PULSE of TURKEY No:105 ............................MAY 7th, 1999
HEADSCARF DISTURBS PEACE, BUT MAY CONSOLIDATE COALITION HARMONY
President Demirel has described the Islamic-style headscarf as the symbol of fundamentalism in Islamic countries, following his description of FP Deputy Merve Kavakci as an agent provocateur for her attempt to be sworn in wearing a headscarf in Parliament.Paradoxically the headscarf crisis may help PM designate Ecevit to form a coherent and lasting Government. The election for Speaker on May 12th will be the first test for the three parties’ harmonious co-operation as the prospective ruling power. Meanwhile, preparations are underway for cleaning up the corruption charges left over from the previous parliamentary term. What impact it will make on the chairpersons of the two centre-right parties, ANAP and the DYP, remains to be seen. But it can be confidently said now that it will be a development for the smooth functioning of the forthcoming Government.
Merve Kavakci will no doubt be prevented from entering the parliamentary floor or committees wearing a headscarf much less to be sworn in wearing one. The Chief Prosecutor of the Republic, Vural Savas, has already taken legal action with the Supreme Court to ban the FP on the charge that it is the continuation of the closed down RP, the headscarf crisis in Parliament being the latest evidence. This trial may take a year to finalise, but it is not so difficult to prove that the FP is the banned RP’s successor. The FP demands the court to prove that at least 50% of the new party’s members were members of the RP.
Headscarf delays Cabinet formation, but helps its eventual coherence
The formation of the new Ecevit Government is being delayed merely because of this issue, while the principles of the formation of the Government, the distribution of seats in the Cabinet among the three coalition parties and similar issues have long been worked out, through unofficial contacts. However, the crisis Merve Kavakci caused on the first day of the new parliament brought this issue to the foreground. It also induced PM Ecevit to be more careful about a sounder relationship with his future coalition partners in view of their silence and passivity in Parliament during the DSP’s all out reaction to Merve Kavakci’s headscarf in the Turkish Parliament.
In the end, ANAP delivered a broadside on the FP’s mentality of exploiting religion for politics. ANAP Deputy Chairman Yasar Okuyan said on Thursday (6th) that the FP’s stance on Merve Kavakci’s headscarf was the same as those of Necmettin Erbakan’s previous parties, the banned MNP, MSP and the RP. Just as these three parties were closed down by the Constitutional Court, the FP would also end up with the same fate with its persistence of the "same mentality of exploitation of religion in politics”, he forecast.
On Wednesday (5th), PM Ecevit held consultations with the Head of Religious Affairs, Mehmet Nuri Yilmaz, and ANAP Chairman Mesut Yilmaz on this issue. The outcome of these contacts was Yasar Okuyan’s strongly worded statement and more energetic opposition of ANAP to the exploitations of the headscarf in Parliament.
After Okuyan’s statement, Chairman Mesut Yilmaz also took a strong stance on this dispute. He told Milliyet (7th) that the FP and its three forerunners whose leaders had been deprived by the Judiciary of the right to go in for politics on legitimate grounds were now trying to enlarge the battlefront. “Their aim is to attain their goal through fighting because they realise that it is impossible to legally do so. This schizophrenic approach stands no chance of success,” said the ANAP Chairman.
As a matter of fact, the wives of ANAP parliamentarians have reacted to Merve Kavakci’s headscarf much more strongly and promptly than their husbands. When ANAP members preferred to walk out and keep away from the session during the DSP’s strong reaction and shouts in chorus of “get out” to Kavakci, Mesut Yilmaz’s and most ANAP deputies’ mobile phones rang. Their wives were telling them off for leaving the DSP alone. Some of these women even demonstrated outside the parliamentary building against Merve Kavakci’s headscarf. This female reaction to the Islamic-style headscarf was not only restricted to the future coalition parties. The Deputy Chairman of the FP, Aydin Menderes, revealed when he tendered his resignation from the party on Thursday that he could no longer bear his wife’s pressure on him about the headscarf issue.
While the headscarf crisis eventually consolidated DSP-ANAP solidarity, after the first day’s shock for the Prime Minister, it was not so certain in the third leg of the prospective tripartite coalition. The MHP management insists on lifting the headscarf ban at university and receives an understanding reception from ANAP. The DSP, on the other hand, cannot possibly afford loosing its position of being the strongest, indeed the only defender of Ataturk’s reforms in Parliament today now that the CHP is no longer represented there.
