ECEVIT TRIES A NEW CONCEPT FOR GOVERNMENT:

A “reinforced minority government” by the fourth political party in Parliament, the DSP. Having failed to win over the DYP or the CHP to a government under himself, Ecevit is now straining the bounds of parliamentary possibilities for leading the country to elections. What is it all about? What are the chances of success? What are the alternatives? Will there be a change of horses in midstream? For the exciting story of Turkey’s current position and the factors behind the government crisis, see the article below.

The ANAP-DSP front has failed to gain supporters from the other parties, other than their previous coalition parner, the DTP, for the formation of the Ecevit Government until the elections in April. This failure leaves them at 210-220 in the parliamentary arithmetics in an Assembly of 550 seats.

PM-designate Bülent Ecevit’s efforts to win over the DYP has clearly failed and the CHP is also refusing to support any government under Ecevit other than a leftist coalition of the DSP and the CHP and that is totally unacceptable to ANAP.

Reinforced minority government and its differences from a coalition 

So where do we stand now that half of the 45-day period is over for a solution to the government crisis within Parliament?

The Opposition front, the FP, DYP and CHP, say that it is clear that Ecevit will not be able to form a government and that he should hand back the duty to President Demirel without any more loss of time. Ecevit says he will not be discouraged so quickly and will try everything possible to work out a government that enjoys Parliament’s confidence, because the alternative is a government that totally bypasses Parliamentary supervision for at least three months. If the formation of the government proves difficult after the elections this period may prolong further.

The ANAP-DSP front’s latest suggestion is a reinforced DSP minority government, ie Ecevit with his 61 seats in Parliament will form the government and receive members from other parties in his Cabinet with the approval of the party chairman and administration in question. This “reinforced minority government” is a new concept in Turkish politics and considerably different from the idea of a conventional coalition.

In a coalition government the parties to that coalition come together and work out a government program and partition the governmental seats around that program according to the decisions of the competent authorities of the parties concerned. It usually takes weeks, even months to form it.

Ecevit’s formula for a “reinforced minority government” is quite different. There is no coalition, no coalition protocol or bargaining between the parties concerned about the ministerial positions. The Prime Minister choses the ministers-to-be from the other parties, with the consent of the party chairman and competent authorities, if possible.

But what if the central administrations of the parties concerned do not accept such a thing and do not allow their members to join in the Ecevit Government which is most likely what will happen in the end? The answer is not yet known, but the alternatives are.

Alternatives to Ecevit Government are no alternative without him

One alternative to this formula supported by the ANAP-DSP front, or rather axis, as Bülent Ecevit dislikes the term “front” and uses “axis” instead, is the other axis – the FP-DYP-CHP coalition. At the beginning, the DYP Chairperson, Tansu Çiller, was reluctant to appear too close to the FP and preferred Ecevit as a partner, but in time she was influenced by certain quarters and has again begun to adopt her defiant style against President Demirel and the NSC (National Security Council).

Even though Çiller may bring herself to form a front or an axis with the FP, the CHP can never risk it, given its followers’ tendencies against religion in politics. So if this axis eventually works, it will be through the FP’s support from outside to a Çiller-Baykal coalition or partnership. For that the President’s cooperation or understanding is needed. If he designates Çiller the Prime Minister this formula can well be an alternative to the government formulas around Ecevit, but with any realism, such a possibility should be written off in the pre-election period.

Dismissing this alternative as a solution to the government question within Parliament, there remains only one more alternative, the premiership of an Independent or a party member. Deniz Baykal is all for it and even has his candidate for this “respected member of parliament”, Hikmet Çetin, the present Speaker of Parliament who is a CHP member. Tansu Çiller, for her part, is against any parliamentarian being the Prime Minister and insists on a party chairman being designated for this position. She is afraid that the President may designate a longstanding DYP parliamentarian, and as the Prime Minister he may well become a rival to her within the party, as the “Çıkın” scandal has hurt her position very badly.

In any case, it is very doubtful that the President will change Bülent Ecevit as the PM-designate because almost no one objects to him for the position of Prime Minister. The FP has not committed itself, because Ecevit totally ignores this party as a coalition partner, but all the other party chairmen, including Baykal and Çiller, have declared that they are not against Ecevit’s premiership.

In the fight against organized crime, there will be no change of horses midstream

Furthermore, the outgoing Government is the symbol of a new fight in politics, the fight against organized crime and it is in the middle or even beginning of this fight. PM Mesut Yılmaz says that the fight they have been waging against organized crime is only the tip of the iceberg. The country would be rocked more as they got further down the iceberg. He said this in view of the shock caused by a police chief’s accusations of his superiors last week.

Ferruh Tankuş, the Director of the Narcotics Police of Istanbul, told a press conference last week, when he was assigned to another duty after 20 months in this position, that his superiors had received a $4 million bribe from drug trafficking barons in Mersin to carry out this change. He first accused the Istanbul Police Chief, Hasan Özdemir, and his assistant, Ercüment Özbeyli, but later enlarged his accusations towards the Director-General of the Police, Necati Bilican, the Governor of Istanbul, Erol Çakır, and the Minister of the Interior, Kutlu Aktaş, all of whom are top administrators renowned for their honesty.

