PULSE of TURKEY No 5.................. WEDNESDAY MAY 21^st 1998

VIRTUE PARTY TAKES ITS “FIRST STEP” CAUTIOUSLY

Rift in FP hushed up for the time being. New blood injected into the Islamist party. Erbakan still in command in practice, but risks İsmet İnönü’s fate, as future leader becomes evident. Roman Law at work for the offsping of the criminal, but no “Carbon Copy” will be allowed. Changes made by a legally obscure body. Other remedies sought to Turkey’s dilemma at future elections.

The 48^th anniversary of the commencement of the democratically elected Parliament in Turkey, May 14^th, was the occasion of another historic event in Turkish politics. The banned Islamist party, RP’s (Welfare Party’s) successor, the FP (Virtue Party) made its first public appearance, changed its chairman and some provisions of the party’s charter and elected new officials.

An unknown politician, Ismail Alptekin, who had been chosen by the ousted Erbakan as chairman of the new party, handed over his duty to Recai Kutan at a gathering of 8000 party members. This gathering was significantly termed the “First Step Festivity”, but no one could understand what it was legally, because the legally authorised body for these changes was the Founders’ Assembly. Yet Erbakan pushed aside the Founders Assembly, which comprised old RP members and parliamentarians, and personally contacted each one of the newcomers. In doing so, he was careful about the legal requirements and made all the Founders’ Assembly members sign these changes, one by one. They could have been quite a match for Erbakan’s sublime authority in these Islamist parties if they had officially come together at the Founders’s Assembly, but they could not reject him at face to face contacts. In other words, Erbakan put the moral pressure of thousands of his sympathizers on members of the Founders’ Assembly in order to push through his demands, as well as make a public show with the First Step Festivity.

In the new party management Erbakan saw to it that the former RP members and parliamentarians were less than half. This was a requirement of the Constitution for the offspring of a banned party, before the July 1995 amendments. It was obvious that there had been private contact between President Demirel and Erbakan for the criteria of how the FP could save itself from being viewed as the RP’s carbon copy. At his closing speech the new leader, Recai Kutan, stressed that the FP was the continuation of no other political party. In only five months the FP’s members had reached 305,000, and 302,000 were from parties on the left and right of centre, he said.

It was known before the ban that Erbakan wanted to make Recai Kutan the chairman of the new party, but having been bitten three times, the aging leader of the Islamists was being ten times shy by electing an outsider, Alptekin.

The Prosecutor of the Republic, Vural Savaş, said in a televised interview shortly after the closure of the RP that they could outlaw its successor too. Indeed, Article 69 of the Constitution expressly stipulates that an outlawed party cannot be refounded under a different name. Yet the amendments made in 17 provisions of the Constitution on July 23^rd, 1995, with the influence, indeed pressure, of the United States and the EU, were of a liberal nature and did not facilitate such bans. (See the Backgrounder for details.) If these amendments had not been made, all RP parliamentarians would have lost their seats and the FP question in Parliament today would have been non-existent. In return, Turkish democracy would have been inflicted a very grave wound. It would have proved much more difficult for Turkey to claim to be a western democracy and adversely affected the country’s political and economic life today and in the future.

Offspring of the criminal not another criminal under Roman law.

Apparently mindful of these realities, President Demirel took a different attitude to the Chief Prosecutor and said about the FP that under Roman Law, which is the basis of modern legal concepts, the son of a criminal cannot be treated as a criminal.

With this outlook and liberal interpretation of Article 69, the judiciary and security forces decided to give the new FP a chance to prove that it will not be a replicate of the defunct RP, even though it is obvious that it is the offspring of the banned party. This tolerance, or rather avoidance of extremism, is also wise behaviour that prevents unnecessary tension and strife in the country.

Erbakan, apparently determined to be cautious this time, has chosen moderation in his behind the scenes management of the FP during Alptekin’s five months in charge. This moderation, however, has been causing the young dissidents’ reactions and a rift in the party. This was especially prominent when Alptekin, upon Erbakan’s instructions, refrained from resorting to activism in protest against Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s one-year prison sentence for reading a poem:

The ever-sharpening tendency in the new party to change this unknown, “mild and meak” chairman was too strong even for Erbakan to resist. Eventually he conceded to replace Alptekin with Kutan who is a school friend of Demirel, Erbakan and Özal and not an extremist by any means. With this change of leadership, however, the FP gave an opportunity to Vural Savaş and those of the same mind that the FP is a continuation of the banned RP, but by electing a moderate as the new leader it did not go as far as attracting the security forces’ suspicion about being another RP.

