1 May 2007The Guardian
The Turkish generals' midnight warning that, as the "absolute defender of secularism", the army would not tolerate Islamist meddling with the constitutional legacy of Kemal Ataturk carried a dark echo of past military coups.
It is only 10 years since tanks were sent on to the streets to help topple Necmettin Erbakan, a prime minister who, the army believed, had confused his politics with religion. Earlier interventions were even less subtle.
Yet the contours of the latest crisis, over the moderate Islamist government's choice of the foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, as the next president, suggest that times have changed, even if Turkey's detractors have not noticed.
The military's statement was hardly an ultimatum. It expressed "solid determination" to uphold the law, then rather lamely complained that it wanted to be "one of the sides in this debate". It is hard to see that as a direct threat to violently overthrow the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Mr Erdogan's confident reaction also suggested that Turkey has moved on - that a decade is a very long time in politics. In a disdainful swipe at the military, he said it was "unthinkable" that the armed forces should challenge an elected government.
Semih Idiz, a columnist with the newspaper Milliyet, said these exchanges marked a "watershed" in Turkey's development. "It may be that the military overplayed its hand this time," he said. "The government had to make a stand against the army and it did. It has been strengthened morally. It has enabled it to stress its democratic agenda."
The 700,000 demonstrators protesting against the choice of Mr Gul in Istanbul at the weekend were equally opposed to a military coup, Mr Idiz said. The government could probably rally even greater numbers if it had to.
Faruk Logoglu, a former ambassador to Washington who heads the Centre for Eurasian Strategic Studies in Ankara, said fears of intervention by the generals were exaggerated. "Whatever happens next, it will not be a military coup," he said.
The army had a right and even a duty to express its point of view, Dr Logoglu added. "But the ultimate bottom line is that all these difficulties will be resolved by political and judicial means or via the ballot box."
Interviewed last month at the foreign ministry in Ankara, Mr Gul said he expected the opposition to kick up a row about threats to secular institutions, whoever his ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) selected. One contentious issue is that Mr Gul's wife, Hayrunisa, wears a headscarf.
"We will have a debate. We are listening. Presidential elections are always controversial. [But] no one finds these arguments convincing any more," Mr Gul said.
Political analysts and officials agree that if the constitutional court suspends the presidential election in a ruling expected tomorrow, an early general election (a poll is due in any case by November) will almost certainly be called. They also mostly agree that Mr Erdogan and the AKP will win again.
"What is happening is a very healthy democratic debate," a senior government official said. "It has crystallised the issues facing Turkey for Turks and for the world, and there is full transparency. The military was compelled to make its statement. But it is not like the old days."
All the same, Mr Gul's presidential candidacy has highlighted political, religious, and geographical divisions and may not survive the ruckus. "Civil society is becoming more active. It shows the system of democratic checks and balances is not yet fully developed," Dr Logoglu said. "They may have to find somebody else."