The Administration has immediately started an investigation into the accusations by sending two “Mülkiye (Faculty of Political Science) inspectors” to Istanbul and information was released about Ferruh Tankuş’s “shady past”.

Ferruh Tankuş graduated from the Police Academy in 1980 and quickly worked his way up with the help of the then Ankara Police Chief, Mehmet Ağar. When Ağar was assigned to the position of Istanbul Police Chief he took Tankuş along with him. In 1991 Tankuş reportedly killed a waiter in a night-club in Istanbul with his police revolver, but Ağar managed to hush it up as an accident. Nevertheless, Tankuş lost his police career over this incident and went to the United States with the help of an American whose bodyguard he was once. After two years of working in New York as a taxi driver he returned to Turkey. By that time, Ağar had become the Director-General of the Police. With Ağar’s help he regained his police career and was assigned to Elazığ, Ağar’s home-town. He played an active role in Ağar’s election to Parliament from that constituency at the 1995 general elections. Ağar became Ministers of the Interior and Justice and Tankuş became the Istanbul Anti-Narcotics Chief when Ramazan Er became the Istanbul Police Chief. With his connections in high places, Ferruh Tankuş got rid of some police chiefs and officers from this important section of the police. In return, these police chiefs prepared a report with allegations of his links with drug barons. Last May an investigation was carried out into these allegations but there was no tangible evidence to prove the charges. That is why the inspectors recommended only to assign him elsewhere and when this was done, last week’s scandal broke out with Tankuş’s accusations rocking the country, even overtaking in importance in the media the government crisis and the American bombing of Iraq.

Ecevit is needed to prevent the job from remaining unfinished

Now PM Mesut Yılmaz says that this is only a small scandal and bigger ones are in the pipeline as they go deeper into this organized crime in the Administration and the forces behind it. He also insinuates that Deniz Baykal’s haste in toppling the Government was not unrelated to this deepened investigation.

At such a time, an indispensible politician is somebody like Bülent Ecevit with not the slightest shadow on his honesty. Yet he is unable to increase his support in Parliament to over 220 seats, when Çiller and Baykal find so many excuses to keep away from his government, though they do not object to him in person. Undeterred by these difficulties, Ecevit is now trying the last formula, a reinforced minority government. It means he will offer ministerial seats to some Independents, small party members and the bigger ones to form a diversified team to govern the country until the elections. Çiller has already refused to contribute, but she may be challenged from within her party as time goes on and the crisis deepens. The same is the case with Deniz Baykal whose party (the CHP) is seriously disturbed and split within itself. The former chairman of the party, Murat Karayalçın, may well be a threat to Baykal’s hegemony in the party. Even from the FP there may be sympathizers or supporters of Ecevit’s Government in the offing because the alternative may be the Çankaya Government if President Demirel stands firm behind Ecevit with the conditions at home and abroad which induce him to talk of “the new Sèvre”.

If Ecevit fails to form a government, and the President may insist on him to the end, the alternative may be the designation, at the end of the 45-day period, of a technocrats’ government from outside Parliament under Ecevit or someone else, as the Prime Minister has to be a parliamentarian, according the Constitution. This would be a blow to Parliament’s prestige and the election chances of the political parties which cause it.

Mesut Yılmaz to Supreme Court – a blow or a blessing in disguise?

An interesting development in Parliament last week (17^th) amidst this turmoil was the DYP’s joining hands with the FP and the CHP at the investigation committee and deciding to send PM Mesut Yılmaz to the Supreme Court with the charge of contracting the Kurtköy Airport project without tenders.

In a way, it was a good development for Yılmaz in that it proves the fallacy of the claim that Çiller and Yılmaz were in league for hushing up each other’s dirty linen. The tenders of the Airport concern some NATO documents as the land belonged to the military and there were some defence arrangements over this small military airport. Who knows better than the military that Yılmaz carried out no shady business in this deal, as charged by his political opponents. The only hindrance about this development is that trials carried out by the judiciary take too long in Turkey and during the trial period Mesut Yılmaz, under the Constitution, cannot become the Prime Minister even if he wins a resounding victory at the elections. And that was the reason for the ANAP-DYP arrangement about mutually rejecting the investigation files in Parliament when they saw that Baykal was disposing of his political opponents with such diabolic tactics of playing Çiller against Yılmaz. Now it is up to the judiciary to finish off this case quickly and punish or vindicate Mesut Yılmaz without loosing any time. It may be a boost for Mesut Yılmaz if he comes out of the trial with a clean record before or after the elections.

The parliamentary committee’s decision to send the Prime Minister to the Supreme Court is not final yet as it is subject to the House floor’s approval, but it may be in Yılmaz’s favour if it takes place in the end. Meanwhile, Ecevit’s support of him is a strong pillar to lean against in this period of anti-mafia drive. uras@ada.net.tr, December 18^th, 1998