Turks vote today for a new Parliament. If the opinion polls are right, the present AKP government of Tayyip Erdogan will win a second term with an increased share of the vote. However, because of proportional representation and an increase in minor party candidates, it may be that the right-of-center Islamist AKP may actually gain fewer seats. This is arguably Turkey’s most important election in the almost 30 years since voters chose the free-market Motherland Party of Turgut Ozal. This is because the election campaign and the angry confrontations that led up to it have seemed to polarize society into secularists and Islamists. This is both a flawed and dangerous development.
Erdogan is accused of planning to turn Turkey into a theocratic state and abandoning the secularist constitution of the republic established by the still widely revered Kemal Ataturk. His two foiled attempts to have Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul chosen by Parliament as the next president are being characterized as a key plank in that transformation. His subsequent idea to change the constitution, so that among other things the people may elect the president, is seen as further evidence of a dark conspiracy.
But the real evidence lies in the AKP government’s record, which includes adroit economic management, falling inflation, growing prosperity and a general lack of the corruption that disfigured the past governments of rivals. If the Erdogan government’s Islamic principles have led to these achievements, the majority of Turks is going to give it credit and once again vote for it.
Only a minority seems persuaded that the republic is in mortal danger. Nevertheless this minority, together with an perhaps uneasy alliance of left-wing liberals and the Turkish military, which considers itself the privileged guardian of the Kemalist legacy, has the power to cause considerable harm if it protests a second win by the AKP. It would be entirely wrong for the losing minority to embark upon a campaign that seeks to sabotage the decision of the majority of Turks. The liberals and the military would not stand for it if the Islamists were to protest in the event of an AKP defeat. No more should they themselves reject the voice of the people.
If as seems likely the AKP does not secure the necessary parliamentary majority, the question of the new president can only be decided by compromise. The current bitter confrontation between those who imagine they are protecting the Ataturk inheritance and the AKP cannot continue indefinitely. Turkey has to have a workable government and a president whose powers are limited and role largely ceremonial. The stability and the economic achievements of the past four years will be undermined if it does not.
It must be wondered what Ataturk himself would have made of this present crisis. When he decided that Turkey needed a political opposition, he charged his friend Inonu with forming one. There was general disbelief and a marked reluctance on the part of many whom Inonu approached to become opposition MPs and to criticize the government that Ataturk created. He might think that the Turks still have a hazy understanding of parliamentary democracy.
