Turkey’s Latest Political Crisis: Why Ecevit was a Logical Choice

To an outside observer, it may not be immediately clear why, when the largest single party in the Turkish Parliament is an Islamist one, and the next two in size are right-centrist, the head of a leftist party which ranks fourth in size was chosen to form a new government. But Democratic Left leader Bülent Ecevit — designated to try to form a government by President Süleyman Demirel on December 2 — was in fact the logical choice, given the complex logic of Turkish party politics today. When Turkish Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz’ government fell on November 25 (as it had been expected to do), Turkey entered another period of political uncertainty, this one at a time of considerable international tension, with Turkey in a confrontation with Italy over the continuing presence of Kurdish leader ‘Abdullah Ocalan (See the Last Issue) and with the long-anticipated delivery of S-300 surface-to-air missiles to Cyprus expected, possibly by the end of the year.

Ever since the 1995 general elections in which the Refah or Welfare Party of Necmettin Erbakan won the largest single bloc of seats in Parliament, Turkey has had to wrestle with the political power of an Islamist bloc whose fundamental principles are at odds with the militant secularism of the Turkish establishment, while the Turkish Army periodically raises the pressure to bar excessive Islamist power. Balancing this is the fact that the two big centrist parties, which would have a near majority if they could form a coalition, are deeply divided by the personal animosity between their leaders, Mesut Yilmaz of the Motherland (ANAP) Party and Tansu Çiller of the True Path (DYP) Party. Their inability to form an enduring coalition in 1996 helped make Erbakan Prime Minister, and that rivalry also helped dictate the choice of Ecevit.

Another issue also complicated the latest crisis. Mesut Yilmaz’ government, ruling without a solid majority for some time, had cut a deal with Deniz Baykal’s Republican People’s Party (CHP) under which new elections would be held in April, scheduled for April 18 to coincide with municipal elections. As part of that deal, Yilmaz would have resigned at the end of the year. Parliament has already taken the necessary action to hold early elections at that time. But Yilmaz’ deal did not survive the fall of his government, and elections do not have to be held until 2000. On Yilmaz’ fall, however, most of the political party leaders proceeded on the assumption that elections will still be held in April, and that the immediate task was to form a government strong enough to deal with the Ocalan crisis, the Cyprus issue if it erupts, and other challenges, for the interim period. But not everyone agrees.

President Süleyman Demirel, whose task it was to choose someone to try to form a government, openly suggested that it would be better to postpone elections until they are due in 2000, and meantime try to form a government strong enough to see the country through various crises. The party leaders oppose this.

The President, who is supposed to be above party, enjoys considerable influence and respect, but it is Parliament which has called for the elections in April and which would have to change that decision to wait until 2000. But the reaction of many of the Turkish press was, not to debate the merits of the idea, but to ask for whom Demirel was speaking? If it was for the Army, then the suggestion may carry considerably more weight. And the Armed Forces are believed to be worried that if elections are held in April, the Islamist Virtue Party (successor of Welfare) may again be the biggest victor, though some polls show Yilmaz’ ANAP surpassing them. This Dossier looks at the personalities and parties involved in the latest round of Turkish government-building.

The Turkish Army remains the proverbial elephant in the living room of Turkish politics: uninvited and unwelcome, but one has to furnish around it. As the self-proclaimed defender of the heritage of Kemalism, the secularist dogma of Kemal Atatürk, the Armed Forces are rarely reticent about issuing warnings to civilian governments who stray from the Kemalist straight and narrow. The Army intervened to overthrow governments in 1960 and 1980, and in 1971 issued a diktat which effectively did the same thing.

The Army’s role remains apparent, and rarely very subtle. During the period of Welfare Party-led government, it at one point staged “maneuvers” in the Refah-controlled town of Sincan, where a “Jerusalem Day” demonstration had recently been held. It brought increasing pressure against the coalition government’s secular partner, Tansu Çiller’s True Path Party (DYP), to break the coalition with Refah , and finally pressured enough DYP deputies to change parties that the coalition unraveled. When Erbakan resigned, asking President Süleyman Demirel to transfer the government to Çiller, Demirel instead named her rival, Mesut Yilmaz.

