PULSE of TURKEY No14

PULSE of TURKEY No: 81 ..................... DECEMBER 25^th, 1998

ECEVIT’S REASONS FOR ABANDONING GOVERNMENT FORMATION

Ecevit could have easily formed the Government, but he clearly chose not to as part of a wider strategy. The conditions for the FP’s support of the prospective Ecevit Government had already been prepared and all the PM-designate needed was to give the go-ahead, but he did not. The reasons that kept Ecevit away from Kutan will be the stumbling block in the efforts of his successor, Erez, to form the government. In return, Erez has some trump cards in his favour. One thing is certain – whoever is the PM, the government will be “the Yılmaz Government minus Yılmaz” and it will introduce a two-step election system for local government. Erez denies it and says that he will suggest the leaders neither postpone the elections nor change the election system, but the President persists and the constitutional mechanism is ready for it.

It would not have required any big sacrifice on the part of the DSP Chairman, Bülent Ecevit, to form the Government, but he was reluctant to do so for several reasons. All he had to do was pay a courtesy visit to the official opposition leader, Recai Kutan, to exchange some diplomatic remarks and Ecevit would have now been the Prime Minister enjoying Parliament’s confidence until the elections in April 1999. Even though Ecevit said that, among other political party leaders, he would also visit the FP (Virtue Party) Chairman, Recai Kutan, for a mere courtesy visit, he did not do so. He thus left the fate of his government-to-be to Çiller's and Baykal's mercy that was never forthcoming

President Demirel is for dialogue with FP, but with one condition: two-step local elections

The FP’s support of Ecevit’s Government was a foregone conclusion, if it had been sought for, especially when the Yılmaz-Ecevit team announced the list of their priority bills to be legislated by the elections, as it included amending Article 312 of the Penal Code. Indeed, there was press speculation at that time that this was a move to win over the FP’s support and that ANAP’s Deputy Chairman, Mehmet Keçeciler, had paid a secret visit to Necmettin Erbakan to work out such a consensus between the ANAP-DSP alliance and the FP.

The news of a secret meeting was later denied, but whether or not it took place is hardly important. The fact is that there have long been certain efforts to win over the FP to the system and that the current leadership of the FP under Recai Kutan has been exerting strenuous efforts to make it work.

President Demirel has contributed considerably to bridge the gap between the FP and the other parties. PM Yılmaz and his partner Ecevit, to a lesser extent, have an understanding approach, but this understanding makes them differ from certain points of the February 28^th, 1997 resolutions. These points are:

They advocate refraining from seriously hurting religious people in an attempt to curb religious exploitations in politics. That is why they have a milder stance about banning headscarves at universities and in government offices.
They both reject closing down Fethullah Gülen’s schools and monitor anti-secular activities through mixed civilian and military teams attached to the Prime Minister’s Office, instead of the Western Work Group of the Military in the Erbakan Government period.
They also favour amending Article 312 of the Penal Code under which clause the Mayor of Istanbul, Tayyip Erdoğan, and several other FP members have been imprisoned for inducing the people to hatred and rebellion.

The reputable daily Radical has reported that President Demirel has tried to bring Mesut Yılmaz and Recai Kutan together. Kutan is Demirel’s classmate from Istanbul Technical University and they are on first name terms. Radical of October 4^th, 1998 reports:

“The other day Demirel brought Yılmaz and Kutan together when they came to the airport to see him off to Macedonia. Demirel held Yılmaz by the hand and took him to Kutan. He said, ‘I understand that Recai and his friends have prepared a constitutional amendment for energy contracts. This would be a great support for energy investments. It will also be the beginning of a good dialogue process between the two parties.’”

The amendments in question concern the Americans’ suggestions to have international arbitration in Turkey for energy investments and President Demirel strongly supports them.

Despite these efforts and Recai Kutan’s clearly moderate handling of the FP’s new policies, it has not been possible to bridge the gap between the 55^th Government and the FP over a two-step local election system and it eventually resulted in Ecevit’s keeping away from Kutan.

