The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers." For quoting this verse from an early 20th century nationalist poem, Recep Tayyip Erdogan was sentenced to 10 months in jail and thrown out of political office. The special court that tried him in 1988 decided that this poem incited hatred on religious grounds and offended national sensibilities - two grave offenses that have always stood political rivals in good stead.
Erdogan, 48, the son of a lifeguard from the city of Rize on Turkey’s Black Sea coast, who started out as a lemonade vendor in the poor neighborhoods of Istanbul, became mayor of Istanbul in 1994, and was forced to resign after standing trial, now constitutes a threat to Turkish politics.
Erdogan’s party may become the rallying point not only for Turkish supporters of the Islamic movement but also for those hit hardest by the economic crisis. Millions of unemployed Turks living in low-income neighborhoods and Kurds from Turkey’s southeastern provinces are the power base for this new religious party.
Last year, Erdogan founded the Justice and Development party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi), whose Turkish initials - AK - mean whiteness or purity. This party arose from the ashes of the Islamist Welfare party (WP) headed by former Turkish prime minister Necmettin Erbakan, who was forced out by the army in 1997 and banned from politics.
In preparation for Sunday’s elections, pushed up due to the ill health and ineptitude of the current prime minister, Bulent Ecevit, Erdogan has tried to camouflage the pro-Islamic character of his party and present an economic platform that makes AK almost indistinguishable from the parties running alongside it. He is in favor of joining the European Union, opposes withdrawal from NATO and has taken no definite stand on the planned war on Iraq. Asked whether his wife would wear a headscarf at public functions, contravening Turkish law, Erdogan replied: “I won’t take her along.”
But this mantle in which Erdogan is trying to cloak his party does not reassure the military leadership and National Security Council, who are officially responsible for safeguarding the secular character of the state. A pro-Islamic prime minister directly contravenes the ideology of Kemal Ataturk and the Turkish constitution. Even if he begins his term of office as a liberal prime minister, say the generals, there is no guarantee that his actions later on will not turn Turkish policy pan-Islamic.
Last week, the army made up its mind to take preventive measures to keep Erdogan out of the prime minister’s seat. The Turkish attorney general indicted Erdogan and his party for defying a court order to dissolve the party. In violation of a ruling handed down by the courts, he has declared himself head of the party. But according to Turkish law, a person who is disqualified from serving as a founding member of a party cannot assume leadership of the party because technically, the party leader must be a founding member.
Erdogan is also being targeted outside the courthouse. Tapes from 1992 in which Erdogan allegedly voices support for the Taliban and accuses the army of lacking sufficient training to fight the terror tactics of the Kurdistan Workers party (PKK), have been distributed to the Turkish media by “anonymous sources.” The Turkish defense minister has compared him to Jean-Marie Le Pen, the leader of the radical right in France.
All this is an attempt to diminish the broad support predicted for the Justice and Development party. The results of public opinion surveys, which are allowed to be used in political forecasts for the first time this year, show that this party is likely to win 25-30 percent of the vote. At the moment, this is a percentage that many other parties in the race can only dream about as they fight to cross the high electoral threshold - 10 percent - that will get them into the Turkish parliament.
The army figures that the threat hanging over Erdogan’s political future will make his supporters think twice before giving him their vote, and encourage them to cast their ballot for a party that is not in danger of being shut down. Turkish political pundits are hesitant to comment on the validity of this approach. “Turks like to vote for the underdog,” says a commentator from Ankara. “On top of that, they have good reason not to vote for the traditional parties. All the poverty, inflation, economic troubles, corruption and political infighting during the short time the current coalition was in office may get them to shift their vote to Erdogan or some other party that didn’t make it into parliament in the 1999 elections.”
One of these parties is the social-democratic Republican People’s party (CHP), which fell short of the required votes in the previous elections. Two months ago, former finance minister Kemal Dervis resigned from the Ecevit government and joined the CHP, giving it a major boost. Dervis is Turkey’s “Mr. Economy” - a former World Bank executive and architect of Turkey’s financial aid agreement with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Ali Carkoglu of Sabanci University in Istanbul says that for the Turkish voter, the economic situation is more of a determining factor than politics. If he is right, Dervis may turn out to be an important electoral asset. The surveys which give his party 12-15 percent of the vote are already evidence of this. Moreover, his party has not been tainted by the sins of the outgoing administration. Carkoglu also points out that at least 20 percent of Turkish voters cast their ballot for a different party each time they go to the polls. Theoretically, this could also help the Republican party.
When it comes to new candidates that entice voters to come out to the polling booths, the surveys predict even greater success for the flamboyant Cem Uzan and his Young Party (YP), which is currently a party of one. Uzan’s family hails from Sarajevo, where the father established a successful building company in the 1950s. The family’s friendship with former Turkish president (and prime minister) Turgut Ozal helped it win building contracts and electricity concessions. Today, the three Uzan brothers manage over 130 companies owned by the family.
Cem Uzan is the owner of three television corporations, a radio station and the Telsim cell phone company, which allegedly owes Motorola over $2 billion. Uzan’s assets, valued at around $2.5 billion, include a luxury duplex at the Trump Towers in New York, for which he paid $40 million.
Uzan’s past is studded with court battles. He has been accused of various legal offenses, mismanaging a bank he owned and not repaying his debts to Motorola - an affair in which even the president of the United States has taken an interest. None of this has kept his many supporters from attending his campaign conventions and listening to his dream for the people of Turkey if he becomes prime minister.
Uzan is promising a gift of 200 sq.m. of state land to every family, the cancellation of VAT on food products, cheap 30-year state loans, elementary and high school textbooks provided by the state, and an overall cut in taxes. Meanwhile, those who come to hear him on the campaign stump get a free meal.
Uzan is not the only one who uses such gimmicks. Tansu Ciller of the True Path party (DYP), who is also expected to cross the parliamentary threshold, is promising a tractor to every farmer, along with a reduction in taxes.
Devlet Bahceli’s Nationalist Action party, on the other hand, offers principles rather than benefits. This party, representing the conservative and radical right, waves the banner of Turkish nationalism, which means not chasing after Europe, opposing the conditions imposed by the World Bank, standing firm against the rising tide of Islam, and fighting Kurdish terror with all the strength Turkey can muster.
On the eve of the elections, two issues stand out: No one is saying that Bulent Ecevit or his party stand a good chance of getting into parliament, much less winning a second term; and no party, including Erdogan’s, is expected to win an absolute majority that will enable it to form a government without a coalition.
There is nothing particularly new here from the standpoint of Turkish politics, but then again, the elections in Turkey almost always contain some surprise. No one, for example, expected that the ultra-right-wing Nationalist Action party would win 81 percent of the vote in the last elections, just as no one foresaw the resounding victory of the Islamists in the municipal elections in 1994 or the Republican party’s failure to cross the parliamentary threshold in 1999. “It’s not over until all the numbers are called,” says a Turkish journalist. “We’re like the lottery.”
The outcome of the elections is only the first stage in the political process. Erdogan’s pro-Islamist party is frowned upon as a violation of human rights. “But if Erdogan is elected prime minister, will the EU be willing to accept a country headed by a pro-Islamist?” asks a Turkish government official. “Europe is all for human rights, but it doesn’t want a Muslim country. It will be only too happy to see Erdogan win, because then it can kick Turkey off the list of applicants without a word.”
Washington has other worries. The war on Iraq will require Turkey’s full cooperation. An Islamist politician may not support the war effort or take a stand-offish approach like that of France and Germany.