During the present crisis, when Recai Kutan, the leader of the Virtue (Fazilet) Party, Refah’s new incarnation, gave a newspaper interview suggesting that the Army did not object to Virtue the way it had objected to Welfare, the General Staff issued a statement warning the parties against trying to claim military support and insisting that it did not favor one more than the other. True enough, perhaps, but it clearly favors Virtue less than most.

Further complicating matters, as already noted in the introduction, is the fact that the Islamist Virtue Party still controls the largest single bloc of votes in the Grand National Assembly (Parliament), and that while the two big, center-right parties together would far exceed it, the personal animosity and mistrust between Yilmaz and Çiller makes coalition-building difficult, even though the two parties have very similar platforms.

That left no option but to turn to the third likely coalition partner, Ecevit, however improbable it might seem: to keep the largest party, an Islamist one, out of power, two conservative to rightist parties chose a socialist premier. Whether it will work remains to be seen.

All in all, it was a particularly Turkish solution, but an obvious one. Ecevit’s Democratic Left Party, as the box at right shows, will be the junior partner in a three-way coalition with ANAP and the DYP, but precisely because of the rivalry of Yilmaz and Çiller, Ecevit is a logical choice for premier. While his left-wing record may not sit well with every senior Army officer, his staunch secularism and Turkish nationalism reassure them that he would make no concessions to the Islamists. (In fact, some in the Army are much less confident about Yilmaz, who has made some concessions in the past and has a religious wing in his ANAP party.)

After the 1995 elections, ANAP and the DYP initially controlled some 268 seats, not quite a majority in the 550 seat Grand National Assembly. Since many DYP deputies left the party during its partnership with Refah, the two big parties need at least one other substantial party to support them in order to guarantee winning confidence votes. Yilmaz’ last government included Ecevit’s DSP and several smaller parties, but depended on Deniz Baykal’s CHP to maintain power. (See the boxes on pages Six and Seven.) An ANAP-DYP-DSP coalition would command 296 votes, or 20 more than the 276 needed to survive a confidence vote.

If Ecevit can put together a grand coalition with both Yilmaz and Çiller, it will rule until the April elections, presuming there is no further pressure to postpone them. But at presstime it was not so clear that Çiller would join the proposed coalition, publicly endorsed by Yilmaz and Ecevit. In any event, there will certainly be the usual squabbling over who gets what portfolio, not to mention various deals on the budget and other issues. Ecevit would have 45 days to put together a workable government which could survive a confidence vote.

Should he fail, Demirel could offer the chance to another party, and the process could begin anew. Given the long delays in forming a government in 1996, however, it seems likelier that if a stable coalition cannot be put together until April by Ecevit, Demirel would use his option to name a broad government representing the various parties as presently distributed in Parliament, to govern until new, early elections. Those elections might be sooner than the April 18 date now expected.

The fact that none of the political parties rushed to embrace Demirel’s suggestion that elections be put off until 2000 does not automatically guarantee that the elections will be held April 18, however. Not only could they come sooner if Ecevit fails to form a government, but if a stable partnership can be cobbled together from ANAP, DYP and DSP, it is possible that there would be renewed pressure from the Army and Demirel to consider putting off elections and giving the new government time to prove itself. None of the major party leaders, however, is calling for this now, and Yilmaz urged elections as early as February. Though he insisted the international and economic problems Turkey faces require early elections, his enthusiasm is not surprising since recent polls showed his ANAP, for the first time in some time, possibly winning more seats than the Virtue Party, by a margin of 13.4% to 12%. But as the present situation shows, a mere plurality does not assure power.

