PULSE of TURKEY No 36.................SATURDAY,AUGUST 1^st  1998

YILMAZ GOVERNMENT MINUS YILMAZ UNTIL ELECTIONS?

Parliament votes for elections and takes two months recess. Attempts to bring clarity to the Yılmaz-Baykal agreement for elections bring more confusion to Baykal himself. The key issue, the nature of the 56^th Government, is to be determined at the political chess board and the Kasparov of the Turkish political chess game, Ecevit, made successful moves last week. Forthcoming elections must strengthen the hands of secular politicians and President Demirel is expected to use his influence and power for it. That means the continuation of the tripartite coalition after Yılmaz’s resignation. The only possible alternative is a wide range “election government”, but it takes two to tango. Baykal’s plans may be doomed at the outset.

The coalition parties’ leaders, Mesut Yılmaz, Bülent Ecevit and Hüsamettin Cindoruk, met on July 25^th and took a number of resolutions to bring clarity to the election date and to regulate the functioning of the Government and Parliament until the elections next April. They prepared a short Election Bill to work out the details of the elections which will be held along with local elections.

In the light of last week’s events and resolutions, the following developments are expected in Turkish politics until the elections:

• The general and local elections will be held together on April 18^th, 1999, according to the bill passed by 488 votes to 12. To overcome the difficulty of electing so many local rulers, as well as MPs (Members of Parliament) at the same time, the number of polls may be doubled from 360,000 to 720,000 and thus each ballot box will cater for up to 200 voters, instead of 400. Also, voters will vote for political parties and not individual candidates other than independents in local elections. The final figures and adjustments about the details of this decision will be determined by the High Electoral Board as the Constitution calls for.
• Now that the Election Bill has been passed (on the last day before the recess), the Ministers of Justice, the Interior and Communications will have to resign within five days, under Article 104 of the Constitution. Justice Minister Oltan Sungurlu believes that the Constitution is very explicit and that the three ministers, one of whom is he himself, should resign now. Some others, including the Chairman of the High Electoral Board, Tufan Algan, say that the election period will begin on January 4^th, 1999 and civil servants who wish to run for the elections will have to resign at that time. The same may be the case with the three ministers. The final decision on this matter will be taken by the Prime Minister soon.
• This decision does not bother the DSP as none of the three ministers concerned belong to that party. The DSP has been one of the most stable parties in Parliament during the Yılmaz Government’s 13-14 months in office, even though its seats fell to 61 from 76 since the December 1995 elections. A former Foreign Minister, Professor Mümtaz Soysal’s unexpected resignation from the party on July 29^th upset this stability a little, but no more than Aydın Güven Gürkan’s resignation from the CHP a few weeks before. Neither resignation made any significant impact on the parties concerned. Soysal has recently been so out of tune with Turkey’s realities that even his former students, who adored him as an intelligent and honest leftist intellectual, were fed up with his obstructions to privatization moves. Everyone had already come to the same conclusion when Ecevit expressly stated after his resignation, “Soysal is still living in the 30s and not in the 90s.”
• With the legislation of the Election Bill, ANAP is losing two ministers, the Interior and Justice, and there may be a small reshuffle in that flank of the coalition. But as one of the favourites of the forthcoming elections there is no danger of an upheaval or disturbance at the ANAP caucus before or after Mesut Yılmaz’s resignation.
• The really weak point of the coalition is the smallest partner, the DTP. It is under constant attack by the DYP, but with the adherence of an independent MP it recently consolidated its shaky position a little against the danger of losing the parliamentary caucus with a single resignation. Now that it has 21 seats, at least two resignations are necessary for the DTP’s losing its voice and significance in Parliament.
• Despite this improvement, however, the DTP continues to be the weak side of the coalition as its MPs are making calculations about their future in the elections which are round the corner now. They are aware of the fact that they may not be able to pass the 10% baraj (barrier) in the elections. A way of saving the party from this fate is an alliance with ANAP or another party at the elections. However, an amendment to the Election Law is required and there is no such thing in the newly legislated bill. The DTP may follow in the BBP’s footsteps: in 1995 the BBP reached a consensus with ANAP, cancelled itself out before the elections and revived itself as a separate party afterwards with the eight seats they gained from the ANAP’s election list. Will the DTP do the same? Will it just disintegrate and members join other parties, mostly ANAP and the DYP, or will it be able to preserve its existence? Only time will show. The election decision has also activated independents and they may also seek places in political parties. Whatever the outcome of this reshuffle in Parliament is, it hardly jeopardizes the future of the Government, because even if the DTP has to leave the coalition it will support the Government like the CHP.
• At the three party leaders’ meeting on July 25^th PM Yılmaz suggested cooperation at the mayoral elections by supporting one another’s candidates in big cities and refraining from having their own candidates according to a plan, but it is still at the development stage. A two-stage election of mayors (ie electing a mayor with over 50% votes and running the election between the top two contestants in the second stage failing to get 50% at the first round) would have facilitated these arrangements, but even though such a bill passed through the committees, the CHP is not supporting it on the House floor. As for the FP and the DYP they are dead against it. The three coalition parties will, therefore, have to make other arrangements to prevent the recurrence of religious politicians from becoming mayors in Ankara, İstanbul and some other big cities, and that is the alternative Yılmaz, Ecevit and Cindoruk are now considering. It is also a factor preventing the disintegration of the DTP caucus before the elections. DYP rulers are still outspoken about big adherences to their party from other parties, primarily the DTP. The 9-month period until the elections will pass in Turkey’s political chess game with the opposition’s attacks on the coalition from its soft belly, the DTP, and the coalition’s moves to counter them.
