Victory of Democracy in Turkey
By Necati Özkan; member of the Board of EAPC

The Turkish General Elections held on July 22, 2007, has resulted in a rarely seen event not only in Turkish but also in international politics. The governing party increased its votes at a rate that can be defined as “monumental” or “historic”. Rather than the Prime Minister’s own capability, this result takes its root from non-political actors who want to play an active role in the election process and the “warning statement” they gave to AKP.

In this election, almost half of the Turkish people voted for AKP not because they were loyal AKP supporters but because they wanted to show their reaction against a military coup, in favor of democracy. Indeed, it was not only AKP’s (Justice and Development Party) victory but also a victory of democracy. In the general elections that were held on July 22nd, the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan increased his votes from the 34 percent he got in the 2002 election, to 47 percent and won 341 seats. In alliance with the Social Democrats, the Secular Social Democratic CHP (Republican People’s Party) gained 20.9 of the total votes cast. CHP gained only 112 seats. Sailing against the wind of disingenuous statements made by the EU politicians, MHP (Nationalist Movement Party) entered the parliament with 70 seats gained by only 14 percent of the total votes. 12 other parties who entered the election couldn’t exceed the election threshold of 10 percent. Meanwhile, legal extension of the Kurdish terrorist organization PKK, DTP (Democratic Society Party) in a way, “squeaked” into the parliament winning 23 independent seats.

The Main Factor in Erdogan’s Success

The main factor leading to Erdogan’s victory is that, the moderate Islamic right wing party AKP governed the country more successfully during their five year reign after the parliamentary elections held in October 2002, than any other parties that have ruled since World War II. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced a democratization program right after the elections. During his rule, the Turkish economy developed by an average of 7 percent per year. Direct foreign investments were at a record high. Long lasting inflation rate of 80 percent which caused misery nationwide for years was reduced to 9 percent. Six zeros were dropped from the old Turkish currency. Today 1 Turkish Lira is the equivalent of 1 US dollar. Per capita income has doubled, export volume increased from 35 billion U.S. to 100 billion U.S. dollars, while tourism income bounced to 20 billion U.S. from 8 billion U.S. dollars. Turkish companies began to be efficient players across the global market. Moreover, new enterprises who gained enormous wealth through public tenders and export-import quotas supported AKP strongly.

The Second Factor: Political Polarization

Yet, a part of voters continued to mistrust AKP because they thought the party was Islamizating the society. They even became more increasingly suspicious that AKP had a secret agenda as there have been various incidences indicating that AKP was defraying its political adversaries in a Machiavellian fashion. Many judiciaries, academicians and senior bureaucrats were either forced to retire or appointed to various lower offices and replaced by AKP sympathizers. In appointments made to the top state posts, AKP went much beyond the conventional “nepotism” policies. Having “a wife with a headscarf” has almost become a criteria to be eligible to be appointed to a senior office.

During the five-year rule of AKP there have been more religious programs on national TV channels, than before. Government-controlled public TV channels being in the lead, many private national and regional TVs began giving more religious programming time during their daily broadcasts. Similarly, this tendency increased among hundreds of nationwide radio channels as well. In Parallel, pro-government newspapers consolidated their power through shareholdings and power shifts. Against such policies applied by Erdogan, the current Turkish president plays the role of balancer. In fact, the Turkish President Sezer undertook the role of almost a solo-opposition force vetoing many of the appointments made to various posts by Erdogan.

As his seven-year long term of office came to an end in April, 2007, Prime Minister Erdogan attempted to choose the new president from his party relying on his swinging majority of 363 deputies in the Turkish parliament which has a total of 550 seats. Meanwhile, the social democratic opposition party CHP took a stand defending that it would be more adequate to elect the new president in the next parliament that will be formed after the next general elections. For CHP, close to 60 percent of the Turkish people were not represented at the parliament due to the election threshold and low rate of voter participation in the previous election of 2002. The real aim of the party was to ensure the next president be a secularist Kemalist one. As the two parties couldn’t reach an agreement, tension raised throughout the country. In fact, it will be more adequate to say they didn’t want to reach a consensus. In a country with over 60 political parties, the two big parties planned to push minor parties out of the playground through polarization of the voters. Even there were rumors claiming that the Prime Minister Erdogan and CHP Chairman Deniz Baykal agreed on a secret agenda about this issue. So, it can be said that political polarization served the aim of both.

The Third Factor: The power of Word-of-Mouth

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan followed an odd policy and decided to wait until the last moment to announce his candidate for presidency. He neither discussed on the issue with any party leader nor showed any willingness towards reaching a consensus. Because he thought he had a swinging majority in the parliament and that it was their right to decide who the next president will be.

The tension rose more as the Parliament Speaker from Erdogan’s party announce in the mid of April that it was time to hand over the presidency of the Turkish Republic to a “Muslim” candidate. This statement means, according to him, the previous ten secular presidents of Turkey were not Muslims.

Upon such developments NGOs supported by CHP organized a series of massive demonstrations of 1.5-2 million people in favor of secularism, in three Turkish major cities, Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir, in April and June. In fact these demonstrations have been the biggest rallies throughout the country’s history. Some think that the Turkish army was moderating the rallies which can be assessed as the biggest massive reaction of the Eastern world in favor of Democracy.