Bülent Ecevit, the new Prime Minister designate, has been a Deputy Prime Minister in Yilmaz‘ most recent coalition, and heads the Democratic Left Party (DSP). Born in Istanbul on 28 May 1925, at 73 he is a veteran of the older generation, educated at Robert College and at the Universities of Istanbul, Ankara, London and Harvard. After experience as a journalist he was an activist in the old Republican People’s Party and served terms as Prime Minister in 1974, 1977, and 1978-1979, alternating with Süleyman Demirel, his longtime rival, in those years. Like Demirel, he was detained by the military in 1980 and barred from politics for a time. Something of an intellectual, he has written extensively and also has translated foreign prose and poetry (including T.S. Eliot) into Turkish.

 The largest party in Parliament, Virtue, is led by Recai Kutan; Virtue is the successor of the Welfare Party as Kutan is the successor of the (now banned from politics) Necmettin Erbakan. He graciously (or pragmatically) agreed not to insist on the right to the first chance to form a government after the fall of Yilmaz’ government; the Army is not about to welcome a new Islamist government during the present interim period; Virtue will not be asked to join any new coalition; it protested Ecevit’s selection as undemocratic.

Motherland Party leader Mesut Yilmaz was born in Istanbul in 1947, but comes from a wealthy family whose roots are in the Black Sea town of Rize. Like his personal rival Tansu Çiller, he trained in economics. He did graduate study in Cologne after graduation from Ankara University, and worked in the chemical, textile, and transportation industries before entering politics when political parties were revived in the wake of the 1980 coup and period of military rule. He joined the new Motherland Party (ANAP) of Turgut Özal and was elected to Parliament from Rize in 1983. He held numerous Cabinet posts under Özal, becoming Foreign Minister in December 1987. After Özal moved from the Prime Ministry to the Presidency, he became a political rival of the new ANAP leader, Prime Minister Y2ld2r2m Akbulut, and resigned as Foreign Minister in 1987. In 1991, however, he took over as Party Chairman of ANAP, and became Prime Minister in June, but in October of that year he lost the election to the True Path Party of Süleyman Demirel, who soon succeeded Özal as President and was succeeded by Çiller as Prime Minister. He tried to form a government again in March of 1996, but failed, as did an effort to rotate the Prime Ministry between himself and Çiller; similar efforts are in play now. In June of 1997 he succeeded Necmettin Erbakan, and served until his government fell November 25 under new allegations of corruption (See the Last Issue). Like his rival Çiller, and many educated Turks, he speaks both English and German as well as Turkish.

True Path Party leader Tansu Çiller, born in Istanbul in 1946, was the first woman to lead Turkey, a male-dominated society (Mustafa Kemal took the name Atatürk, “father Turk”, after all and however secular the society remains rather patriarchal), who served as Prime Minister in 1993-1995 and in brief interim capacities since. A protegée of Süleyman Demirel, she succeeded him as the True Path leader when he became President ( Profile.) She studied at Robert College and Bogaziçi University, took a Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut in the US and did postdoctoral work at Yale. She was an academic economist before entering politics, but also a millionaire from business earnings; she and her husband have business interests in the US (and has kept a home in New Hampshire and in the Washington area), and these have sometimes haunted her politically. She is personally considered abrasive by many (perhaps a function of her being a woman in political life). Her husband Ozer took her family name, another unusual move in Turkey. She speaks English and German fluently.

Deniz Baykal, born July 20, 1938 in Antalya, is the leader of the Republican People’s Party, fifth largest in the present Parliament; he kept Yilmaz in power over the past year by tactically supporting ANAP, but also brought Yilmaz down by withdrawing that support. As head of a leftwing party, he is nonetheless something of a kingmaker for the two big rightwing parties at the moment. His power may decline if Ecevit’s grand coalition works.

The Present Parliament

Turkish Parliamentary deputies regularly defect, split off to form new parties, or otherwise change allegiances. Several vacancies result from the action which banned Necmettin Erbakan and some other leaders of the Refah or Welfare Party from politics. At the time of the 1995 elections, Refah won 158 seats; today its successor, Virtue, only holds 145. The True Path Party ran second in 1995, winning 135 seats; it only has 96 today, mostly because of defections during Tansu Çiller’s coalition with Refah. The current party breakdown according to a Turkish government web site (www.turkey.org):

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