FP tries to prove that it is not a CC of the defunct RP

Furthermore, the new management of this Islamist party took care to show that it is different from the RP in several ways. At the “First Step Festivity” some non-RP dignitaries such as journalist Ms Nazlı Ilıcak, Prof Oya Akgönenç and Prof Nevzat Yalçıntaş were included in the 50-member central executive board. Unlike the RP rallies and gatherings, certain symbols of Islamists such as the green flag and Arabic posters were non-existent. Instead there was a big portrait of Atatürk and the Turkish flag in the conference hall. No religious prayers were allowed and slogans were carefully chosen to show the difference between the RP and the FP. For the first time in an Islamist Party, three women took part in the party’s central steering committee, but the segregation of men and women continued and the headscarves of most female participants, some of them looking like Iranian women, were there to annoy the Atatürkist majority of the Turkish electorate.

Erbakan’s message to the party was received with a standing ovation which lasted for 15-20 minutes and many participants had tears in their eyes proving that the banned leader still has the strongest grip on the management of the Islamist masses. The Mayor of Istanbul, Erdoğan, appeared as the leader of the young dissidents and was given a big round of applause when he addressed the gathering. He thereafter significantly recited a poem by the communist poet Nazım Hikmet. The conference hall was half empty when Recai Kutan took the floor to make his closing speech as the new leader.

The message given by party members was that to avoid an open rift in the party during this critical, initial period they will bury their differences until the first national convention, but will elect Tayyip Erdoğan the party chairman at the first opportunity. In the meantime, the Court of Appeal will take the final verdict about Erdoğan’s prison sentence and hopefully quash it. Otherwise, if the sentence is confirmed, Erdoğan will not be eligible to be a Member of Parliament, in accordance with Article 75 of the Constitution which may be detrimental to peace and quiet in Turkey’s political life in the following years. Past experience shows that such developments are not favoured by the public and unnecessarily create “heroes”.

Erdoğan has already started political tours of the country, going to Trabzon immediately after the “First Step Festivity”. He was heartened by this first tour and will continue canvassing in other cities and regions. The new chairman, Recai Kutan, is also starting similar tours, but his only advantage is Erbakan’s support. This support, however, is bound to be underhanded and consequently not very effective against Erdoğan’s young and powerful team of dissidents. It is possible that what happened to İsmet İnönü in 1972 when he lost the party chairmanship to Ecevit (as an interesting coincidence on May 14^th 1972) may well happen to Erbakan this time. The local and provincial congresses of the FP leading to the final national convention will, therefore, be the scene of tough strife between Erbakan and Tayyip Erdoğan. Whether the national convention will be held before the general elections is another unknown of Turkish politics at the moment and it is a critical factor in determining the shaping of politics in Turkey in the next 5-6 years.

Security forces try to curb religion in politics

At this point of time the FP may still be the biggest party after the elections, if appropriate changes are not made in the electoral system and certain political conditions. President Demirel says that a party cannot claim to be “the people” with 21% of the vote. Apparently he expects this rate to rise to 25%, but it still means 75% against. The former Secretary General of the National Security Council, retired General Doğu Bayazıt, says, “At the elections in the year 2000 the Welfare Party would come to power with 35% of the vote, and at the 2005 elections this rate would have gone up to 60%. These are official figures based on detailed calculations and projections. A mayor in İstanbul with a turban and tesbih (religious beads) in the 21^st century. There you are!”

The picture depicted by Gen. Bayazıt seems to be out of the question now, after outlawing the RP, but Turkey has to find a better alternative than closing down political parties as a remedy for such unacceptable possibilities.

It is questionable if party bans yield the desired results. The RP was successful in Istanbul, Ankara and some other big cities at the March 1994 local elections, mostly because of the migration to big cities from the East and Southeast. When DEP (the Democracy Party) was banned on June 16^th 1994 for secessionist activities these votes poured into the RP making it Turkey’s biggest party at the December 1995 general elections.

PM Mesut Yılmaz recently said, “There is no alternative to our government today. If measures are not taken by Parliament, elections may cease to be an alternative.” He did not specify “Then what?”

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