A FAMILY QUARREL IS ABDULLAH GUL READY TO CHALLENGE RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN?
The Economist
April 15 2010
A Turk in his palaceTHE elegant office of President Abdullah Gul says
something about Turkey. Its bay window looks out over Ankara. On
a wall hang landscapes by an Armenian Ottoman court artist, Ivan
Aivasovsky. Under Mr Gul’s predecessor, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, the
window was walled in and the Aivasovskys rotted in the cellar. A
dour former judge, Mr Sezer rarely travelled. Mr Gul completed his
61st foreign visit as president (to Oman) this week. Overtly pious,
yet pro-Western and a free-marketeer, Mr Gul symbolises the new global
ambitions of his country.
To most of the world Mr Gul is a moderate, who in five years as foreign
minister balanced the excesses of his mercurial prime minister, Recep
Tayyip Erdogan. Mr Erdogan publicly sparred with Israel, but Mr Gul
quietly lobbied Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions. Mr Erdogan
stands for charisma, Mr Gul for common sense.
But now an undeclared battle is brewing: Mr Erdogan is believed to
covet the presidency, but Mr Gul wants to keep it.
One problem is that nobody, not even Mr Gul, seems to know when his
term expires. "Do I have seven years or five years? I don’t know,"
Mr Gul says. The trouble is that when parliament (dominated by Mr
Erdogan’s mildly Islamist Justice and Development, or AK, party)
elected Mr Gul to the job in 2007, it introduced changes to have the
next president directly elected by voters for a renewable five-year
term. The question is whether Mr Gul can benefit from this and run
again; or whether he, like previous presidents, can serve only a
single seven-year term and step down in 2014.
Legal opinion is divided, but politics will surely prevail. The
Gul camp argues that the president is entitled to another term. Mr
Erdogan’s allies disagree. "Mr Erdogan supported Mr Gul’s presidency.
It’s his turn to make sacrifices for Mr Erdogan," says a source close
to the prime minister. A general election is due next year. Should
AK win a third term, Mr Erdogan may be tempted to use the mandate
to elevate himself into the presidency. Some believe that the AK’s
latest attempts to reform the constitution, including measures to
enhance the president’s powers, are tailored for Mr Erdogan to take
the job. But what if Mr Gul decides to stand against him? That could
split the party and even bring down the government.
The party faithful ridicule this idea. In Islamic tradition,
they argue, the ambitions of any individual are set aside for the
common good of the umma, or community. They may be right. Mr Gul
and Mr Erdogan began their careers in Turkey’s Islamist movement and
have been close for years. They co-founded AK and secured its first
election victory, in 2002. Mr Gul was prime minister to start with,
as Mr Erdogan could not take his parliamentary seat until March 2003,
when he made Mr Gul foreign minister.
Differences between the two did not surface until 2007, when Mr Gul
announced his bid for the presidency, apparently against Mr Erdogan’s
wishes. The chief of staff, Yasar Buyukanit, promptly threatened a
coup, on the grounds that Mr Gul’s wife, Hayrunissa, wears the Islamic
headscarf (banned in state institutions), making her husband unfit to
be president. Mr Erdogan then called a snap election, giving Mr Gul
a platform to campaign for his presidency. When AK won again, with
an even bigger share of the vote than in 2002, Mr Gul duly got the job.
This was a huge blow to the generals. Had Mr Gul not stuck to his guns,
their views might have prevailed. Mr Gul’s mild demeanour disguises
the steely will that first led him to rebel against Necmettin Erbakan,
founder of Turkey’s political Islamists, who was ousted as prime
minister in a "soft coup" in 1997. Although he does not have Mr
Erdogan’s popular support, he retains influence inside AK.
But will he keep it when Mr Erdogan draws up candidates’ lists for
the next election?
Much may depend on the election result. Should AK do relatively badly,
Mr Erdogan’s presidential ambitions will be squashed and Mr Gul might
count himself lucky to have his seven years. What is clear is that,
so long as Turkey’s opposition parties are ineffectual, the only
serious challenges to AK come from within.