The many battles for Turkey’s soul, by Andrew Finkel
December 22, 2007 5:07 pm TurkeyTurkey’s elections this summer have put both presidency and government into the hands of the post-Islamist AKP. The secularist old guard fears this unprecedented concentration of power and the idea that the AKP, which has handled economic difficulties gallantly, has become the natural party of government
By Andrew Finkel
Bill Clinton certainly never said: “It’s the future of the republic, stupid.” He only mentioned the economy. Yet many pundits were convinced that it wasn’t the Turkish economy that concerned voters during this politically hot summer, but the nature of its regime. More than one publication called the 22 July general election “the battle for Turkey’s soul”, although what was at stake, who represented God and who the Devil, was often left vague. Did the contest pit Islamists against secularists, democrats against autocrats, pro-Europeans against old-style nationalists, globalisers against protectionists, a new against an old elite, civil society against the military/bureaucratic guardians of the state, all or none of the above?
On the surface at least, Turks went to the poll a few months ahead of schedule because parliament was unable to carry out its constitutional obligation to elect a new president (1). This failure was all the more unexpected because the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) had more than enough MPs. Up to the actual contest the question was not whether it could choose a president, but what name the party’s inner cabal would put forward. The real suspense had been over whether the prime minister, Tayyip Erdogan, would abandon his party for the presidential office or whether he would choose someone who would not irritate the sensitivities of Turkish establishment – someone whose wife did not wear the hijab.
In the end Erdogan went for broke. He stayed on as prime minister but nominated his closest political ally, foreign minister Abdullah Gul (whose wife does wear the hijab). Gul is important not just as the man who brokered the start of Turkish accession negotiations to the EU in 2005, but as the long-term architect of the AKP’s bid for the centre ground of Turkish politics. He helped lead the split from the more openly Islamic movement founded by Necmettin Erbakan, in whose government he had been a minister. And when the AKP swept into power in 2002, he became prime minister. In a rare act of political fealty, he kept the seat warm long enough for the more charismatic Erdogan to surmount his legal ban from politics, enter parliament at a by-election and take the job himself.
The AKP’s strategy since its inception has been simple. The party avoided mention of religion so as not to offend the constitution or Turkey’s secular elite. At the same time, it nodded at the conservative inclinations of its supporters. The body language said “trust us, we’re on your side”. The right to be more open about religion in public life was redefined as part of a more general struggle to make Turkey more fully democratic; and this prompted suspicions that for many AKP supporters, their own rights were more important than human rights in general. Even so, the rhetoric meant the AKP was less prone to Turkish nationalism and generally more tolerant of those who sought other rights, including the right to be Kurdish.