26 July - 1 August 2001
Issue No.544
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 26 July - 1 August 2001 Issue No.544 |
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Islamists on the move
An apparent split among Turkey's Islamists does not necessarily weaken their chances of winning upcoming parliament elections, Gareth Jenkins reports from Istanbul
Turkey's Constitutional Court last Thursday cleared the way for Tayyip Erdogan, the 45 year-old charismatic leader of the younger generation of Turkish Islamists, to return to politics and launch what is expected to be the strongest ever challenge to the country's secular establishment.
Erdogan's supporters are expected to form a new political party later this month. Opinion polls suggest that the new party could win up to 35 per cent of the popular vote, more than enough to bring it to power on its own in a general election.
The Constitutional Court decision came the day before Turkey's Islamist movement officially split for the first time in its 35-year history. Last month the Constitutional Court closed down the country's largest opposition party, the Islamist Virtue Party (VP), on the grounds that it was fomenting anti-secular activities. The VP had been established to replace the Islamist Welfare Party (WP), which had briefly held power in 1996-1997 before being outlawed in 1998. At the same time, its leader, former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, was banned from politics for five years.
In the run-up to its closure, the VP had become increasingly divided between a younger generation, headed by Erdogan, and the older generation of Erbakan loyalists who had continued to dominate the party leadership. Erbakan, who will be 75 in October, remains adamant that he will return to active politics when his ban expires in 2003. Last Friday his supporters announced the establishment of a new party called Saadet, meaning "Contentment" or "Felicity," which is headed by former VP Chairman Recai Kutan.
Until last week's court ruling, Erdogan had also been banned from engaging in any political activity after a four month prison sentence in 1999 for allegedly inciting religious hatred in a speech the previous year in which he had quoted from a poem mixing military and Islamic imagery. Last Friday the Constitutional Court ruled that another Islamist politician, Hasan Guzel, who had been sentenced under the same law, was now free to join a political party, thus creating the legal precedent for Erdogan to do the same.
Before his ban, Erdogan served for four years as mayor of Istanbul where he had concentrated on improving public services, winning both a huge popular following, particularly in poorer areas, and the grudging respect of even his opponents.
"I don't like him and I don't like what he stands for," said one secularist businessman. "But you can't argue with his record. He really improved the infrastructure in the city and put an end to things like water shortages."
Although there were several allegations of nepotism in the awarding of municipal contracts, there is also little doubt that Erdogan's administration was also relatively free of the corruption that had become endemic amongst its predecessors.
Even when he was banned, Erdogan never had any doubt that he would one day return to the political arena.
"This song doesn't finish here," Erdogan reassured his supporters when he began his prison sentence.
"Tayyip Erdogan is the future prime minister of Turkey. Period. There is nothing anyone or anything can do to stop him," said former VP parliamentary Nazli Ilicak.
The lifting of the ban on Erdogan comes at a time when international and domestic confidence in Turkey's ruling tripartite coalition has virtually collapsed. The government has infuriated its Western allies by continually trying to backtrack on promises it made to the International Monetary Fund to introduce radical reforms in return for $16.5 billion in loans, while alienating the public by failing to take measures to soften the impact of a deepening recession. In an opinion poll released last week only seven per cent of those questioned said that they were "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with the government's performance.
The government insists that it will continue in office until at least 2003. But, particularly given Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit's failing health, early elections appear inevitable by early next year at the latest.
Although the formation of two parties from the former VP will initially divide the Islamist vote, there is little doubt that Erdogan's party will eventually emerge the stronger. Since his jail sentence, Erdogan has repeatedly maintained that he is a politician who happens to be a Muslim rather than wanting to introduce a specifically Islamist agenda. Ironically, the split in the former VP is likely to broaden Erdogan's electoral appeal by enabling him to label the Saadet Partisi as "Islamist" while claiming to represent a more centrist agenda.
But many secularists, particularly amongst Turkey's powerful military, remain deeply sceptical. They suspect that Erdogan will publicly downplay his religious beliefs until he takes power and then gradually try to erode secularism.
"Before he had troubles with the courts for using Islamist rhetoric, this was a man who publicly declared that Islam was his reference and that democracy was like a tram which you rode as far as you wanted to go and then got off," commented a source close to the military. "We don't believe that he has really changed. It is just a trick. And we won't let him destroy secularism."
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