After hundreds of thousands took to Istanbul’s streets in protest and the military threatened a coup, a high court in Turkey delayed the Islamists’ plan to install their party’s founder as President. Islamists already hold a wide majority in Turkey’s Parliament yet risk continued exclusion from the European Union. United Press International editor Claude Salhani provides and update and explains what is at stake in commentary this morning in the Washington Times:
Turkey’s latest crisis began when Mr. Erdogan’s Islamic AKP — Justice and Development Party — set its eyes on the presidency. The position is largely ceremonial but still carries a certain amount of clout. The Turkish president, who serves a seven-year term, can block laws and official appointments. The president nominates the judges of the Constitutional Court and military advocates.
Winning the presidency would have consolidated the AKP’s power, but also set a precedent in the modern Turkish republic by mixing politics and religion.
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Mr. Gul, who is also co-founder of the ruling moderate AKP, however, failed to win the necessary two-thirds majority of the Parliament, or 367 votes in the first round of voting. But a victory by Mr. Gul in a third round was a certain shoo-in, given that he would only need a simple majority to win.Then there were massive demonstrations in the Turkish capital of Ankara and in its commercial center, Istanbul, with more than 1 million people taking to the streets in protest. And perhaps of greater importance was the not-so-thinly veiled threat from the country’s military — traditional guardians of the Kemalist secularist notion — of having the armed forces intervene.
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Turkish politicians know better than to tempt their military. Turkey’s generals have intervened four times in the last 40 years to protect the secularist Kemalist tenet. Three coups d’etat — in 1960, 1971 and 1980 — brought the military out of their barracks and the politicians into line. The military’s latest incursion into the country’s politics was no later than in 1997, when they forced the resignation of Necmettin Erbakan, the head of government and leader of an Islamic party.As could be expected, the EU has reacted with alarm to threats by Turkey’s military forces. A military coup at Europe’s doorstep is indeed a frightening prospect. But then again, so is an Islamist state for the vast majority of Europeans.