Mr. Cengiz Çandar, November 6, 2002
Turkish officials, the Turkish state, has no confidence in its citizens. For example, every Turkish citizen who voted three days ago has a black fingerprint, to prevent him from voting more than once. Our state does not trust us, does not have any confidence in its citizens. In turn, the citizens did not have any trust in the state’s political system, a matter which directly correlates with the election results.
The Turkish people - with its black fingers, in an overwhelming majority - voted for the Justice and Development Party, known by the acronym AK, which means the "white", i.e. “pure” party:, hence, black fingers brought the white party to power in a sweeping victory! The consequences are extremely significant. 90 per cent of the members of parliament have been replaced, marking a breakthrough in the history of Turkey's parliamentary system. Not even in 1950, which ended the single-party rule in Turkey, was the ratio of new members to veteran MPs so high; nor in 1965, which brought Süleyman Demirel to power, following the tragic military coup d’etat in 1960 which resulted in the hanging of Turkey's prime minister, minister of foreign affairs and minister of finance following mock trials. The negative response of the people carried the former governing party’s successor to victory, even though its leadership was in prison, and its three top former leaders had been executed. Even then, the change in the parliament was not to the current extent. Nor was that the case in the sweeping electoral victory of Turgut Özal in 1983 - again following a military coup d'etat.
So if we draw a historical line through the last half-century, we find several leaders of single-party governments that were elevated to power after sweeping election victories. Adnan Menderes in the 1950s, Süleyman Demirel in the 1960s, when he really left his stamp on Turkish politics; and Turgut Özal in the 1980s. Now, in 2002, we have Tayyip Erdoğan. The difference is that Erdoğan was banned from running in elections. His predecessors, mentioned above, became prime ministers, and without having to form coalition governments (which were not very functional, as Turkish history has shown).
Erdoğan was finally banned only a month before the elections, in an act by a highly politicized judiciary. But still, on paper, legally, he was banned and all the Turkish electorate knew that this man was banned, that he couldn’t run for parliament, therefore making him constitutionally ineligible to be prime minister. Still, we have this election result: the people voted knowing that the leader of this party could not form the government. They elevated this party to the pinnacle of power while removing from parliament nearly every party represented in the parliament during the last half century, and that had ruled Turkey until now. Turkey’s voters thus essentially rejected the ban on Erdoğan. The President of the Republic has invited Erdoğan to come and see him to discuss and decide on the appointee to the post of prime minister. This is in effect an acknowledgment, or recognition of his political leadership by the head of the Turkish establishment. It is recognition of the popular vote; although this man will not be able to form the government, he has to be consulted in order to have a prime minister in Turkey.
Regarding the opposition party: In 1946 we had a two-party parliament, when power was transferred from the single-party rule of the Republican People's Party to an elected republican people's party rule under the late Ismet Inönü. It hasn’t happened since. Turks always complained about too many parties and too many seats in the parliament in a way that compelled the system to have coalitions and in effect led to bad government. Now we have two parties, like the most efficient system of the world, the American system. And the leader of the Opposition party, , the Republican People's Party, Deniz Baykal, from the very first hours of the election results was very supportive of Tayyip Erdoğan and now they are having a kind of a honeymoon; they are talking about going together to Europe, to get a date for Turkey's accession negotiations to start at the Copenhagen summit in December, in a month from now.
The election results possess an anti-interventionist aspect, with clear implications for the military. The story of the military’s periodic intervention in political life is well known: in 1960, as mentioned earlier, the first military coup took place with, very tragic result. In 1965, the ill-fated, banned Democratic Party produced a successor party, the Justice Party: its candidates were sisters, brothers, fathers, wives, and husbands of the deputies who were in prison. Chaired by Süleyman Demirel, it attained an overwhelming electoral victory, only five years after the coup d'etat and only four years after the execution of the Prime Minister and some other ministers. In 1983, we had the first elections after the 1980 military coup d'etat. At that time military rule was brazen, in which the the National Security Council, composed of the commanders of the naval, air and land forces and the chief-of-staff, decided to hold elections, but allowed only two parties run. A third contender came up, founded by Turgut Özal, a former bureaucrat, so they let him run so as to give a democratic image to the system, so there would be two and a half parties.
