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Al-Ahram Weekly 22 - 28 April 1999 Issue No. 426 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 22 - 28 April 1999 Issue No. 426
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Special Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Grey wolves rising
By Gareth JenkinsProvisional results in Turkey's general elections suggest that the Democratic Left Party (DLP) of incumbent Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit will be the largest party in parliament, with 22.1 per cent of the vote and 133 seats in the 550-seat unicameral assembly. But, contrary to all pre-election predictions, the ultra-nationalist National Movement Party (NMP) finished second with 18.2 per cent (130 seats), ahead of the Islamist Virtue Party (VP) with 15.1 per cent (112 seats), the centre-right Motherland Party (MP) with 13.4 per cent (88 seats) and the conservative True Path Party (TPP) with 12.5 per cent (85 seats).
For the first time in its 75-year history, the social democrat Republican People's Party (RPP) has been excluded from parliament, winning only 8.5 per cent of the vote, well below the 10 per cent threshold for representation in the assembly.
The victory of Ecevit's DLP had been widely expected. A crusty 74-year-old former poet and journalist, Ecevit began his political career as a social democrat back in the 1960s. But while he has retained the populist economic policies of his socialist youth, during the 1990s his domestic and foreign policies have shifted increasingly towards the nationalist right.
Despite persistent rumours of ill health and allegations that the DLP is effectively controlled by Ecevit's wife Rahsan, who has a daunting reputation for purging dissenters in an environment where political leaders and their families become suddenly and fabulously wealthy, Ecevit has built the latter stages of his career on a reputation for personal honesty.
His public standing received a huge boost in February 1999 when US intelligence delivered Kurdish separatist leader Abdullah Ocalan to Turkish agents in Kenya during Ecevit's term as caretaker prime minister. It was enhanced further by his refusal to make party political capital out of Ocalan's capture during the election campaign.
Ocalan's capture had been expected to give Ecevit a slight edge over the Islamist VP, which, in the run-up to the polls, appeared to be the DLP's main challenger ahead of the centrist MP and TPP.
But the stunning surge in support for the NMP was totally unexpected and appears to indicate a radical shift in the Turkish political spectrum towards the nationalist right. Not only does the DLP have a strong nationalist element but there is also a strong nationalist component in the Islamism espoused by the VP.
Yet the NMP more than doubled its share of the vote from eight per cent in the last elections in December 1995 to more than 18 per cent on 18 April. The vote won by parties of the centre-right has collapsed from a total of 51 per cent in 1991 to 39 per cent in 1995 and 26 per cent in 1999.
The NMP grew out of the nationalist movements of the 1960s and 1970s when militants, calling themselves 'Grey Wolves' after the legendary Grey Wolf which is said to have led the Turks out of Central Asia into Anatolia, fought a dirty civil war against Turkish leftists. During the 1990s the NMP has sought to present itself as a mainstream political party, although it has continued to be dogged by allegations of links to organised crime, particularly Turkey's powerful narcotics smugglers, and death squads used to assassinate alleged supporters of the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Supporters of the Nationalist Movement Party, (MHP), celebrate their stunning gains in nationwide general elections (photo: AP)
NMP officials admit that the war against the PKK has triggered an increase in support for the party, which has been fuelled by Turkey's increasing international isolation, particularly since it was rejected by the European Union at the Luxembourg summit in December 1997. There is also little doubt that by not being represented in the previous parliament, the NMP has been able to distance itself from the widespread public perception of politicians as corrupt and self-serving. Its inclusion of Islam as a component of Turkish national identity has helped it to attract the religious vote and present itself as an alternative to the VP.
The NMP is also very strong among the young. Initial estimates suggest that in the 18 April elections 60 to 70 per cent of the 4.5 million new voters supported the NMP. Yet the party's appeal seems to have been its image rather than its policies. Its election manifesto, which was only announced two weeks before the polls, was primarily composed of vague rhetoric rather than specific policy proposals.
But the NMP is likely to hold the balance of power in the new parliament. The DLP and MP have already indicated that they will be prepared to cooperate in a coalition government, while the VP has made it clear that its preferred partner would by the TPP. Each of the two blocs needs NMP support if it is to secure a majority in parliament.
"There will be a coalition government and we believe that the NMP will form part of that coalition," said Devlet Bahceli, the soft-spoken 51-year-old former economics professor who has led the NMP since the death of its founder Alparslan Turkes in April 1997.
But Bahceli has refused to speculate on what price the NMP might ask in return for its support. "At the moment the NMP is a closed box," said Professor Ergun Ozbudun of Bilkent University. "We don't know what is inside."
Bulent Ecevit has already implicitly signalled his willingness to work with the NMP. "The age of ideological polarisation is over," he said.
But some in the NMP are not so sure. They note that beneath the urbane image of the party's current leadership there are still radical elements who have not forgotten the struggles of the 1960s and 1970s when the NMP and the Ecevits were on different sides. "We could probably work with Bulent Ecevit," said a high-ranking party official. "He appears to have changed. But the obstacle could be Rahsan. She still hasn't forgotten the bloodshed."
The rise of the NMP has triggered alarm bells in the capitals of both Turkey's allies and its traditional foes. Russian officials have expressed concern that the NMP has still not abandoned its old dreams of a belt of Turkish influence stretching across Central Asia. The party has also been consistently hostile to the Arab states, which it accuses of betraying the Ottoman Empire during World War I. The EU is worried that the participation of the NMP in government may deal a fatal blow to Turkey's already strained relations with Brussels and halt, or even reverse, the recent tentative improvement in Turkey's human rights record.
In the short-term, perhaps the person who should be most worried is imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan. The NMP has repeatedly insisted that Ocalan should be executed. "Ocalan to the gallows" was one of the party's most popular election slogans.
