Before the end of June, the parliament floor is expected to vote on three files concerning the relevant parliamentary committees’ decisions to refer Mesut Yilmaz and Tansu Ciller to the Supreme Court for alleged irregularities that cost unnecessary public fund spending. There are two files against the ANAP chairman Yilmaz and one against the DYP chairperson Ciller.

Given the secret ballot that prevents party discipline about such judicial cases, it is impossible to predict the outcome of these three sets of voting. Due to the DSP’s supporting Mesut Yilmaz, his chances may be a bit higher than Ciller’s, but nothing is a foregone conclusion in these judicial matters that are handled with a political mind.

This precariousness in parliament is hardly the case in the judiciary about such basically judicial matters and one can easily make correct predictions of the outcome of the results of these three files if they ever come up with the Supreme Court. It is almost certain that Mesut Yilmaz will be acquitted from both charges and it is even more certain that Tansu Ciller will be convicted. Why? The answers rest in the details of the facts.

In the case of the two files against Mesut Yilmaz, neither contains any charge of corruption. They are politically minded claims that he could have got better results or gained more money for the Treasury from the land allotted to the Koc-Ford partnership or from the partial privatization of Telecom. The Judiciary is bound to dismiss both these cases as far-fetched claims and acquit the ANAP Chairman, but it may take months of headaches and unnecessary bad publicity for him.

On the other hand, the third file about Tansu Ciller is totally different. While it is certain that Mesut Yilmaz will go to the Supreme Court, if ever, and come out squeaky clean, it is equally certain that Tansu Ciller will walk in and never come out of the Court without a sentence, if only the precariousness of the vote on the parliamentary floor results in her delivery to the Court.

Tansu Ciller claims that she was tried twice for secret fund mishandling and acquitted from both. She is not telling the truth. She has been in a court for neither case because with political manuoevring in the Legislature she has so far been able to forestall lifting her parliamentary immunity.

The truth about the two secret fund cases is that the first happened straight after the December 1995 general elections. The election returns made it compulsory for the DYP and ANAP to form a coalition by overcoming the traditional distrust and bickering between the two chairpersons. Otherwise, the defunct RP’s chairman Necmettin Erbakan would become the prime minister and nobody at home or abroad wanted it.

Most probably with the influence of external forces (the United States) behind her, Tansu Ciller showed the necessary flexibility and allowed Mesut Yilmaz to become the Prime Minister for the first year and agreed to take the helm after him. During the formation of the ANAP-DYP coalition, however, the real problem emerged. The incoming PM Yilmaz saw that the outgoing PM Ciller had just spent TL500 billion from the Prime Minister’s secret funds. Neither in secret, nor in public could anyone learn from Ciller where that money had gone. When pressed hard she said at one point that world war three would break out if she revealed that secret. Yet neither President Demirel, nor any government department or agency, civilian or military, was aware of such a secret dealing by Turkey to drag it into a war. Everyone took Ciller’s words as a hint that she had sent money or arms to the Chechen guerrillas against the Russian forces, during the 1994-1996 stage of the Chechen affair, but there was no resolution by any competent State authority for such a basic step involving Turkey’s national security.

Nevertheless, this dispute between Mesut Yilmaz and Tansu Ciller resulted in the disintegration of the coalition, and because the documents about secret funds of the prime minister are burnt after one month, Tansu Ciller saved herself from the charges of unauthorized secret fund spending. Today this matter is an impossible case to be used against Ciller and has been totally dismissed.

Ciller gets caught with a relatively minor mishandling of secret funds

The DYP Chairperson was not so lucky with another corruption concerning secret funds. Shortly before the December 1995 general elections, an imposter, Selcuk Parsadan, called PM Tansu Ciller imitating a former Ground Forces Commander, Gen Necdet Oztorun’s voice and told her that about 30 thousand retired soldiers could be organized in favour of the DYP at the election campaign if they overcame some financial problems. Ciller readily dispersed TL5.5 billion to him from secret funds. When the scandal came out into the daylight after the elections, Ciller categorically denied that such a payment had been made and, as the one-month period had passed, no government agency could detect the documents. However, Parsadan and his accomplices confessed to the crime, and the telephone recordings, bank accounts and other evidence proved that Ciller had paid the con men TL5.5 billion from secret funds. Parsadan is still serving a long prison sentence for swindling the Government, but Tansu Ciller is not only still at large, but is also occupying an important position in Parliament. She could not be brought to justice due to her parliamentary immunity. Also the judge used an obscure sentence in his verdict in sentencing Parsadan to the effect that “why the prime minister has made this payment is not certain.” This sentence saved Ciller from prosecution, as she was not one of the accused in this case.

Now Ciller claims that this was an acquittal for her. But an unidentified high-powered Court of Appeal source told Hurriyet (15^th) that the judge had used that sentence without authorization and that Ciller not being an accused at the Parsadan trial she could never claim an acquittal from the Judiciary.

The tripartite coalition will never be the same now

The following days will bring clarity to the whole situation. As things stand at the moment, Mesut Yilmaz has already been saved from six of the eight cases against him. The other two are likely to follow the same path, as it will not be easy to muster 276 votes against him at the final vote of the floor. Tansu Ciller’s position seems to be more serious both in Parliament and the Judiciary, but she has so far been able to save herself from being brought before justice.