Only 48 hours before the elections, the leader of the military regime, the head of state, Gen. Kenan Evran, asked the people not to vote for Turgut Özal and his party. Nonetheless, Özal and his party won in a landslide, and subsequently ruled without partners for nearly 10 years. The current government, then, will mark the third episode of single-party rule, brought about, as before, by a massive expression of popular will, through the ballot box.. Modern Turkey is the heir to the Ottoman empire, a Sunni Islamic empire. It doesn’t possess the culture of social unrest, class struggle, rebellion, civil war and these kinds of expressions of dissent. At the same time, the people display their rebellious attitude and dissent, on occasion, at the ballot box.
So one must appreciate the real magnitude of what just took place. It's not a matter of how many people voted and how many did not vote, or that signifies and if there is a real popular force behind Erdoğan. In substance, what has happened can be characterized as a great popular movement at a specific moment in time, in which the Turkish people indicated its desire for renewal and change, and also liquidated a whole political class and an entire political generation. Those political personalities that have been utterly defeated include Najbar Tinarbatan, the symbol of Turkey's political Islamic movement. Therefore these election results cannot be interpreted as an Islamist reaction to the status quo or the established order. The outcome is much broader than that, including of course the Islamic rage or outrage, but the results cannot be confined to this. Nor is it proper to speak of an upsurge of political Islam. Because among those "annihilated" include Tinarbatan. The opposition party, the so-called secularist Republican People's Party, achieved gains only because it wasn’t in the previous parliament. Otherwise, it is very representative of the old political class or generation that has been wiped out by the Turkish public. The party, then is waiting its turn to be wiped out in the next elections. But at the same time, there is no Catholic wedding between the Turkish public and anybody that they elect. Therefore, the AK party of Mr. Erdoğan's was elected as an instrument to liquidate the current political class and political generation, not because they represent a program to mobilize the Turkish people for the promises or pledges that their program presents. Look how drastic the situation is: outgoing Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit’s party received, in April 1999, 22.2% of the vote; in the latest elections, Ecevit’s party received 1.2 per cent, and a breakaway faction of the ex-foreign minister, Ismail Cem received 1.1 per cent.
The country’s grave economic crisis aggravated the political situation. Those people who in the minds of the public were responsible have been penalized, and it is very democratic in that sense. In democracy you pay for what you have done, and they paid for it and it's good that the Turkish people punish leaders for bad governments and economic ills.
In sum, what took place in Turkey was a public revolt of the Turkish people through the ballot box.
Regarding the question of Erdoğan’s sincerity in eschewing his Islamist past: we do not know whether he wears a mask or not, but most of Turkish society gave him the benefit of the doubt. Not all of those who voted for him were motivated by political Islam. According to well-founded estimates, 75% of the people who voted for the Islamist Welfare Party in 1997 voted for AK, amounting to 29% of the votes that it AK received. In other words, the Islamist component was less than one-third of the total AK vote; therefore we can deduce that the two-thirds of the vote that AK received in these elections are so-called non-politically Islamist votes. Erdoğan received a token benefit of the doubt, and his performance will be watched by the people. In addition, many of those elected do not come from a politically Islamist background. Most probably, some lessons from the last decade were also learned by the party leadership. So for now, the indications are such that they will not provoke any friction with the military or with the pillars of the system – namely secularism, the life-styles and basic tenets of the Republic. By evolution, this party might survive with an identity of a centrist party, a liberal conservative party, and these are the clichés that they want to be used. Erdoğan himself is furious when any western journalist starts addressing questions to him as an Islamist, or refers to "your party, an Islamist party" . He interrupts them to say: "We are not an Islamist party. I am a Muslim but our party is not Islamist. Call us something else but not Islamist. Therefore, by evolution, this party can survive, it can identify itself and not be characterized as an Islamist party. To be sure, there is a strong Islamist component in the party represented, in part, by Erdoğan himself: a result, in part, of his political education, but also his education per se, namely, the schools that he attended which gave him an Islamist background.
In any case, if Turkey under Erdoğan’s party can prove the compatibility of Islamic politics in the democratic system, then it can serve as a role model for the Islamic world and prevent a clash of civilizations in a very wide political area.