Sun setting on secular Turkey?

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling Justice and Democracy Party (AKP) is set for a slim victory in the general election on July 22, but there is trouble ahead over his choice of president and policy towards the Kurdish nationalist PKK. The military will make its presence felt on both issues.

The semi-Islamist AKP should exceed the 34.3% of votes it won in 2002 but not the  two-thirds of seats it captured on that occasion. The main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and the far right Nationalist Action Party (MHP) are likely to cross the 10% threshold needed to win parliamentary representation.  So are at least a score of independent candidates,  including Kurdish nationalists. 

That result will satisfy many in business and the media, the traditionally conservative provinces, and a swathe of the once-Islamist urban poor, who see the charismatic if clumsy Erdogan as a man of their own ilk. It will also draw a sigh of relief from the financial markets, Washington and Brussels. The electoral campaign has enhanced the credentials of the AKP as the current representative of the market-friendly, socially conservative centre that has traditionally dominated Turkish parliaments.

Erdogan's flip-flop

But there is unease over Erdogan's apparent reluctance to compromise with the opposition over the choice of the next president -- the issue that caused the election to be brought forward from November:

• He initially favoured his close ally, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul.
• The secular CHP, worried that a politician with an Islamist past would become head of state, blocked the electoral process in parliament. Erdogan claimed he was willing to nominate a compromise figure acceptable to all parties.
• He appeared to change his mind again, saying the head of state should be directly elected.

If Erdogan remains cold on finding a compromise, the army will be deeply unhappy. Guardian of Turkey's secularist, modernising tradition, it has accused the government of fostering Islamism and warned that it will not sit and watch this happen. Fear of political Islam is widespread in the country, particularly among the educated classes, and not confined to a narrow establishment elite.

AKP would be able to impose its own candidate only if it increased its parliamentary strength to two-thirds of the seats or more. Since this is unlikely, Erdogan realistically has no choice but to seek consensus on the choice of the new president.

Other divisions

The threat to secularism may not even be the main theme in the elections. Opposition parties complain that the AKP has left Turkey with an overvalued currency and a huge current account deficit, that the strong economic growth of recent years has been of little benefit to farmers, employees or the self-employed, and that the government has capitulated to the EU on Cyprus and other issues. Above all, they accuse the government of bowing to Western demands not to send troops into northern Iraq to attack bases of the hated Kurdish nationalist PKK, which regularly kills members of the security forces inside Turkey, and is responsible for bomb attacks in several cities across the country.

Plus ca change?

These neuralgic issues aside, little is likely to change on the policy front in the AKP's second term.  Per capita income will remain at about 30% of Western norms, many livelihoods will remain insecure and deep inequalities of wealth and income will persist. Politics will be dominated by patronage and populism. Restrictions on the Kurdish language will remain in force -- and the PKK will continue to find ample volunteers.