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AKP wins Turkey’s election clash
IN AUGUST the Turkish parliament elected its first
pro-Islamist president, Abdullah Gul, candidate of the Justice and
Development Party (AKP). This followed a landslide victory in the July
parliamentary elections for AKP, which has its roots in pro-Islamist
ideology. The AKP won nearly 47% of the vote, becoming the first
government to win a re-election in 20 years, and the first since 1954 to
increase its vote (up from 34%).
Notwithstanding the AKP’s background, the election
results were largely welcomed by the US and EU. While the western powers
harbour some concerns about even a ‘soft Islamist’ party in power in
Turkey, they are heartened by the neo-liberal, pro-big business record
of the AKP in its first five years in office. Turkey is of the utmost
importance to the US and the major imperialist powers. It represents
NATO’s second largest armed force and the country is a vital
geo-strategic entity, bridging Europe, the Middle East and Eurasia.
The general election was sparked by a clash with
Turkey’s powerful army generals in April over the AKP’s choice of the
then foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, for presidential candidate. The
‘secular state elite’, backed by the huge army apparatus, claimed the
AKP was jeopardising Turkey’s ‘constitutionally enshrined’ secularism.
They strongly objected to Gul’s wife, who wears a Muslim headscarf,
becoming ‘first lady’. The army chiefs felt their position would be
threatened if an Islamist became president, particularly as the
president has powers of veto and appointment, including deciding the
heads of the armed forces. These powers mean the AKP in government,
along with a presidential ally, can put in place a bureaucracy of its
liking and influence the military’s chain of command.
During April, the ‘secular opposition’ organised
huge anti-government rallies of up to one million people. Many
protesters were genuinely worried about ‘creeping Islamism’. But a
popular street slogan, ‘No sharia, no coup’, revealed that many
protesters also opposed military intervention and attacks on Turkey’s
limited democratic rights.
In April army leaders had posted a barely disguised
threat of a military coup on their website. The military has deposed
four governments since the modern Turkish state was formed by Mustafa
Kemal Ataturk in 1923. In 1997, the military forced the Welfare Party
(predecessor of the AKP) out of government, banning the party in 1998.
After the so-called ‘e-coup’, a Supreme Court
hearing blocked Gul from becoming president. In response, prime
minister, Recep Erdogan, brought forward the scheduled general election
by four months. The July result was a big blow for the losing Republican
People’s Party (CHP), which is closely linked to the army tops and state
bureaucracy, getting 20.9% of the vote.
However, none of the deep divisions between the
pro-Islamic government and the opposition ‘secular’ Kemalist and
nationalist parties – which are, to a large degree, a struggle for
power, influence and riches amongst sections of the capitalist class and
elites – are fundamentally resolved by the elections.
The new divided parliament now includes
ultra-nationalists and Kurdish MPs for the first time in years. Gul was
only elected president in July after three rounds of voting, at which
point only an absolute majority in parliament was required. He failed in
the two earlier rounds to win a two-thirds majority.
The political and business elites in Ankara and
Istanbul who traditionally ran Turkey – the army, police, state
bureaucracy and judiciary – regard themselves under threat from a rising
‘Muslim middle class’, which was formerly largely excluded from power
and influence. Since 1980, large-scale migration from rural areas to the
cities created a growing religious middle class, whose AKP
representatives are fighting for power within the state elite. The old
ruling elite reacted angrily to the packing of state bodies with
Erdogan’s religious cronies. The military was outraged by the AKP’s
changes to Turkey’s institutions, removing much of the military’s
influence from government.
The CHP uses the AKP’s growing influence to claim
that the government wants to turn Turkey into a theocracy, to whip up
fears amongst the wider population. However, over its first five years
in power, the AKP showed it was a party with roots in Islam but that it
is not a fundamentalist, anti-western party. Erdogan compares the AKP to
Christian democrats in Western Europe. Before the parliamentary polls,
Erdogan ‘purged’ the AKP’s parliamentary list of ‘religious
conservatives’.
Since coming to power, the Justice and Development
Party tried to follow a careful balancing act: avoiding allowing
religion to provoke the secular elite, while acting in the general
interests of its religious conservative supporters. The party insisted
that the right to be religious in public life was part of a policy to
make Turkey more democratic. The AKP was less nationalistic than
previous governments and more open to negotiating a way forward on the
issue of Turkey’s Kurdish national minority.
The first AKP government pushed hard for EU
membership (although most EU states oppose the inclusion of Turkey for
the foreseeable future, which they fear would mean bringing a large,
unstable, Muslim country into the ‘club’). It signed up to an IMF
programme, strengthened ties with Israel, and ‘broached’ Turkey’s
‘long-standing festering problems’ with its Kurdish national minority.
Fortunately for Erdogan, his first tenure in office saw economic growth
rates reach, on average, 7%. Erodogan’s neo-liberal policies saw runaway
inflation fall, average income double (from a low level), and the
country was opened up to foreign investment. Turkey’s strategic role
increased as world demand for oil and gas grew. The Erdogan government
aims to turn the country into a major supply route for Caspian and
Middle Eastern gas to Europe.
But under the AKP’s first term, society became more
unequal, leaving many falling behind the economic boom. IMF structural
‘reform’ was accompanied by huge cuts in public spending and
privatisation. "Selling state assets has been a passion of the ruling
AKP", commented the Financial Times (18 August), "even if the public is
either indifferent or hostile to the idea". Around $250 billion in
foreign direct investment will go to Turkey this year, compared to less
than $1 billion six years ago. Much of this ‘investment’ consists of
foreign companies buying assets, including in banking,
telecommunications, media and consumer goods industries.
The new Justice and Development Party government
most likely faces a worsening economic situation. Unemployment is at
10%, the agricultural sector is in crisis, and the tax system is in
chaos (Turkey’s ‘unregistered economy’ is believed to be worth nearly
50% of the country’s gross domestic product). Economists speculate
whether Turkey will have a hard or soft landing when global liquidity
starts to move away from ‘emerging markets’.
The AKP is also unlikely to find a second period in
office any less volatile politically. The army and secular elites are
licking their wounds after electoral defeats, but new conflicts with the
AKP government can arise on many issues, including Erdogan’s plans to
change the constitution. Despite growing trade between Iraqi Kurdistan
and south-eastern Turkey, relations between Turkey and the ‘Kurdish
Regional Government’ in northern Iraq are ‘almost non-existent’. To the
alarm of the US and western powers, Turkey’s army leaders pressure
Erdogan to order a major cross border offensive into northern Iraq to
take on Kurdish rebels from the PKK (Workers’ Party) who operate from
the ‘autonomous’ Iraqi Kurdish entity.
All this shows there has never been a greater need
for a mass socialist opposition in Turkey. A key task of the Turkish
workers’ movement is to develop independent class policies and
working-class unity across all national, ethnic and religious lines, to
seriously contend with the various political representatives of Turkey’s
ruling elites.
Niall Mulholland
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