Lessons Learned from the Election Results
These fears, along with issues concerning territorial disintegration, were central to the election campaign of the CHP and MHP. All such fears have risen significantly from 2004 to the present, and have contributed to and, in some cases, have strengthened ultranationalist sentiments.
AKP vows to keep on the Westward track
The new Prime Minister of Turkey and former mayor of Istanbul, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, had tried to diffuse the fears of all three groups-the secularists, the Kurds and theTurkish nationalists-both during the campaign and while addressing the nation on television by distancing himself from any type of extreme views by constantly displaying gestures of reconciliation and responsible leadership. He vowed to promote pro-Western, business friendly ideals and promised to work for peace while remaining ready for any contingency operation to protect the motherland.
Two unresolved questions: Presidency and Iraq
Despite these promises, this election leaves two critical questions unresolved. Firstly, the question of electing a president. It is difficult to predict what would occur if the AKP pushed hard to capture the presidency and faced the same resistance that it had experienced the previous May when Mr. Gul, the then Minister of Foreign Affairs, was selected as a candidate. The AKP does not have the two-thirds majority required to elect a president and to pass a constitutional amendment. Although the AKP won more popular votes-47 percent of total votes-than in 2002, the AKP actually lost seats because the parties in opposition were able to capture the crucial 10 percent needed to be represented in the legislature.
The office of the presidency is largely symbolic, yet it is important. The President has powers of appointment in those areas that are considered the pillars of Turkey's secular democracy: the military general staff, the president of Higher Education Council, the chiefs of several oversight institutions, the high court judges, and the upper tiers of the state bureaucracy. In addition to this, the President also has veto power; by exercising this veto he could easily check the legislature. In the past, Mr. Sezer has vetoed many bills passed by the AKP government on the ground that they contradicted the constitution and the principles of the republic.
Second is the question of military intervention that Turkey has considered staging in northern Iraq. This intervention, which entails crossing the border of the two countries, would be undertaken in order to root out members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). This planned operation was postponed until after the elections. Before the election, as quoted in Today Zaman, 11.07.2007, Prime Minister Erdoğan stated that "...the possibility of getting parliamentary approval for an operation is not on our agenda right now." At the same time, however, he made statements declaring the government's readiness and promised full support for the military's demand for authorization for the aforementioned intervention.
In his July 9, 2007 night remarks, Prime Minister Erdoğan said that seeking parliamentary approval for a military operation was not on the agenda. However, he said the government was ready to take the necessary action without hesitation if that would be needed, "...Not now. We have 12 days until the elections, and we don't have seeking parliamentary approval on our agenda in these 12 days." (Today Zaman, 11.07.2007). In saying this, Erdogan demonstrated the willingness of the government to crush the PKK. At the same time, he diffused the fears in the Southeast region, something I observed during my trip to Diyarbakir in mid-June, where people had deep anxiety over any warlike situation created by a cross-border operation. They seemed to seek peace and stability rather than fighting. This is why Erdogan gathered large support from the Southeast and East Anatolian electorate when he showed courage in not hastily pushing military operations due to pressure.
Still, the cross-border operation will doubtlessly be on the agenda and the opposition parties, including the MHP and CHP, could create pressure on the government to support a military action against the PKK bases in Northern Iraq.
The profile of the electorate voting the AKP
The pro-Islamic AKP obtained the votes of a large, diversified segment of the society: the urban poor, the religiously conservative provincial middle classes, the Kurds (who are divided along Islamic vs. Kurdish nationalist sentiments), the newly urbanized middle classes, the newly urbanized religiously conservative business elite, and a small segment of secular big business.
A closer look at the profile of the AKP supporters shows that the religiously conservative business elite and the newly urbanized middle classes, which are competing with the established elite for credit, position and power, have been supporting the AKP. The religiously conservative business elite have profited from the AKP rule within the last three years, and they have enlarged their business networks. The newly urbanized religious professional class gained more social mobility through promotion and expanded national and international networks within the last three years. These religiously conservative middle classes and the business class are often allies of the Islamist movement.
In addition to these groups described above, there are social classes who have supported the AKP, and they have often supported Islamist and Islamic politics. They include the large university student population, especially the upwardly mobile youths who must compete with the established urban middle and upper-middle classes, the members of the unskilled young urban sub-proletariat whose number has increased with migration and a higher level of unemployment, and some of the state-employed petit bourgeoisie, proletarianized by falling real wages and high inflation particularly since the early 1990s.
In the 2002 general elections a sizable minority of these social classes voted the Saadet Party (Felicity Party), which had preserved Islamist views after Mr. Erdogan and his friends left the hard-liner National View group, formed the AKP in 2001. In the election of July 22 a relatively significant young Saadet electorate defected to the AKP because of the poor leadership demonstrated by the Saadet Party, which had obtained only 2.3 percent of the total votes. The secular business elite partly supported the AKP because of the economic success enjoyed by big business, facilitated by the party's business-friendly policy.
Among the supporters of the AKP, there are bourgeoisie factions including some of the relatively privileged new middle and upper classes: merchants, businessmen and industrialists who have sprung from humble origin, and some rural agrarian capitalists. They have expanded upon their monetary power and social prestige within the last three years.