In the midst of all this uproar, Prime Minister Erdogan waited until the day before the presidential election to announce Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul as his party’s candidate for presidency. On the voting day, CHP being in the lead, 3 other parties who have seats in the parliament boycotted the voting session as a protest of Erdogan and his uncompromising attitude. So, AKP and Erdogan wouldn’t be able to gather the required constitutional majority (according to one interpretation of the constitutional regulation) of 367 members of parliament (two-third of the total members of the parliament). Upon this, the Constitutional Court would rule voting process invalid and the parliament would have to call for early general elections. Everything developed as anticipated. The presidential voting session which was held and taken under record as quorate in a partisan manner by the uncompromising Parliament Speaker of an Islamic identity was ruled inquorate by the Constitutional Court upon CHP’s appeal. Therefore, being unable to elect the new president of the country, the parliament was dissolved according to the constitution and a call for early parliamentary elections on 22 July was made. In fact, all this process evolved according to a different interpretation of a technical constitutional provision. Worst of all was that, ten hours ahead of the ruling of the court, Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) has shown they were a party in the process by passing an “e-memorandum” via the website of the General Staff.

According to TAF, the president of Turkey was also the commander-in-chief and guarantor of the secular republic. Perhaps worse than that the call was made to TAF by CHP Chairman Deniz Baykal to intervene the process. Baykal went a step further saying violence would rise all over the country in case the Constitutional Court didn’t rule the presidential voting session invalid. AKP replied the “e-memorandum” sharply stating that the Chief of the General Staff was a professional attached to Prime Ministry. Thereby, AKP seemed to have taken a democratic stand while CHP remained in favor of the status quo.

As is known, unlike other parties, AKP has a widespread strong political marketing organization. The voluntary people organized under the Election Coordination Headquarter started an effective propaganda underlying the anti-democratic developments that made a mark on Abdullah Gul’s troubled bid for presidency. By using their Word-of-Mouth channels effectively, they lodged a complaint to the voters claiming they had been subject to injustice by the regime and Abdullah Gul’s presidency was prevented for lame excuses. So Turkish voters were asked to teach a lesson to the opposition and the regime. The enormous media power supporting AKP also held meetings and broadcasted accordingly. Political opposition and the regime were getting round the regulation and thus deserved a punishment.

Campaigns

The 22 July Elections were held in such a heavy and tense atmosphere. That’s why professional election campaigns held in such a limited time couldn’t have much impact of voters’ opinion. Social democrat CHP staged a cynical campaign with special focus on secularism and Kemalism. Rather than making positive commitments about the future they tried to win the election spreading fears like, “Turkey is being divided” or “The Republic is under threat”. CHP’s campaign created by Saatchi & Saatchi / Istanbul, lasted only three weeks. The main slogans were: “Now, it is time for CHP” and “People will win”.

As a party with social democrat claims, rather than concentrating on issues such as democratic demands of diverse cultural identities, social justice demands of the people from lower classes and youth’s demand for better education and a better and wealthier future, CHP thought it would be more proper to focus on secularism and to frighten people spreading the fear of “Seriat” (Islamic rule).

Meanwhile, the conservative Prime Minister Erdogan and his party executed the most positive campaign of the election in spite of all harsh polemics. Listing what they have done in the last 5 years rather than talking about their future plans, AKP stressed upon stability and continuity devoid of a future vision. Speakers of the party intermingled their medium-term and long-term goals with election promises.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan got into direct interaction with voters spending more effort than the others and speaking in three campaign meetings a day despite the unbearable hot July. Erdogan told the voters not to cast votes for his party if they think their economic condition deteriorated in the last 5 years. And he added he would give up politics in case he can’t come to power for another five years gaining “majority.” He was able to convince voters about his honesty. AKP’s election campaign was created by a local agency. The main slogan of the campaign was “Don’t stop, keep working”.

More than being a creative strategy, the campaign was like a detailed inventory of the projects accomplished during Erdogan’s rule. Giving place to a great deal of numerical data, the campaign was executed outdoor to a large extent. AKP for the first time, spared such a considerable budget for press campaign.

Centre right-wing parties worked hard to form an alliance ahead of the voting day but they couldn’t escape punishment at polls as the efforts ended in fiasco in an insincere manner. Radical right wing party, MHP could pass over the election threshold owing to the rising nationalistic sentiments and as other center right-wing parties were destroyed.

Results and Consequences

Under the influence of polarization across the country other social democratic parties either didn’t enter the election or they supported CHP. However, CHP wasn’t able to convince even the crowds who gathered in “Republican Demonstrations” to flock to polls. Total vote of social democrats decreased to the lowest rate ever to 20.9 percent.

CHP’s drama in predominantly Kurdish populated Southeast was so serious as party’s votes in the region decreased to desolate percentages like, 3.83, 1.12 and 3.13 percent. Even more shameful than that, CHP couldn’t win seats in 33 out of total 81 cities of Turkey.

On the other hand, Kurdish voters supported Erdogan to a large extent in Diyarbak¦r by 41.2, in Mardin by 43.7, in Batman by 46.2, in Van by 53.3, in Bitlis 58.7, in Urfa by 59.8 and in Bingol by 71.5 percent. This noteworthy percentages of votes cast for AKP clearly indicate that amount of nationalist Kurdish votes decreased seriously in the region where is known to be the vote depot of the separatist Kurds. Despite the fact that Kurds won 23 independent seats in the parliament, ethnic nationalism is not as popular across the region as it was before.

Conclusions

Following are some of the conclusions that can be drawn from the July 22nd Turkish Elections:

o Not values but honest and hardworking leaders win elections.

o The best way to convince voters is not to frighten them by threats on values but by promises for improvement of their living conditions.

o “Change” and “Democracy” are still two magical words that bring victory in elections.

o The best way to lose an election is to defend the status quo and to form an alliance with non-democratic forces.

As long as politicians come to a consensus and become more democratic, the actors out side of democracy cannot play any role. Now there is a new parliament in Turkey. If the new parliament can agree to elect the new president, Turkish Democracy will be taking one more step towards the future.