“PRECAUTIONS” TO PERPETUATE TURKISH DEMOCRACY
The controversy within the coalition over the pay rise to civil servants in the second half of the year has brought about an even deeper dispute concerning the future, and even the nature of the existing Government.
DSP Chairman Bülent Ecevit’s reaction to the DTP’s refusal to sign the decree concerning the 20% pay rise was to move forward the election date to November or December. It aimed at outwitting the Yılmaz-Baykal agreement for a “Low Profile Election Government” as from the end of the year.
Ecevit maintains that the Yılmaz-Baykal agreement has unnecessarily made a government of action a “lame duck” government, and that it is a waste of half a year to let Turkey be governed by a caretaker government for four months before, and two months after the elections. He insists that either the elections be held in November-December, probably at the end of the year when Yılmaz is supposed to give way to a new Prime Minister, or the existing Yılmaz Government be given a chance to complete its reforms until the elections in April. “The Yılmaz-Baykal agreement does not work,” he stresses and firmly objects to the idea of a temporary Prime Minister and Government.
Ecevit’s logically sound arguments have made Turkish politics even more precarious and unpredictable than they already are. But it is true only ostensibly because it is certain that this tangled up situation will sort itself out eventually as Ecevit is in the key position in this case, while Deniz Baykal was in the present arrangements about PM Yılmaz’s resignation at the end of the year.
Why is Turkey undergoing labour pains over elections?
The main reason for the difficulty over the forthcoming elections is that the next parliament will elect the next president to lead Turkey until the end of the first decade of the 21st century. President Demirel cannot possibly be re-elected upon the expiry of his presidency in mid-2000, and there is no sign in sight that this provision of the Contitution or Turkey’s present parliamentary system will be changed for a kind of presidential system, as President Demirel has been suggesting at every occasion.
The danger for Turkish democracy is that if a person who does not have Demirel’s experience and stature comes to that position he may not be able to prevent the armed forces’ intervention in the possibility of the recurrence of the Haji-Baji period in the next parliament. To face a fourth military intervention in the new millenium would, indeed, be a big embarrassment for most Turks today to leave to posterity.
The National Security Council is, therefore, carefully watching over the legislation of the “anti-reactionary bills” and the Mesut Yılmaz Government is carrying out measures called “precautions and not necessarily penalties.”
This work is heading for conclusion as far as the parliamentary procedure goes, because the Tax Reform Bill has advanced a long way and may be legislated any day. The 13 bills about religious fundamentalism have been partially legislated and the rest will not take too long as they are bills with a few articles.
The implementation of some of them has already begun. A purge among administrators, such as governors, “kaymakams” and police chiefs is underway on the basis of reports prepared by inspectors and the Monitoring Board for anti-secular activities. Certain administrators whose wives do not only wear scarves, but are also as fanatical as refraining from shaking hands with men will be purged from the administration.
Inspections carried out by the Ministry of the Interıor for 141 kaymakams resulted in referring 73 of them to the Judiciary for anti-secular activities and assigning the rest to passive duties.
Remedy for the weakness of Turkish democracy
All these measures are certainly useful for the prevention of the recurrence of the Haji-Baji period after the elections. However, an even healthier development for Turkish democracy is an alliance that has been shaping in Turkish politics over the last year – the Yılmaz-Ecevit cooperation which may be the answer to the structural weakness of the Turkish parliamentary system.
Western friends and allies have always recommended Turkey to put an end to the split in Turkish politics which may play into the hands of extremist movements.
The last Erbakan Government was concrete proof of how religious fundamentalism could gain control of Turkey with its 21% backing in elections, by taking advantage of the corruption charges of a helpless political party leader, Tansu Çiller.
Anglo-Americans have always recommended Turkey to have a two-party system along the lines of either the UK or the USA, as a remedy to this danger, but it simply was not operable in Turkey.
President Demirel is today saying the same thing and recommending a kind of a presidential system with the belief that under the existing electoral system Parliament’s structure will not be any diffirent from the existing one – the Haji-Baji majority.
By judging what General Çevik Bir said to some journalists during a chat, the Armed Forces’ soundings are no different, despite all the measures taken within the February 28th, 1997 resolutions of the NSC.
Brief background to party alliances
The remedy to the victory in elections of the RP, or its successor the FP, is certainly to put an end to the split among the western type democratic parties. If the DSP and the CHP on the Left and ANAP and the DYP on the Right of centre can work out mergers or an alliance in elections the FP cannot possibly carry the day in the elections, go these arguments.
