ANKARA, 30 September 2003 — Turkey yesterday faced political uncertainty — and the possibility of a new general election — after the appeals court confirmed that a pro-Kurdish party committed fraud in last year’s poll. The ruling cast doubt on the overall results of the Nov. 3 vote and the legitimacy of the Parliament it produced.
The court upheld jail terms of 23 months handed down to each of the four former leaders of the Democratic People’s Party (DEHAP) on charges of providing false statements during the registration of the party for the election. The ruling effectively means DEHAP candidates should have been barred from the election.
DEHAP failed to win any parliamentary seats, but its participation affected the standing of other parties and the distribution of parliamentary seats.
Electoral authorities now face a decision unprecedented in Turkish politics. They must decide between confirming the election results, redistributing parliamentary seats or calling new elections.
The legal jumble comes at a time when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government is grappling with the problem of whether to send Turkish peacekeepers to neighboring Iraq. It is also under pressure to enact crucial economic and political reforms to advance Turkey’s bid to join the European Union.
Erdogan’s governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) put a brave face after the ruling, playing down the prospect of new elections or a redistribution of seats in the 550-member Parliament, where it holds a majority of 367 seats.
“I believe the electoral board will reject any objections to the election results,” AKP deputy chairman Mehmet Dengir Mir Firat said, arguing that the legal period to contest the vote results had long expired.
Justice Minister Cemil Cicek, however, said his party was strong enough to win any election, but warned that new polls could drag Turkey into chaos at a time when it has just started to emerge from a severe economic recession.
Some experts argued, however, that the Parliament has lost its legitimacy. “The Turkish Parliament should take a decision (in favor of new elections) in order to eradicate the shadow of illegitimacy that has been cast on it today. It is not possible for it to go on like this,” said Tarhan Erdem, a leading political pundit.
Turkish law requires a party to have opened offices in at least 41 of Turkey’s 81 provinces at least six months prior to a poll to be able to field candidates.
The prosecution charged that DEHAP told authorities it had offices in 63 provinces when in fact it had fully organized in only six.
DEHAP, which gets most of its support from the Kurdish southeast, received 6.2 percent of the vote, well below the 10-percent national threshold required to enter the legislature. If the nearly two million votes that DEHAP won were declared invalid, the number of votes required to overcome the threshold would effectively be lowered for other parties.
The main beneficiary would be the center-right True Path Party (DYP), which won 9.5 percent of the vote in November. The party could claim some 66 seats currently held by the AKP and main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), according to experts here.
DEHAP described yesterday’s ruling as politically motivated and vowed to lodge a complaint at the European Court of Human Rights. The party is now left with only one — highly unlikely — venue of appeal to try to reverse the sentences.
