Elections here and there

Rasha Saad assesses the race for the presidency in Turkey and France and compares them with other contests

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Several pundits hailed the news of Turkey's Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul's running for presidency as ushering in what one called "a new era in [Turkey's] historic self- reconciliation."

In 'Secularism wears a headscarf' Mustafa Zein wrote in the London-based pan-Arab Al-Hayat newspaper that this is a new era in Turkey where secularism goes hand in hand with the Islamic headscarf, which is worn by Gul's wife. Zein prophesised that in light of this change, Turkey was expected to play a central role in the Middle East, a role heralded by Turkey's refusal to be used as a launching pad for US air raids on Baghdad and its proposal to hold regular meetings of the countries neighbouring Iraq.

Zein said Europe has turned down Turkey's bid to join the EU mainly because of differences in culture and civilisations, something which should not be tolerated. "This rejection has consolidated the position of the Islamists, regardless of their trend, in the face of the ruling elite and the army," Zein said.

However, after Gul's failure to win the elections outright and his hopes now pinned on a run-off, Zein's view was challenged. "This is also another message to those who erroneously simplified Turkey's battle of reconciliation and reduced the intensity of the army's doctrine only because the party's leader, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, succeeded in causing a shock by suddenly nominating Gul as candidate for presidential elections," Zuheir Kseibati wrote in Al-Hayat.

Kseibati said Anatolia has returned to the army's caldron, and that the gatherings of secularists who, this week in Istanbul, raised their voice against the country's Islamisation, were another message to the Justice and Development Party: the army is not alone in its confrontation with the party's dream of controlling the presidential palace.

"The demonstrations are happening in light of a heated confrontation between the army and the Islamists, something that the theorists of a complete reconciliation between Turkey's nationalism and Islamic roots thought had become a thing of the past."

On the eve of the constitutional court's decision on the appeal against the legality of the first round of the presidential elections, Kseibati concludes, Erdogan will have to choose between forgetting the palace and facing Erbakan's government, since Turkey's people are still divided over Islamisation.

Writing on the French presidential elections in the London- based Asharq Al-Awsat, Mishari Al-Zaydi focussed on the impact of the elections on the Arab and Muslim community.

Al-Zaydi said the status of French Muslims, the number of whom is officially estimated at approximately six million but is thought by Muslims to be around 10 million, is a heated issue and that their problems represent competitive ground between candidates running for the French presidency.

Al-Zaydi wrote that Sarkozy was the man who launched the term "French Islam" by which he meant the Muslims of France should create their own model of Islam not subjected to foreign interpretation. For this reason, Sarkozy created the Council of the Muslim Religion in France, endeavouring to centralise the religious source of guidance for French Muslims in one single entity.

Al-Zaydi believed Sarkozy's relationship with Muslim immigrants was good. "The steps he adopted were regarded as efforts towards serving justice to Muslims and normalising their presence in France." However, Sarkozy's image began to deteriorate, particularly following his "scum of France" remark during the 2005 Parisian suburb riots. This was in addition to the previous problem -- banning the hijab in schools.

Al-Zaydi thus expects that Arabs and Muslims in France will vote in favour of the leftist Ségolène Royal, an advantage that her party was mindful of and accordingly began to pay court to Muslims and immigrants.

Ultimately, Al-Zaydi argues, Arabs and Muslims outside France are not concerned about Sarkozy or his opponent Royal because certainly, both candidates deal with Islam in France from a perspective of political interests. "We are tackling a more important issue, that of opening the blocked path for the sake of extracting the potential for development, progress and interaction within Islam itself so that Islam and Muslims can become a positive force for change rather than a source of fear and controversy," Al-Zaydi wrote. "Protect us from politics and keep people away from the gladiatorial struggle between right-wingers and leftists and between the ruler and the imam during Friday sermons so as to allow breathing space for ordinary folks," Al-Zaydi added.

In 'The end of Gaullism and the Fifth Republic' Abdullah Iskandar wrote in Al-Hayat, "General De Gaulle drew his glory by establishing the Fifth Republic on the precept of the strong president who commands sweeping powers, and by providing the constitutional foundation for promulgating decreed legislations without having to pass through parliament".

In parallel, the general sentiment seems to be hanging between a right championed by Sarkozy and a social democracy by Royal, and being courted by François Bayrou. Iskandar said that while the former is trying to summon the spirit of Thatcherism and the American approach in dealing with the economy through limiting the role of the state in social affairs, the latter is trying to put the state in the position of a referee officiating sides belonging to an economic and social equation, and to promulgate into laws the outcome agreed by those sides, without imposing any given approach, which could lead to freeing the state of certain obligations, particularly towards poor and marginalised groups.

Iskandar added that such was the embracing state established by De Gaulle during his short stay at its helm in the 1940s, which he cemented in the Fifth Republic. De Gaulle aimed for a state that reflected his image, an image of a strong president, endowed with an overwhelming charisma.

"The fact that none of the current French presidential candidates possess any of these traits, has given rise to the need to adapt to compromises that call for reshaping the concept of this state to make it governable and able to face the emerging challenges," Iskandar concluded.