TURKPULSE No:84..........NOVEMBER 10th, 2002
TURKISH ELECTIONS – WHO WILL BE THE FINAL WINNER?
The November 3rd general elections were a sweeping victory for the AK Party, which scooped a two-thirds majority in parliament with a one-third backing of over 31 million valid votes. There was a handsome turnout of voters at the elections (nearly 80%), while 45% of the votes remained unrepresented in Parliament. Nevertheless, it was a fair, democratic election with a landslide victory for Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s moderate Islamic AK Party. These elections brought to fruition Washington’s 3-4 decades of subversive activities in Turkey in order to use religion as a kind of secret organisation patterned after freemasonry. The majority of Turkish people were clearly victims of the lack of public knowledge about the whole thing, but it does not follow that the victor, the United States, will be the final winner.
In a nutshell, the Bush Administration attained its ambition about Turkey by getting rid of the Ecevit Government 18 months earlier with the 3 November elections, which brought to power its pet, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), as a result of its 3-4 decades of covert activities for settling a pro-American Islamic party in Turkey. Leaving aside the details of these activities summed up in Pulse of August 16th, 2001, the crucial point now is what will this change of rule bring to Turkey and its region, especially Iraq which was the real motive in Washington’s hurried and blunt moves in order to achieve it.
The will of the people will carry the day
Above all, all these activities of the last 30-40 years were guided from the American base in Balgat, Ankara and Turkish intelligence was not sleeping all this time. So, there is reason to believe that the security authorities in Ankara know all these “products of the houses of light” one by one and that Tayyip Erdogan is one of them with a black file about his activities as the mayor of Istanbul and thereafter. In other words, Erdogan’s problems with the judiciary and the security authorities are not as simple as losing some of his political rights for reciting a poem as the western media is frequently claiming, but because of his background in some shady activities.
Nevertheless, it is true that unless convicted by the independent judiciary one should never loose his political rights for a lifetime and that Tayyip Erdogan would not have been sentenced to one year for that poem if today’s law, passed by the Ecevit Government in order to conform to EU rules, existed a few years ago. Because the Ecevit Government failed to amend Article 76 of the Constitution along with the change of the law a strange situation has appeared about Erdogan’s right to become a member of parliament.
No one wants to see Turkey as a country banning political parties so frequently or keeping some people out of parliament. Consequently, the chairman of the political party that received nearly 11 million votes (34.5%) is bound to enter parliament sooner or later and he should also be able to become prime minister. This may happen along with the local elections in April 2004 the latest, but activities are in full swing to bring it forward with a consensus between the ruling AKP and the opposition CHP, under the careful watch of the President and the security forces. Under consideration is the amendment of Article 76 of the constitution banning Erdogan from being a parliamentarian as well as article 109 that requires the prime minister to be a member of parliament. For these amendments the AKP needs the opposition’s support and the CHP seems to be ready to give that backing provided that the AKP agrees to amend the constitution for easing the parliamentary immunities and reducing the term of parliament from five years to four. With the first amendment according to the CHP’s conditions, members of parliament will lose their absolute immunity from judicial action and will enjoy parliamentary immunity for only their speeches and political activities, but not corruption charges or ordinary crimes. According to the other amendment, the present parliament will not be able to elect the new president as the incumbent President Sezer’s term ends in May 2007.
If final consensus can be worked out in parliament on these four amendments, it will put an end to Tayyip Erdogan’s peculiar situation by making him prime minister straight after the constitutional amendments and will also terminate certain extremisms of Turkish politics. It will also set a good example for the cooperation of the ruling power and opposition in the new term.
National security and foreign policy are not subject to political whims
As for national security and important foreign policy questions, it is almost certain that the AKP and its leader Tayyip Erdogan will tow the “State policy” line and make his shady past forgotten by becoming the “prime minister of Turkey” or lose his significance and eventually his PM position after an uneasy period and sterile strife.
The practice of “taming” Tayyip Erdogan has already begun. On Thursday (7th) President Sezer invited Erdogan and gave him an audience, carefully refraining from going into the touchy question of who will be the next prime minister. Instead he talked about foreign policy and at his suggestion Erdogan has decided to go to Cyprus for the 19th birthday of the TRNC (Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus) on November 15th, instead of his initial intention of making the first visits abroad with a tour of EU countries starting with Athens. Erdogan and his colleagues were also briefed by top MFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) officials about the details of Turkey’s main foreign policy issues with a reminder of the good old English expression – “the devil is in the detail.”
Shortly before learning these details Erdogan had told the Greek press that their Cyprus policy would be based on the Belgian example of how a unitary state had become a federation. This interview delighted the Greeks as the Belgian system is based on a strong central government, yet the MFA’s federal system is more like the Swiss cantonal federation called “Confédération Helvetique”.
There is no doubt that there will not be too many problems during the AKP rule between the State organs and the ruling power on important foreign policy issues like Cyprus, EU membership, NATO and so on, as they have already been, by and large, coordinated with Washington’s policies. But what about the energy (oil and natural gas) based foreign policy issues, primarily policies concerned with Iran, Iraq, the Gulf and the Caucasus.
Iraq is the first pressing issue. The German press quoted Abdullah Gul, number two in the AKP, as saying that Turkey could follow the United States in the prospective military action on Iraq now that the UN Security Council resolution has been passed about WMD (weapons of mass destruction) investigations in Iraq. Gul denied this press report on Saturday (9th), however, and repeated Turkey’s established policy on this issue.
But whether or not the AKP is continuing with its cautious policy in this critical initial period, it is obvious that there will be uneasy periods in the Turkish Government on this issue before long. A Deputy Chairman of the AKP, Ambassador Yasar Yakis said before the elections that the Kurdish State would be founded, maybe in 15 years or 150 years. These words reminded the Pulse editor of a Soviet diplomat’s words to him during the cold war period. In answer to complaints about the Soviet Union’s interference in Turkey’s domestic affairs in supporting Turkish communists the Soviet diplomat said, “Not only Turkey, but the whole world will be socialist, in 30 years or 300 years.” And where is Soviet socialism now? Likewise, these primitive nationalistic independence desires like that of the Kurds are bound to be frustrated and faded away not in 15 or 150 years, but much sooner in view of the emergence of giant unions like the European Union. After two world wars in our lifetime, no one is now bothered about if Alsace Loraine is French or German. Strasbourg is the centre of Europe.
Yasar Yakis is another product of the Balgat American base-guided “houses of light”. As a poor village boy of a small town of Akcakoca, he was educated in these religious centres, graduated from the reputable Mulkiye, the traditional Ottoman institution to train top civil servants, entered the MFA and worked his way up to be the Turkish Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Egypt. He never ceased his contacts with these religious quarters and Ecevit's leftists and as one of the leading members of the AKP is now talking of an independent Kurdish State.
The new ruling power is bound to be frustrated if it thinks that it will be able to join hands with foreign powers and allow Kurdish independence despite Turkey’s “State policy”, no matter which superpower is behind it. The necessary preparations have already been made in Ankara about not permitting the AKP rule to take steps against secularism in domestic affairs or against State policies designed in foreign affairs after months of careful and objective calculations and planning. uras@ada.net.tr - November 10th, 2002