illusory, the party’s and Erdogan’s
authority could be seriously undermined.

AK must remain AK, to retain its raison d’etre.

The party’s support fell at recent local elections, but it remains
hugely popular.

The Islamist accusations, the military warnings, the court cases,
the demonstrations, any suggestion of corruption or instability,
all whittle away at this emergency coalition. They test its unity,
holding it in check until, as the script might run, it can be prized
apart or it disintegrates of its own accord. New parties could form,
as nervous middle classes desert, or the old parties, now languishing
in disregard, could re-emerge. Parliament might become again a true
political battlefield.

For those who would wish away AK, though, whether by attrition or by
some cataclysmic events, one poignant question arises in a country
still strewn with the political ruins left by the hurricane of 2002:
"If not AK, then who? If not Erdogan, then who?"

(Demonstrators shout slogans during a protest at the mausoleum of
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern and secular Turkey, in Ankara
May 17, 2009. Thousands of anti-government protesters marched in
Turkey’s capital on Sunday, calling on Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan
to resign for what they say are violations of the country’s secular
principles. REUTERS/Umit Bektas (TURKEY CONFLICT POLITICS))

(Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan answers questions during a
news conference at the Prime Ministers Chancellery in Warsaw may 14,
2009. REUTERS/Peter Andrews (POLAND POLITICS))

(Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul review a honour guard at al-Shaeb
presidential palace in Damascus May 15, 2009. REUTERS/ Khaled al-Hariri
(SYRIA POLITICS))