TURKISH ELECTIONS TO TEST ISLAMIC DEMOCRACY
By Amberin Zaman in Ankara
Daily Telegraph, UK
July 21 2007
It is a sign of his enduring strength that Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
Turkey’s charismatic prime minister, has vowed to retire from politics
unless voters return him to power with a strong mandate in tomorrow’s
general election.
"If we do not come to power alone I will withdraw from my party," Mr
Erdogan said during a campaign rally. Tens of thousands of supporters
waving Turkish flags burst into applause as he challenged his secular
rivals to do the same.
Recent opinion polls suggest that his mildly Islamic Justice and
Development party (AKP) will trounce its secular opponents in an
election widely seen as a crucial test for Turkey’s unique blend of
Islam and democracy.
The polls were called earlier than scheduled in the midst of the
country’s most severe political crisis in decades.
advertisement The immediate trigger was Mr Erdogan’s decision to
nominate Abdullah Gul, his foreign minister, to succeed the secular
president, Ahmet Necdet Sezer. Mr Gul launched his political career in
an overtly Islamist party. His wife, Hayrunissa, wears the headscarf,
which is banned in all public institutions.
Claiming that the country was sliding into religious rule, the army,
which has staged four coups since 1980, threatened to intervene.
Millions of urban, middle class Turks, who said their liberal
lifestyles were under threat, took to the streets. Mr Gul failed to
win enough support in parliament to become president.
Secularists fear that if the AKP wins, there will be another attempt
to install Mr Gul. The party is committed to changing the constitution
to allow a directly elected president.
But chastened by the crisis, Mr Erdogan has pledged to seek consensus
with other parties.
Survey upon survey shows the AKP gaining more than the 34 per cent of
the vote that gave it an outright victory in the 2002 elections. Even
so, the AKP is highly unlikely to win enough seats to amend the
constitution.
The prime minister’s chief opponent, the Republican People’s Party,
led by Deniz Baykal, is trailing with roughly 20 per cent.
Paradoxically, Mr Erdogan and his fellow Islamists have done more
to transform Turkey in the past four years than any of their secular
predecessors save Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey.
A poster of Recep Erdogan during an Istanbul rally
"The real fight is between those who want a more open and democratic
Turkey and those who want to keep Turkey a closed and inward looking
place," Mr Gul said. "My wife’s headscarf is an excuse."
The generals have gone silent but their shadow still looms over the
campaign. How would they respond to an AKP landslide?
Some Western diplomats speculate that they might engineer a banning
of the party by the constitutional court, which has outlawed various
pro-Kurdish and Islamist parties.
Volkan Aktar, an expert on the military in Istanbul, disagrees. "The
military is not the unassailable force it once was," he said. He
pointed to the newspaper columns attacking the generals for their
meddlesome ways.
This new spirit of openness has been inspired by the AKP’s
constitutional and judicial reforms, including curbs on the army’s
powers. Riding on strong economic growth, these prompted European
Union leaders to open membership talks with Turkey in 2005.
The real danger is not Islam, but the rise of xenophobic nationalism
targeted on America and the EU.
Turkey’s tiny Christian minority is feeling the heat, especially
after the murder of Hrant Dink, a prominent Armenian newspaper editor.
Mr Dink was shot dead outside his office in January by a nationalist
teenager, who said he had insulted the Turks.
Nationalist passions have also been stoked by the rise in Kurdish
separatist violence. All this has boosted the chances of the
ultra-nationalist National Action Party.
This may dent the AKP’s majority, even it if were to get a bigger
share of the vote than in 2002, depriving it of the muscle to push
through constitutional reforms.