The leaders of the three parties are now working on a formula in the coalition protocol that “clothing of university students will be free, within the rules of the National Security Council”. The first part of this sentence belongs to the MHP and the end to the DSP, if they eventually can work out such consensus in drafting the coalition protocol after the election of the Speaker and the Chairmanship Council. Of course, instead of saying “the rules of the NSC”, they may find other phrases such as “within court rulings”, as no one wants to give trump cards to the Europeans in their claim that the military is ruling in Turkey.
The election for Speaker tests the MHP for future solidarity
The whole crisis on the first day in Parliament proved that the Speaker of Parliament is much more important than just a symbolic figurehead in Turkish politics. Everyone now agrees that the Speaker can play a vital role in shaping Turkey’s political developments at some critical times. This appreciation, for its part, whetted the political parties’ appetite to capture this position in the new parliament.
That is why PM Ecevit prefers to wait for the outcome of the elections for the Speaker and the Chairmanship Council in Parliament next week. In a way, these elections will demonstrate how harmonious the future work of the three parties will be.
The headscarf crisis constitutes a test for the MHP and, to a lesser extent, DYP Chairperson Tansu Ciller.
All these developments prove that the DSP-ANAP solidarity of the previous parliament is also continuing in the new one and that the 222 MPs of these two parties will act together at the Speaker and Chairmanship Council elections next week.
The voting being secret in such elections, however, they may well suffer a defeat next week if the MHP chooses to challenge their candidates and put forward its own, as the FP is sure to support it and Tansu Ciller may also follow suit. Such a development would nip in the bud the prospective tripartite coalition’s solidarity in the period ahead, unless it is done through a consensus with DSP and ANAP, after the first round of voting.
In return, the MHP Chairman, Devlet Bahceli, is under heavy pressure from his rank and file to prove that it is a “manly and not timid party”. He also expects his other two partners to be understanding in these issues. The efforts last week were for working out a consensus among the three parties on both the Cabinet and the work ahead in Parliament. There was by and large cohesion among the leaders, with uncertainty about the backbenchers of the MHP. It is to be hoped that the election for Speaker will not undermine this cohesion among the three parties.
Mesut Yilmaz emerges innocent from inspectors’ scrutiny
The smooth and long lasting functioning of the future Government also depends on consolidating ANAP’s position by showing to the people the difference between Mesut Yilmaz and Tansu Ciller as far as corruption charges go. At Acting PM Husamettin Ozkan’s instructions (during PM Ecevit’s rest in Cyprus), inspectors from the Prime Minister’s Office have begun work on the details of the scandal about the privatisation of Turkbank, last year.
This scandal has already reduced ANAP’s votes greatly at the April 18th elections. Many people wrongly believe that Mesut Yilmaz is as corrupt as Tansu Ciller is. PM Ecevit has set in motion his inspectors to scrutinise the details of this case, which was the shadiest of the reports of parliamentary investigations against the ANAP Chairman.
Scrutiny of the documents proved that the former PM Mesut Yilmaz and his Economy Minister Gunes Taner were innocent about tenders concerning the privatisation of Turkbank. Far from favouring Korkmaz Yigit, the winner of the tender, PM Yilmaz and Taner set in motion the police and the intelligence service about his dealings with the Mafia. But the Governor of the Central Bank, Gazi Ercel, hushed up the classified letter sent by the police against Korkmaz Yigit. The Deputy Governor of the Central Bank, Aydin Esen, in determining its distribution, wrote on this secret report that it should be presented to PM Mesut Yilmaz, but his boss Gazi Ercel crossed it out and kept the report to himself.
Last week the innocent bureaucrat in this affair, the Treasury Chief Yener Dincmen retired from this key position at his own initiative, but Gazi Ercel retained his position, despite the inspectors’ initial report accusing him of the Turkbank scandal. Now that the investigation has been deepened interesting facts may come out into the daylight.
As soon as the new Government is formed, Article 83 of the Constitution concerning parliamentary immunities will be amended. It means the parliamentary investigation reports against ex-Prime Ministers Tansu Ciller and Mesut Yilmaz will be referred to the Judiciary and while the latter will emerge acquitted from all charges as this publication has been claiming all along, no one knows what will happen to the “shady lady”.
What is known for sure is the fact that the Ecevit Government and the Ecevit-Yilmaz solidarity will emerge stronger from this development. With Devlet Bahceli’s following suit as expected, a strong ruling power may emerge for the next five years to lead Turkey into the 21st century.
These days which seem never-ending are the labour pains for this happy end, believe the architects of this edifice.uras@ada.net.tr, May 7th, 1999