Turkey's Presidency Vote Annulled

[Heibges]

BBC World News

Turkey's presidency vote annulled.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6612831.stm

The constitutional court in Turkey has annulled last Friday's parliamentary vote to elect a new president.

The only candidate, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, failed to win the required majority after a boycott by secularist opposition parties.

Government spokesman Cemil Cicek said the ruling AK party would propose its candidate again.
But another ruling party lawmaker, Sadullah Ergin, said only a timetable for a new vote would be set.

Army concern

After the ruling, Mr Cicek said the government would be prepared to meet an opposition call for an early general election provided parliament agreed to lower the age limit for MPs to 25.
AK believes this will boost its electoral chances.

But the BBC's Sarah Rainsford in Istanbul says the army had made it clear it would not tolerate Mr Gul as president.

It warned it would defend the separation of state and religion, the legacy of the state's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

On Sunday, hundreds of thousands of people rallied in Istanbul in support of secularism. Mr Erdogan appealed for national unity in a televised address to the nation on Monday.
Ataturk was the man!

[Skybird]

The AKP has it's power coming from the rural coreland of Turkey, Anatolia. Although their is a substantial migration trend of people moving towards the cities, the great majority of Turks is still living here, outside the major cities, and amongst these groups, again a vast majority lives in great poverty. the GNP per head is by far the lowest in the region, lower than that in Romania, Bulgaria, or Albania. More realistic analysts say that the vision of Turkey being a massive export market in case of EU membership is hopelessly overestimated, and more dictated by wishful thinking and pro-membership agendas. People in these regions are simple, relatively straight, conservative, very Islamic, sometimes polite and sometimes openly hostile to foreigners travelling there (I made both experiences, repeatedly). The level of uneducation is high, religion tends to be taken literally, and tends to leading to conservative, superstitious thinking, and a clear trend towards Sharia-kind of islam. the contrast between the westernized cities, and the rural regions, is enormous. Living is harsh, poverty is omnipresent, and in some regions existence is a desparate stuggle for simple survival. Here, Muhammad's Islam never was weak, or dead, no matter the intentions of Ataturk. It is not by random chance that the TV transmission the last two days, showing pictures of a red ocean in the streets of the metropoles where hundreds of thousands of citizens demonstrated for secularism and against the AKP claiming all three major positions in the state, has been switched off. I have no doubt that this was intentional, by ruling of Erdogan himself. His reservoir of hidden power was not to be worried.

It was a clever intention by Erdogan not to run for presidency himself, but to send his close friend Gül into the race. They both are very close in goals and thinking, and both are fundamentalistic-Islamic. For them, democracy is just a tool they try to use for fighting back the influence and the self-understanding of the military as guardian of the secular constitution without exposing themselves to critizism of violating the constitution, or driving an islamic agenda (which the AKP does, as I see them). Which as a matter of fact the military really is, even if a certain elite also entered the current conflict for more personal policies: the fear of loosing personal privileges. However, with the military put on the chain, the way would be free to use the massive majority for the AKP in the rural areas to silently implement more and more Islamic influence in the state affairs of Turkey - all under the coverage of democracy and thus even being supported by the EU.

How europe will react to the current crisis, remains to be seen. The latest scenes at least should teach Brussel how fragile the secular system in Turkey really is.

1. If the military will launch an open coup (so far it is more or less indirectly pulling the strings behind the curtain), this could trigger european sympathy for the poor Islamic AKP which suffers from democracy being cracked down, as Brussel would interpret it without doubt, and thus the EU would push even stronger for Turkey membership in the EU, to "help democracy there". That Islam in general and the AKP in special have not really anything in mind with democracy never has been and probably never will be of any concern for the EU, dreamdancing on clouds as usual. But it could also be that the military coup would be a wake-up call and European law-makers would be less eager to have Turkey in the EU.

2. If the military will not launch an open coup, the effect of the political scenarios possible then again could work both ways. It could be that again the whole chain of events cause some waking up at least of some politicians, saying that if even the military's traditional role as guardian of secularism has become so weak that it does not challenge Islamic AKP grab for power, then Turkey maybe is no likely candidate for secular EU. Or it could be that exactly these restrains of the military will be seen as an argument and opportunity to give democracy a last final push, and by that - starting to play the swan song for secularism in Turkey.

The situation is totally open currently. it must be remembered that the past coups did not reduce the popularity of the military in Turkey, but as a consequence of the military inteference always caused the oppostion parties - and the AKP - to raise their share of votes in the followjng elections nevertheless. So, even a coup, which without doubt would end in the military handing over power to the civilian authorities again, could in the end work in favour of the AKP. If there are early elections, as Erdogan today offered to hold in July, despite the current troubles erdogan has good reason to believe that he will emerge strengthened from them.

The inner disunity withing Turkish society often is not seen, or is underestimated by foreign observers. When travelling only the urban areas and metropoles, the large cities, you only see one side of Turkey - the turkey that is trying to orient itself to the West, that gives western visitors a warm welcome, that is open-minded, and reasonably modern. But it is a clear minority of people living here. The other side of Turkey is the majority of the population living in the rural places that most tourists and business men never see, and never care to see. And this is were ultra-conservative Islam always was lieing in wait, aware of it's enormous potential in heads and votes once the opportunity has come. And this great danger is constantly ignored in the West. The rise of the AKP, and the past policy of Erdogan's government should have been a a clear alarm signal for the West. But not only did politicians not wake up, they even took care to put wax into their ears before going to bed.

It reminds me of this Monthy Python episode, British colonial officers taking a shave in the middle of a battle in Africa, and later discussing in a tent about one of their officer comrades having lost a leg due to lion's bite, and wondering how it could have happened and if a new leg will grow again. until then, they concluded, it would be recommend to replace the ripped mosquito net as a protection, in case the animal would come back, and to use the other leg when playing soccer. That attitude perfectly sums up the attitude of the EU towards risk-projections that it does not like and has no answer to - it gives an answer nevertheless, no matter how much off-reality and how unreasonable it is.

Instead of warning the military - as if the EU would have any demand to claim that theTurks must listen to lecturing, arrogant EU - Europe should better hope that at the end of present events there will be a reduced power position of the AKP. Keeping Islam away from power must be priority for Europe at all costs, both concerning Turkey and the EU itself. To evade a military coup at all costs, no matter how high the costs are, must not be our priority. In fact, this is at our costs. - Welcome to reality. I'm sure that nobody in Brussel understands what I am talking about.

Islam is like a grease that you cannot wash off your hands, no matter how much soap you use. I think in the very long run, Turkey will become a true Islamic country again sooner or later. Secularism that is not willing to defend itself against Islam even with force and violance, if needed, simply will be finally brought down in a conflict of attrition in which it has by far the shorter breath. I talk in decades here. Islam does not know the concept of unlimited coexistence, and will fight as long as there is something left that is not itself and thus poses an "offence" to Islam - simply by being there, and being different.

[The Avon Lady]

What Skybird's last 2 paragraphs said. :yep: