PULSE of TURKEY No. 13.................. THURSDAY, June 11th, 1998
NEW GOVERNMENT BEFORE ELECTIONS
The Ball is in the President’s Court. The President does not have to designate as Prime Minister the majority party leader. Sublime interests of the country come first. Avoidance of crisis is above all, says the President.
President Demirel says about the Yýlmaz-Baykal agreement on June 3rd that he would not be the third party in this agreement. In a televised interview on the evening of June 7th he said that the Prime Minister had visited him earlier in the day and explained the highlights of his agreement with the CHP Chairman, Deniz Baykal, regarding his resignation at the end of this year.
Asked what his stance would be about the new government, he said there was a government already at work and he would not discuss forming another government on the existing one. About his stance on the prospective downfall of the government in seven months he said that when the Prime Minister’s resignation is handed in he would accept it and his duty would start as from that moment. He would not tell anyone what he would do or whom he would chose as the new prime minister.
Even though the President was totally noncommittal about his choice for the future prime minister, what he said about the formation of this government exactly a year ago was indicative of what his choice is likely to be. The President said:
“To be able to understand today’s arguments you have to go back a year. l invite all my fellow citizens to remember what happened in Turkey exactly a year ago.
“The country was living in a nightmare at that time. People were switching lights on and off (in protest of the government). Daily newspapers reported about an imminent coup d’etat. The nation was in despair and the basic foundations and qualities of the Republic were being questioned. The big party of the coalition government was being tried in the Constitutional Court. There was great irritation throughout the country.
“No one should be disturbed by what I am saying now. I am saying this by sticking to my supraparty position. I am only establishing a situation. No one can say these events were not true. If this hadn’t been the case, the prime minister of the time wouldn’t have approached me and handed in his resignation on June 18th, 1997. When I asked him why are you tendering your resignation he said ‘there is tension in Turkey and I have to resign’. If what I say now is not true he wouldn’t have said these things.
“But all these have been forgotten today and everybody is acting as if nothing happened in Turkey a year ago.
“After that resignation the question of forming a new government from the existing Parliament came up. At that time I acted as the Constitution and the sublime interests of the country demanded. I took a step in the direction of pulling the country out of that crisis. The step I took then couldn’t possibly be in the direction of further deepening that crisis. It had to be in the direction of eliminating that crisis. That is what I did and I did it within the requirements of Articles 104 and 109 of the Constitution. Article 104 calls for my acting in a way to make the State function in harmony.
“One has to undertstand the 1982 Constitution well. It has certain characteristics that are different from other constitutions. Article 109 stipulates that the President designates the Prime Minister. The President’s power is restricted in no way. It is written only in Article 116 what the President should do if the Prime Minister he designates does not receive the vote of confidence. In other words, Article 116 authorizes the President to lead the country to elections rather than to a crisis. But there is no such thing in the Constitution that the President will designate a person who will definitely get the vote of confidence. Of course, it is better if you designate someone who enjoys the majority’s confidence in Parliament, but this is not a constitutional compulsion. If the sublime interests of the country do not justify it, the President may well act in a way not to designate that person as Prime Minister even if someone may seem to have the majority. Instead he (the President) may designate as the Prime Minister whoever he wants and sets in motion Article 116 (45 days for a general election if Parliament does not give the vote of confidence to the PM-designate).
“This means the President leads the country to elections rather than letting it head for a crisis. This is the whole event and it has to be understood well.
“Now they say that the President acted wrongly. ‘We had the majority, but the President didn’t give the power to us,’ they say. But when you say all this you don’t know the starting point. Why did the government resign in the first place in 1997? The resignee himself was saying that there was tension in the country. Could I possibly help with the continuation of that tension? To end the crisis was my duty and I fulfilled it. My duty was to avoid tension. The prime minister that I designated brought forth a Cabinet and that government received the vote of confidence from Parliament with 281 votes to 256. And the voting took place under no duress. It was totally with the MPs’ free wills. As against this margin of 25, the previous government had a margin of 13 at the vote of confidence. In other words, the present government is as legitimate as its predecessor.”
The President said in reply to the remark about impatience over the enforcement of the February 28th resolutions of the NSC (National Security Council) that everyone had to conform to the constitutional framework – democracy, secularism and rule of law. “Whatever is done in Turkey is done within that framework. You cannot safeguard secularism without safeguarding the supremacy of rule of law or by exceeding democracy. There is no justification for the fear that democracy, rule of law or secularism are in danger in Turkey.
“The crisis last year is left there. We do not have the same conditions today. The NSC, at every session, reviews the resolutions adopted at its previsous sessions and also the performance. At the last NSC session too these resolutions were reviewed.
“The government has set up an organisation including ‘ilçes’ (townships) to monitor reactionary movements. The entire government mechanism is in an intensive effort to safeguard the secular characteristic of the Republic.
“This is a matter of patience. It is not an easy task to achieve. It is necessary to readjust and reorganize many things. No one should fear that the Cabinet does not have good intentions. I am telling you my impression of the NSC meetings over which I preside.
“I would not remain idle if the qualities of the Republic, secularism, are impaired. I would take the necessary steps.
“Yes, certain things have happened in the past and inflicted certain wounds. But they will heal – not overnight, of course. In fact, some of the February 28th resolutions are a matter of process. It is a durable process.
“One of these is crimes against Atatürk. The matter is not over when you handle it once. The crime is committed again over a period of time, so you handle it again.
“There is also the question of (school) dormitories. Again, it is not a matter that can be solved in one day. First you have to find dormitories for hundreds of thousands of children and then solve these problems (about reactionary movements in hostels).”
He said that no one should over-exaggerate Turkey’s problems. They would solve them in due course with the law and democracy, with due process.