By Semih Izid2 August, 2002
On the face of it, markets and commentators responded positively yesterday to Wednesday's overwhelming vote by the Turkish parliament for an early election in November, with the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE) rallying and the Turkish lira regaining some lost ground against the dollar.
However, the vote, which brings forward general elections by nearly 18 months, has opened a vitriolic campaigning period, during which competing parties are expected to use every trick in the book of political one-upmanship as they jockey for position.
Already, parliament's deliberations yesterday on a controversial 14-point "EU harmonisation package" -a bill to bring Turkey in line with a variety of European Union standards - gave a glimpse of the political horse-trading ahead of the general election.
The most contentious points of the package, submitted by the Motherland party (ANAP), the coalition partner of Bulent Ecevit, prime minister, concern abolition of the death penalty, the provision of linguistic and cultural rights for minorities - meaning the Kurds - and allowing foundations set up by minority groups - meaning Greek and Armenian groups - to buy and sell property.
Reports from the Justice Commission on Wednesday indicated that the majority of commission members backed abolition of the death penalty. The EU package was widely expected to pass, despite strong opposition from the Nationalist Movement party, Mr Ecevit's other coalition partner. The influential and pro-EU Hurriyet newspaper, nevertheless, felt the need to make an emotional appeal to deputies yesterday with its headline: "Make history for Turkey". Hurriyet warned that this parliament would be "answerable to future generations" if it failed to pass the EU package.
However, it also emerged yesterday that certain members of the Justice Commission, who had endorsed the EU-related reforms the previous night, had back-peddled later on the key issues, death penalty abolition, linguistic and cultural rights, and minority foundations, by placing caveats on these clauses.
The deputies included members of the True Path party, led by Tansu Ciller, former prime minister, who recently vowed "to unconditionally support all that is needed to unblock Turkey's EU path". The disclosure provoked accusations of "hypocrisy" and "treachery".
No one has been executed in Turkey since 1984. But the proposal to abolish the death penalty has come to symbolise for nationalists an EU- driven attempt to save the much-hated Abdullah Ocalan, leader of Turkey's armed Kurdish separatist group the PKK, from the gallows.
More than 30,000 people have died in fighting between the security forces and PKK separatists since the mid-1980s. Mr Ocalan was arrested by Turkish security forces as he left the Greek Embassy in Kenya in February 1999 and was subsequently tried in Turkey and sentenced to death for terrorist crimes. He is currently awaiting the result of an appeal for retrial lodged at the European Court of Human Rights. Similarly, granting Kurds linguistic and cultural rights is seen by the same nationalist quarters as playing into the PKK's hands.
Most analysts agree these issues, which are highly sensitive for the Turkish public, are being abused by rightwing political parties to garner support among a generally conservative electorate.
Despite the debacle in the Justice Commission, the EU package was nevertheless sent to parliament's general assembly, where debates yesterday were extremely bitter. How long the debate will last and when it will be voted on remains uncertain.
Against this backdrop, polls indicate Mr Ecevit's party would gain no more that 4 per cent of the overall vote - well short of the 10 per cent electoral threshold needed by his Democratic Left party (DSP) to enter parliament.
Mr Ecevit, whose health is seriously ailing, is widely expected to exit the Turkish political scene after the election after nearly four decades in the limelight.
In an effort to boost his party, Mr Ecevit tried to convince the popular Kemal Dervis, economy minister, to join his DSP, according to media reports. Mr Dervis, who was brought in from the World Bank by Mr Ecevit to oversee Turkey's recovery programme, does not currently belong to any party. http://search.ft.com/search/article.html?id=020802000389&query=turkey&vsc_appId=totalSearch&state=Form
