By Bernard Kennedy
Turkey’s chief prosecutor has accused the ruling party of Islamism and called for its closure. Not a disaster for the party but a setback, it would seem
The Istanbul Stock Exchange National-100 index took a 7.5% tumble on March 17, the first day of trading after the high court chief prosecutor filed a suit with the Constitutional Court for the closure of the ruling Justice & Development Party (AKP). The prosecutor accuses the party of becoming a focus of anti-constitutional – specifically Islamist – activity. And although the Bear Stearns crash may have been just as much to blame for the March 17 sell-off, the case looks set to go on depressing investor sentiment for many months to come.
The court has closed two major Islamist parties in recent years, and secularists retain a clear majority on the bench. In the event of closure, AKP members of parliament named in the indictment, including prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, could lose their seats. Deputies elected on the AKP ticket would still enjoy a parliamentary majority, but a new government might have to be formed under a caretaker premier. Meanwhile, the slow-moving EU accession process could suffer further delays.
Alternative sanctions?
The indictment is a roster of statements and incidents which have stoked fears that state and public affairs are increasingly governed by religion. Topping the list is February’s parliamentary vote to allow female university students to wear headscarves in class. The constitutionality of this legislation is the subject of a separate Constitutional Court case.
Former speaker of parliament Uluc Gurkan says that the AKP pays “lip service” to secularism while acting counter to it. “If you ask any AKP leader, ‘Who rules – God or the people?’ the answer will be ‘God’.” Deploring the US Greater Middle East project and the concept of moderate Islam, he sees secularism as the precondition for democracy in any Muslim country.
Nevertheless, Gurkan doubts whether the court can remain oblivious to the strong criticisms of the case voiced by US and EU spokespersons. Since the Welfare and Virtue parties were closed down in 1998 and 2001 respectively, he points out, the Constitution has been changed, providing for alternative sanctions such as depriving the party of Treasury funding and/or banning only some individuals from political activity. The ex-speaker believes the case will drag on for up to a year – well beyond the seven-month period hinted at by chief justice Hasim Kilic.
AKP response
In its defence, submitted to the court at the end of April, the AKP underlines that it has never backed violence. Erdogan insists that he does not believe his party will be closed. He has delayed attempts to change the Constitution – requiring opposition support and/or a referendum – in such a way as to make party closures more difficult. Instead, the AKP appears to have warned its supporters against anti-secular rhetoric and courted the EU by pushing through parliament long-awaited amendments to Article 301 of the Penal Code, which limits freedom of speech. However, international and business sympathy for the AKP has been tempered somewhat by arrests of secularist intellectuals, police violence in Istanbul on May 1 and the provision of state bank credits for the purchase of the ATV/Sabah media group by a company close to the government.
Majority assured
“What we know for sure is that if the party is closed it will still have close to 300 members in [the 550-seat] parliament,” says professor Metin Heper, dean of the faculty of economic, administrative and social sciences at Ankara’s Bilkent University, and author of numerous works on Turkish politics. He speculates that an interim government might also receive the support of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the second-largest opposition party. And if the successor party which Erdogan’s followers are expected to form in the event of closure were to plump for an early general election, he predicts that it would romp home – perhaps by an even larger majority than the 47% by which the AKP was re-elected in July 2007.
According to Heper, the vast majority of Turks have no problems with the 85-year-old secular republic. “People do not vote for a party because it is Islam-oriented; they consider whether the government which that party forms will improve the economy... They would never cast their votes for radical Islam.”
Army sidelined
The professor lambasts the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and other secularists for “thinking they have the right to tell people what kind of lifestyle they should live and how they should observe their religion”. He does not expect any intervention by the strongly-secularist armed forces, which staged coups in 1960, 1971 and 1980, and helped to unseat an Islamist-led government in 1997. “A strong army needs a strong economy,” he argues, suggesting that criticisms voiced by top commanders may be intended to defuse dissent among the officer corps. The general staff has been relatively silent since failing to prevent the AKP from electing its own candidate, Abdullah Gul, as president of the republic last summer.
Local election test
Neither Gurkan nor Heper are convinced by indications of a possible split between AKP moderates or hard liners. Neither sees any prospect of the CHP increasing its 21% support while its veteran, recently re-elected leader Deniz Baykal remains at the helm. In the absence of a more serious deterioration in the economy, local government elections due in March 2009 could thus see the AKP, or its successor party, topple CHP strongholds such as Izmir and wrest control of key cities in the mainly Kurdish-populated south-east from the Kurdish nationalist Democratic Society Party (DTP). The DTP, the fourth largest party in parliament, is itself facing a closure case for activities contrary to national integrity. Poisoning the atmosphere, the violent Kurdish nationalist PKK organization continues to inflict casualties on the security forces in the region, and the Turkish military has repeatedly attacked PKK bases in northern Iraq.