• The key factor in this struggle is whether or not the Yılmaz Government will be able to survive until the elections. The answer to this question seems to be self-evident. PM Mesut Yılmaz has committed himself to resign at the end of the year and he says he will keep his promise to the letter. By the beginning of January Yılmaz will resign. Under the Constitution, when the Prime Minister resigns, the Government also falls. So, the 55^th Government of the Turkish Republic, the present Mesut Yılmaz Government, is sure to end in January. It would not at all be right for the President to re-designate Yılmaz as Prime Minister and Yılmaz could not possibly accept it, in view of his agreement with Deniz Baykal. In other words, the 56^th government cannot possibly be another Yılmaz Government.
• The President will either designate an independent as the PM, and there seems no suitable name at the moment other than a former Foreign Minister, Emre Gönensay, or the present Minister of Industry, Yalım Erez. There is also talk of Kaya Erdem or the Speaker Hikmet Çetin through their resignations from their parties, but that is not at all likely either. Even Erdem says he will retire from politics at the end of this term, and besides he is in the Özal family’s and ANAP’s bad books. Hikmet Çetin did not at all facilitate the Government’s task to make Parliament operate faster in this critical period by not opening the new conference hall. It would have cut down the roll call period greatly and enable Parliament to pass more bills. As a CHP member Çetin soft-pedalled this issue and lost the coalition parties’ trust. All these factors diminish the chances of Baykal’s intention of having an “election government under an independent.”
• The President has also been saying that in the Constitution there is no such thing as an election government under an independent MP, as Baykal wants. His most likely choice for the next prime minister will be a party member, and close scrutiny of the conditions shows that he does not have all that much freedom to do so.
• The most likely alternative to the present Mesut Yılmaz Government is a replicate of it, minus Mesut Yılmaz. The CHP may be invited to join in, but it cannot possibly accept, because it would then have nothing to say to the people during election canvassing.
• The Kasparov of the Turkish political chess game, Bülent Ecevit, has recently manuoeuvred in such a way that he will push his arch-enemy, Deniz Baykal, into a corner, if all goes well, and the 56^th Government will become a replicate of the 55^th.
• Naturally it would bring about the big question: who will become the Prime Minister and why should the President stick his neck out by designating a replicate of a resigned Government? The answer is simple: the President does not have any other choice than designating the Hajı-Bajı team or this coalition under the existing structure of Parliament. The former being impossible, the latter will be the case, unless the present coalition partners agree to Baykal's “low profile election government under an independent”. Ecevit has already said that he would not allow half a year to be wasted with such a government and Mesut Yılmaz makes it apparent that his commitments to Baykal do not go that far.
• The President will come under fire from the Hajı-Bajı team if he designates a replicate of the Yılmaz Government before the elections, but it is not very important as he does not have to be neutral or impartial when it comes to defending the constitutional order and secularism and the Hajı-Bajı team’s record is obvious.
• More important than these bigger parties’ opposition to that arrangement is the CHP’s stance as it does not come under the category of “political religion”. Far from it, the CHP is a force fighting religious exploitations in politics. Baykal’s potential opposition carries more weight than Çiller’s or Kutan’s, but not enough to change the course of events.
• A recent case in point was the opposition’s broadside against the Government’s alloting, without any payment, vast lands in İzmit to the Ford-Koç partnership to build a car factory there. The opposition brought it up with Parliament in a censure motion which is one of the constitutional instruments to topple a government. If the CHP had given its full support to the opposition the Yılmaz Government could have been unseated, but it paid lip service to it and the danger of a vote of no confidence was averted. President Demirel put down his weight and said he would allot the presidential quarters in Çankaya for this project, if need be. The Secretary-General of the CHP, Adnan Keskin, came up with one of his “keskin” (means “sharp” in Turkish) remarks against President Demirel, but it simply flopped. No one took any notice of him.
• Deniz Baykal will definitely oppose a replicate of the 55^th government for the new government in the new year to lead Turkey to the elections and this time he is sure to go as far as denying it the vote of confidence, in which case the Government will fall. Then what will happen?
• That is the secret of the master move in this chess game. The fall of the Government would activate Articles 116 of the Constitution which means that at the lapse of 45 days the President may designate a temporary government until the elections. Under Article 114, such a temporary government would not need the vote of confidence from Parliament. The President has constitutional weapons to use his discretion in favour of the present government or the Baykal formula. If he is in favour of the Baykal formula he has to wait for at least 45 days from the vote of no confidence, and there is simply no time until the April 18^th elections.
• The Turkish political chess game is in for a lot more surprising moves and counter-moves before the final checkmate. It is to be hoped that honest politicians and the secular front will win this game. If the President does not use his discretion for the best, the worst result may be obtained - a stalemate, ie the recurrence of the present conditions in the new Parliament. President Demirel has enough skill and experience to avoid such a result for Turkey on the eve of the new century. Besides, what can he do if his Prime Minister designate offers to have a national coalition of all the parties and the ruling trio of today rejects to join in? Will the President hand the power to a prime minister supported by only Hajı-Bajı and Baykal? Impossible. The present Yılmaz Government’s alternative after his resignation is its replicate without Mesut Yılmaz. uras@ada.net.tr, August 1^st, 1998

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