Yet all the experiences hitherto have shown that it is not possible. Neither can Ecevit and Baykal come together, nor Yılmaz and Çiller.
Cooperation within the Right and within the Left having proved impossible, cooperation between the Left and Right has been tried several times since the December 1991 elections and to a considerable degree of success. Thanks to Demirel’s experience and Erdal İnönü’s moderacy, the first test worked for the good of the country, but satisfied the followers of neither. The Baykal faction broke away from the SHP and formed the CHP. In the end, the unambitious İnönü retired from politics and Murat Karayalçın became the SHP Chairman. Demirel became the President in June 1993 and left his seat as the DYP Chairman and Prime Minister to Tansu Çiller. The Çiller-Karayalçın cooperation also worked smoothly under Çiller’s premiership. The Customs Union Agreement with the EU was signed, and the April 5th, 1994 economic parcel was carried out by the Çiller-Karayalçın team. That coalition, however, never stuck to these austerity measures and under the pressures from within the parties and especially from the Left, they sacrificed them within four months. Neither the IMF, nor working people or leftist intellectuals were satisfied with the outcome. Under these conditions, exploiting this discontent and forcing the SHP to merger into the CHP was not at all difficult for Baykal who is admittedly a mastermind in party tricks. He was made the chairman of the new united party, as well as PM Çiller’s new partner and Deputy Prime Minister.
The Çiller-Baykal partnership was not a turbulent one either and it continued until the December 1995 elections.
The outcome of these elections was the Turkish people’s veto to these Left-Right partnerships. The insignificant religious party, the RP jumped from fifth place in the political parties spectrum to the position of first with 21% of the valid votes. The DYP and ANAP shared the right-wing votes with nearly 20% each, Ecevit’s DSP made a big leap forward and became the leader of the Left. Deniz Baykal’s CHP just about scraped through and saved itself from falling below the 10% baraj (barrier).
Against this background, the present parliament started work at the beginning of 1996. Under the pressure of the Ataturkist majority at home and the western allies from abroad, the Yılmaz-Çiller partnership began under PM Yılmaz, but only survived a couple of months when the Prime Minister proved to be bent on curbing religious fundamentalism and fighting corruption.
This determination achieved (or rather resulted in) the impossible. The severest and most outspoken opponent of Erbakan, Tansu Çiller, threw in her lot with the “political religion” team represented by Erbakan and the defunct RP. The Haji-Baji Government was formed in June 1996 with an unbelievable volte-face on the part of Çiller. It lasted exactly a year, having brought the country to the brink of a military takeover several times. Thanks to President Demirel’s experience and diligence, this unacceptable solution on the eve of the 21st century was averted with his interpretation of the relevent provisions of the Constitution.
President Demirel believes that, under Article 109 of the Constitution, he does not have to assign the leader of the biggest party as Prime Minister. Instead, under Article 116, he can trigger off early elections by insisting on a Prime Minister-elect incapable of receiving the vote of confidence in Parliament. ( Issue No:13)
This interpretation of the Constitution is certainly a great assurance for the survival of Turkey’s democracy in the western sense, as long as there is not an Erbakan or a Çiller sitting in the President’s seat.
That is why the forthcoming parliamentary elections are so important.
Another assurance is the harmony in which Yılmaz and Ecevit have been working. But will this fourth or fifth cooperation between the Right and Left parties be more successful than the previous attemtps? Will the next elections do to Yılmaz and Ecevit the same as the 1995 election did to Çiller and Baykal – pull them down a peg or two?
There is reason to believe that the nation will appreciate this coalition better than the previous ones which proved to be swinging from left to right before the wind, rather than going along in a straight line.
Also, Yılmaz and Ecevit are preparing to cooperate at the mayoral elections in big cities. An honest, popular politician like ANAP’s Ali Talip Özdemir may become the candidate for the Mayor of Istanbul with the support of the DSP and a popular State Minister like Mustafa Yılmaz of the DSP may become the candidate for the Mayor of Ankara with ANAP’s support.
If such arrangements work in big mayoral elections, it may pave the way for a healthy cooperation of the DSP and ANAP in future and be an assurance for a good president to follow Demirel.
The first ordeal in this cooperation will be seen in PM Yılmaz’s reaction and behaviour about Ecevit’s moves to undo the Yılmaz-Baykal arrangements. Turkish politics are certainly heading for interesting developments in the following days. uras@ada.net.tr . July 17th, 1998