July 19, 2002	Friday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 8, 1423

ISTANBUL: Turkey’s three-party coalition leaders have bowed before a flood of resignations to call early elections on November 3.

The date for elections is not certain, however. It will have to be approved by election officials and endorsed by a majority in Parliament. The parliament has been called to meet Sept 1.

The week-long wave of resignations from Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit’s DSP (Democratic Left Party) had steadily weakened the government. Ecevit had to bow when the number of defectors reached 59 on Tuesday. That left the government without a majority.

Three more DSP deputies resigned on Wednesday, leaving the ruling coalition government three votes short of the required majority of 276 votes in the 550-member parliament.

The latest blows to Ecevit came from his closest aides, former deputy prime minister Husamettin Ozkan and former foreign minister Ismail Cem.

The two accused the government of “retarding Turkey’s accession to the European Union (EU)” and quit the DSP. They called for the “formation of a new Social Democratic Party to carry the country to its future role as an EU member.” The move has come to be known publicly as the “new formation.”

Having already drawn 61 former deputies, including seven former ministers out of the DSP, Cem and Ozkan have joined forces with Kemal Dervis, minister of state responsible for the economy.

The “new formation” is looking to complete the IMF programme, says Prof Turkel Minibas from Istanbul University. “A new Turkey, which will not be a troublemaker for the world capitalist system is now being designed,” she said

Cem’s group has sparked fresh expectations among the business community, liberal intellectuals and trade union leaders who believe that the only way out of Turkey’s woes is accession to the EU.

The three leaders have all held responsible posts in the coalition. Ozkan was a favourite of Ecevit until the day of his resignation. But the Turkish media has raised little criticism of the past record of the “troika.”

Reforming the political and economic structure in accordance with the EU’s “Copenhagen Criteria” — democracy, human rights and a functioning market economy — are preconditions for a candidate country to start negotiations for full EU membership.

Having gained “candidate member” status at the EU summit in Helsinki in 1999, Turkey expects to receive a “schedule” at an EU summit in Copenhagen in December to begin negotiations for accession.

But it is unlikely that the Turkish parliament will pass laws by December to abolish capital punishment and grant freedom for education and TV broadcasts in the Kurdish language, given the MHP’s resistance to these reforms.

“It is known that the “new formation” has gained the consent of Washington,” Dr Cengiz Aktar, an expert on the EU at Galatasaray University in Istanbul revealed. “But this is a must for all who deal with politics in Turkey.”

Aktar said that “the major issue in the forthcoming elections will be Turkey’s EU membership.”

Without the EU, he said, “Turkey heads towards a blind alley.” Turkey also risks “becoming a pawn of US regional schemes,” he said.

Political analyst Yurdaer Erkoca says that the silence of the influential armed forces in the face of Cem’s initiative indicates their passive consent.

“That is, the US, the EU, the army and the IMF converge on the “new formation” as an alternative to the present government,” he said.—Dawn/The InterPress News Service