TURKPULSE No:80.........SEPTEMBER 29th, 2002
The atmosphere for the approaching November 3rd elections is changing rapidly since the Dervis factor has been removed by PM Ecevit about two months ago. The accusations directed against Dervis are also becoming louder and more direct. His successor Masum Turker described Kemal Dervis at Ecevit’s open-air rally in Denizli last Sunday (22nd) as imported “nifak tohumlari” (“seeds of discord imported from abroad”) that forced premature early elections. Despite the DSP’s initial opposition to early elections in Parliament, today PM Ecevit is the biggest assurance for elections on November 3rd, while most of the 449 yes votes are desperately making a last attempt to postpone the elections in less than 40 days to 3 November. They are sure to be frustrated as the government, in the last three months, has been staging an amazingly successful performance in putting into force economic measures that are eliminating or at least easing the social suffering and austerity of Dervis’s ongoing IMF program.
Hundreds of thousands of grape growers, amounting to millions of people with their family members could not believe their eyes when they saw the figures the Government announced for their yield – TL1, 060,000 per kg, exactly double of last year’s TL530, 000, plus they will receive compensation for the grapes that went rotten or got mildew due to plenty of rainfall this year. Contrary to the routine grumbling no matter how generous the government is in establishing these farm prices, there was not a single word of complaint this year. The same is the trend for most other farm prices and it is no different for the shop owners, small industrialists and other people. Due to Kemal Dervis’s ruthless practice to all walks of life in the social field as the Treasury Minister for over 500 days preceding last July, it is not so difficult to considerably satisfy the people this year and it is bound to have a healthy impact on the votes ahead for the government parties.
Erdogan’s alleged “premiership” has been nipped in the bud
There is no doubt that exaggerated opinion polls that have been putting Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP as the sure number one at the forthcoming elections and Erdogan himself as the next prime minister will prove to be wrong. Far from being prime minister of Turkey after the elections, Erdogan is not even being permitted to be a member of parliament, even though most people, including the Pulse staff regret that such bans still exist in Turkey for politicians and political parties. Nevertheless, such unpopular steps have to be taken in Turkey today. Anybody in the know cannot possibly allow the seeds of Islam in politics sown by a superpower for the last few decades to cause havoc for Turkey by coming to fruition with AKP rule or rather a “PM Erdogan” after November 3rd.
That is why relatively justified complaints about political bans in Turkey will have to continue during the forthcoming elections too. They will disappear along with the secession of these bans when the time comes and that time is not far away. Along with the Chief Justice, Mustafa Bumin, the former Justice Minister, Hikmet Sami Turk of the DSP, is one of the loud critics of the political bans on Tayyip Erdogan, Necmettin Erbakan and some others, while the Air Force Commander General Asparuk, using an Ottoman expression, remarked that “The finger cut off by Sheriat does not hurt.”
It is hoped that the 3 November elections will prove the maturity of Turkish democracy and that extremist politicians or outright “agents” of foreign powers will not be able to come to power thanks to the nation’s common sense. These bans can then be eliminated. As against the routine practice that the second man in the party, Abdullah Gul, should become the party chairman and the next prime minister in the event that the AKP becomes the biggest party after the elections, the AKP is planning to have a different party chairman and prime minister after the elections. Thus they want to prevent someone else replacing Tayyip Erdogan as the leader of the party in the long run. Gul will be the party chairman and Vecdi Gonul, a former head of Sayistay (the Court of Accounts or the High Auditing Council), the prime minister, according to Tayyip Erdogan’s calculations, but the Turkish State is equally determined not to permit “deceit against the law”. Time will show what the President will do about these externally engineered plots to bring “agents” to power in Turkey. It is too early to dwell on it, as it is still wishful thinking of the Disinformation Mechanism that the next prime minister will be from the AKP.
An Ecevit minority government despite Ecevit? – Either Ecevit or Ecevit, anyway.
Another such politician was Kemal Dervis. He was planted in the Turkish political system by Washington and was useful in securing about $20 billion loans from the IMF and other western finance circles during a critical financial crisis, but the plan to impose the Dervis factor on the Turkish administrative system was so overt and devoid of any subtlety that in a short time he has been labelled a foreign device. Indeed, if he did no other harm to the country, he delivered a deadly blow to Turkey’s economic and political stability by triggering off an untimely early election, 18 months premature. Last week Dervis was in Washington helping his successor Masum Turker at the IMF and World Bank debates and contacts. In Washington, Turker expressed appreciation of these efforts, yet a few days before, on November 22nd, he had said at PM Ecevit’s Denizli rally that “seeds of discord” (“nifak tohumlari”) were sown in the Ecevit Government’s solidarity by people imported from abroad.