Social class does not solely explain the reasons for the large support for the AKP. Two cleavages, namely the Turkish-Kurdish nationalist conflict and the Sunni vs. Alevi tension, should be taken into consideration to understand the total picture. Independent of the social class factor, the AKP obtained the votes of Turkish nationalists in many Central Anatolian towns, and disappointed those who expected much higher support for the Nationalist Action Party, which had a stronger hold in the Central Anatolian towns. At the same time, the large Kurdish electorate preferred the AKP because of its religion-friendly posture that appealed to religiously conservative Kurds, as well as its strong leadership in managing political crises. The remainder of the Kurdish electorate largely supported the independent Kurdish candidates in the July 22 elections. Some segments of the Alevi electorate, who displayed fears of Sunnization under the AKP rule, voted for the CHP. The AKP, however, collated those Alevi votes since it listed a few liberal Alevi candidates for the parliamentary election.
The electoral rhetoric of AKP
The AKP communicated the idea of being a unifying force, business friendly and pro-EU, and the AKP diffused fears of the divided electorate. In doing this, AKP read the messages coming from the secular middle classes who took the streets society-a million strong-in May and June 2007 in order to protest against Islamization. Erdogan vaguely suggested that he would not use religion as a political tool, and he did not reference the headscarf issue or other similarly motivated religious-political issues in his campaign speeches. In diffusing the fears of the Kurds over warfare in the Southeast, he postponed a cross-border operation. He also showed the Turkish nationalists that he was a Nationalist in his desire to protect the motherland.
The AKP has appealed to many people by its rhetoric that includes symbols of modernization and piety despite its international orientation.
Emergence of a new state mentality
The majority of the Turkish people seem to have experienced fatigue of the old state mentality, whose pillars are the concerns over territorial security, the idea of a holy state, an introverted national outlook, as well as the respect for the military-bureaucratic elite rather than the principles of the republic, all understood in the light of contemporary developments. The AKP challenged this mentality by making pragmatism, prosperity, internationalism and piety as core principles. In doing this, the AKP has created fears that undermine the principles of the republic, and this has caused occasional crises. Still, the young people in Turkey tend to support this new state mentality, which has grown since the mid-1990s. Such a mentality draws its fundamental ideas from the new conceptualization of the state, the citizen relationship brought by the universalistic leftist intellectuals, as well as from the internationalist, free market ideas of the liberals. Islamist and pro-Islamic intellectuals have reinterpreted these ideas in their own literature and have created a new outlook that is shared by many liberals.
The idea of civil society acting as a partner of the state and playing a larger role in generating solutions to various social and political problems has gained popular support in Turkey. The old state mentality contradicts this because of its centrality on the sole authority of the state in providing the citizens and making decisions at all levels, and this does not seem to have widespread, popular appeal any more. The AKP tends to give more room to the NGOs in Turkey.
The idea of military playing a central role in domestic politics has partly lost traditional support. The emphasis on the military as being the guardian to protect the citizenry against the eradication of the principles of the republic has a constitutional basis, and this understanding is part of the political culture. Yet many people desire to see civilian forces alone guarding democracy. The people seem to want development, unifying rhetoric, stability and genuine commitment to democracy. They are reluctant to endorse the idea of the military assuming an overwhelming role in shaping domestic politics. It was this outlook that supported the AKP in recent years, because of the perception that it was a democratic force against the military.
The new composition of the parliament: Prospects and risks
What is the primary change in the composition of parliament is the co-existence of the 23 Kurdish MPs and the Turkish ultra-nationalist MHP members who obtained 14 percent of the total votes. Are they going to adopt a give-and-take approach to produce solutions to the political and social problems, including the presidential election, the existence of the PKK in Northern Iraq, the question of a cross border operation, and unemployment among the youth? Can they work largely in harmony, or will they chose antagonism? Antagonizing and creating a war of symbols would create serious tension in parliament, which in turn will lead to the provocation of the average citizen.
In understanding the composition of the parliament, it is worth noting the election of the leader of the Great Unity Party, (the Turkish nationalist Islamist party), Muhsin Yazicioglu, from the list of independents, who was also one of the leading ultra-nationalist youth leaders in the 1970s. Today he controls a sizable number of ultra-nationalist pious Turkish youth in Central Anatolian and the Black Sea regions. He could either play provocateur, or perhaps even become a broker in settling Turkish-Kurdish tension, which has resulted in several incidents of lynching on the streets since 2004.
Last but not least, the election of the two leftist and human right activists-namely Ufuk Uras, the leader of the Freedom and Solidarity Party, and Akin Birdal, the former chair of Human Right Association-is significant. Their role as brokers in conflict resolution and in pushing civil right reforms is very important.
Given the new parliamentary composition and the legacy of the conflict created by the last presidential election row, the question remains: what should the AKP do for stability? It is my opinion that it should persevere in administering messages of reconciliation and continue to diffuse the fears over the eradication of secularist principles. Moreover, it should endorse a presidential candidate whose selection would be based on a larger consensus and not on partisan politics. If the AKP insists on Mr. Gul's candidacy, which was boycotted last April, it could galvanize the secular middle classes who demonstrated last May and June and could legitimize the military influence in domestic politics.
The post-election period is full of prospects and risks. If the major players adopt moderation and reconciliation, Turkey would execute new reforms and prosper its economy further. (NN/EK)