Will Erez be able to push through the two-step election system?

The DYP has promptly and flatly rejected Erez as the PM-designate. The FP and the CHP are not so sure and prefer to see Erez’s conditions. ANAP and the DSP say they will not cause any difficulties and are sure to back up Yalım Erez when he tries to change the election system. The DTP and other small parties are not expected to cause any problem. As Erez does not stand more chance than Ecevit in persuading the FP to the two-step election system, his chance of forming a government should not be any bigger than Ecevit’s, but this is not the case. There are a number of factors in favour of Erez’s success. The main one is the approaching 45-day deadline on January 10^th, 1999.

Another important factor in Erez’s favour is the position of CHP Chairman Deniz Baykal. He has lost so much public favour for causing the latest government crisis and not cooperating with Ecevit for the new one that he cannot possibly afford to be too choosy this time. If ANAP and DSP support the Government, and they do, the CHP is bound to follow suit.

The important point in this support is Baykal’s acceptance of introducing a two-step system for the local elections. He initially accepted it and the Local Government Bill passed through the committees. But before it could be legislated, the CHP changed its mind and objected to the provision introducing the two-step elections.

Now the President and the 55^th Government insist that this bill should be legislated by the new Government with the two-step election system for the local government. Whether the CHP will come round to voting for it on the Assembly Floor is not known yet. In a way the future of the Erez Government depends on this point. Yet Yalım Erez does not utter a single word about such a condition. He is either not in the know about the importance of the two-step system in local elections or it is a tactic unknown to the public. It may be brought up at a later stage of the current phase of the government formation.

As for the chances of Baykal’s rejection to comply, it is not so important. It will only make him the third leg of the FP-DYP front that is standing in the way of carrying out a reform needed for curbing religious exploitation in Turkish politics and he cannot afford it today. The CHP’s rejection will not be able to forestall the legislation of a two-step election because the necessary mechanism exists in the Constitution.

The mechanism for the legislation of the two-step system

Considering for a moment that the CHP joined hands with the FP and the DYP in rejecting to vote for the change in the election system it means Erez will not be able to form the Cabinet and will hand back the duty to the President just as Ecevit did. By that time the 45-day deadline will have been surpassed and the President will have the right to dissolve Parliament

under Articles 114 and 116 of the Constitution. This means a government without parliamentary supervision for three months. That is to say, to rule by decrees and decree laws.

The President has to keep the parliamentary arithmetic in the formation of that government, but under these conditions no one can put up with, indeed, stomach 10 FP, seven DYP and four CHP members in the Cabinet, in addition to ANAP’s ten and the DSP’s four. Such a Government cannot possibly pass decrees either and it would mean chaos in Government administration.

As it is not possible to have chaos or void in government rule, the President will inevitably form a technocrat government under Erez, Ecevit or any other parliamentarian. As for the Constitution’s provision for keeping to the parties’ proportional strengths, it can be complied with by choosing one or two moderate ministers from the parties, say, two each from FP and ANAP and one each from the other three. In other words, the Constitution does stipulate that the parties will be represented in such a government in proportion to their strengths, but does not stipulate that the Cabinet will be divided among the parties in that proportion.

In a way the new Government is bound to be the continuation of the outgoing 55^th Government no matter who is the Prime Minister and this is an embarrassment for especially Çiller and Baykal. The FP’s problem is different. It is now waging a fight within itself between becoming “the system’s party” as Recai Kutan puts it and being an outcast and eventually an outlawed party like its three defunct predecessors under Necmettin Erbakan.

As for how far the National Security Council and the Military will go in this firm stance against anti-secular activities, the Chief of the Turkish General Staff, General Huseyin Kıvrıkoğlu, announced once again last week that they will never allow Atatürk reforms to be violated. Still it is not certain how persistent the military will be about the two-step local elections and about separating the local and general elections from one another. A last minute compromise is always possible in Turkish politics unless it is matter of no return. uras@ada.net.tr, December 25^th, 1998

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