July 27, 2007	Friday	Rajab 11, 1428

ISTANBUL: Turkey has a powerful military with no qualms about direct or other forms of intervention in politics in the name of its constitutional powers — safeguarding a secular republic from both external and internal threats. But now, while still held in high esteem by the populace, its continued role in politics is being questioned.

The armed forces overthrew two legally elected governments by direct coups in 1960 and 1980, but later restored civilian rule. They also knocked off an Islamic-inspired government through threat of intervention in 1998.

This time it weighed in again, although no tanks rolled through the streets. In what is dubbed as an “e-warning”, a sudden midnight declaration on its website, it spoke of growing Islamist threat a few hours after the ruling Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party AKP nominated foreign minister Abdullah Gul as its candidate for presidency.

The government hit back at the military, saying the general staff, which reports to the Prime Minister, cannot be so free-wheeling. But it did not, or could not, discipline the military.

After the “e-warning” Gul failed to obtain the required two-thirds majority in parliament. Gul is known for his past Islamist views and for his wife sporting the Islamic headscarf that is banned in public offices.

Following this, the legislature disbanded itself. Parliamentary elections were called three months ahead of schedule. The ruling party won in a landslide.

The debate now is what next. Some say the military’s latest verbal intervention led to an avalanche of sympathy votes for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP. The party upped its vote share from 34 to 46 per cent, and has 342 deputies in the 550-seat chamber. That is still 25 votes short of ensuring a president of its choice.

“I love the army. It is solid, honest and hard working,” says Veysel Yucel, a grassroots AKP activist in Istanbul. “But its place is in the barracks. Parliament should elect the president with no interference.”

Erdogan has termed the results “a national reflex for the injustice done to Gul”.

Devlet Bahceli, head of the National Action Party, the ultra-rightist group that returned to parliament with 14 per cent of the vote, said “extra-parliamentary pressure” helped the ruling party gain votes it could not have captured otherwise.

To Cengiz Candar, columnist for the financial daily Referans, the July 22 parliamentary elections amounted to “a referendum” on the military’s e-warning — also described as an “e-coup”, in preventing the election of a president by parliament. “With a decisive voice, the Turkish nation said no military intervention in politics,” he wrote. “The role of weapons in Turkish politics is over.”

Another commentator, Hasan Cemal of national daily Milliyet, characterised the election results as the people’s “e-warning” (election warning) to the military. The General Staff has made no comment on the election results.

But not all support a diminished military role. Analyst Gulsun Erdim, a human resources consultant, told the news agency: “Telling the military to have nothing to say in politics is like asking them not to do their job. They are mandated to safeguard the constitution and the secular republic. So they have to speak and act when necessary.”

Turkey has the second largest military force in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) after the United States, with over 500,000 soldiers. Military service is compulsory.

The military enjoys quasi-independence from the government. It virtually sets its own budget, and does not clear its public statements with any civilian authority. It publicly announced in its e-warning that it is an interested party in the presidential elections to ensure that Islamic norms do not overtake secular values.

The military has been beyond reproach — at least publicly. Even now, criticism is rare and mild in a country where hardly anyone escapes virulent attack by the media.

To pronouncements by AKP, including Erdogan and Gul, vowing allegiance to the secular system, the military has countered by asking for deeds beyond words.

The AKP government has on the other hand tried to diminish the military’s strong influence, also citing standards of civilian authority over the military in the EU that Turkey aspires to join as the first Muslim nation.

So far, the government has managed to place a civilian as secretary-general of the National Security Council, a gathering of top government and military officials under chairmanship of the president. In the past they were all from military ranks.

But the election results did not solve the issue of that occasional military-civilian impasse. It did not answer the question what the military will say or do if the ruling party re-nominates Gul, and if the candidate unacceptable to the military in the previous legislature will prevail in this one.

Erdogan, bolstered by a stunning electoral triumph, is under pressure from the grassroots to stick to Gul. He has publicly said that it was up to Gul to stand or not, and also that he remains open to other candidates from his own party. If the new parliament fails to elect a president by Aug 30, it’s back to square one.

The AKP government and the military have clashed occasionally since the Islamic-rooted government came to power in 2002.

The military complains of a growing Islamic tendency in a society that has been built on secularism since Turkey became a republic in 1923. The armed forces weed out officers accused of Islamist propaganda in the military. The Prime Minister, who must accept or reject such expulsions, has so far gone along with expulsions with a notation that the accused should have the right to object.

Recently, the government and the military have also split on how to deal with increased violence from Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) insurgents holed up in Iraq and slipping into Turkey. The military is advocating unilateral cross-border incursion, while the government has so far backed away from such an operation, which is also strongly opposed by the United States and the European Union. —Dawn/The IPS News Service