The criticisms of Dervis were much louder and more expressive from the YTP as they were the real victims of the whole affair aimed at removing Ecevit and the MHP from power. The YTP parliamentary caucus whip Gaffar Yakin related on Thursday (26th) from Indian literature the friendship of the lion and the bull. The jackal, (the media put Kemal Dervis’s photograph there in answer to their own question “who is this jackal”, though they did not name him) tries to set these two strong animals against one another, but the lion finally understands the intrigue staged by the jackal and foils it, according to the story related by Gaffar Yakin. In the case of the DSP and the YTP, Gaffar Yakin’s story did not have such a happy ending as told in Indian literature and PM Ecevit brushed off the YTP’s offer to become the minority government’s prime minister by postponing the 3 November elections. He said, “No one should rely on the DSP in their efforts to get the elections postponed.” In private Ecevit said to his colleagues that the DSP could not trust the Ismail Cem-Husamettin Ozkan team to try out this plan. The majority of the YTP led by Husamettin Ozkan and the Secretary-General of the Party, Istemihan Talay, seems to be determined to try out this formula when parliament reopens on Tuesday, despite Chairman Cem’s opposition. By returning to the DSP they may well succeed in making Bulent Ecevit the prime minister of a minority government until spring 2003 despite Ecevit’s and the DSP’s wish. No matter how unlikely such an adventure is such events should never be ruled out in Turkey’s unpredictable politics.
Nevertheless, as things stand today, it is a foregone conclusion that the elections will be held on time as decided upon by Parliament at the beginning of July with an overwhelming majority (449 to 62) even though there may be a last effort on the part of the ones in despair when Parliament reopens symbolically on October 1st. Paradoxically, the YTP gathering (they can never be called a political party in their present pathetic plight) maintains in their current efforts to postpone the election the exact opposite of what they said three months ago when they set sail to leave the DSP en masse and form a new party under the Cem-Dervis-Ozkan troika with the claim of saving the country from the “decrepit Ecevit rule”. Now they are saying that Bush is determined to attack Iraq with grave consequences for Turkey and that Ecevit is the sole politician to steer Turkey to safety through this potential national danger.
President Bush is waiting for Turkish elections for action on Iraq
Indeed, the importance of the Turkish elections has this time far exceeded the boundaries of Turkey and become a world event especially over Washington’s impatience for military action on Iraq, all alone and without a new UN resolution, if necessary. For this final decision Washington is clearly waiting for PM Ecevit’s removal from office and is doing its best to bring it about as soon as possible.
On Tuesday (1st) the Deputy PM of Iraq, Tariq Aziz, will pay an official visit to Ankara and the same day the State Department is sending to Ankara its top diplomat for Europe and this region, Elisabeth Jones. It is apparent that in Washington’s plans and calculations for Iraq, Ecevit’s remaining or not remaining in power is the most important factor, yet it is impossible to change these plans in any foreseeable future, with or without Ecevit.
Washington is urging Ankara to side with itself at the prospective military operation if it does not want to be left outside the post-Saddam arrangements in Iraq. Turkey, for its part, is making its own arrangements to forestall such a possibility both in the diplomatic field and in a de facto situation, fortifying its forces that have been deployed in northern Iraq since the 1995 incursions. The diplomatic arrangements include cooperation with Baghdad, Tehran, and Moscow and to a lesser extent with Damascus and Amman. Under consideration is concluding a defence and security agreement with Russia at the first opportunity and it will be along the lines of the Shanghai security arrangements. It will preclude any foreign bases in the region. All these preparations are being intensified at a time when the Americans are giving the finishing touches to their preparations to set up a Kurdish state in Northern Iraq, under the guise of a federal arrangement to begin with. In his usual calm and collected way, PM Ecevit made another warning last week about Turkey’s determination not to be indifferent to plans for founding a Kurdish state in northern Iraq.
To what extent the Iraqi developments will affect the forthcoming Turkish elections remains to be seen, but it is a fact that even his political adversaries admit that Ecevit is one of the best and most experienced politicians in solving international problems like Cyprus for Turkey. The 5-6 weeks ahead are golden opportunities to increase the prime minister’s election chances and inadvertently President Bush is making his own contribution with his agitation over Iraq. uras@ada.net.tr - September 29th, 2002