ByStephan
Faris, Chronicle Foreign Service
Istanbul -- Ihsan Sekerci hasn't voted in nearly 30
years. Until recently, the 58- year-old retiree lived a comfortable life,
supplementing his small pension by selling carpets at street markets. Politics
didn't interest him. Now, with Turkey plunged into a deep economic crisis, all
that has changed.
"People are so angry with the economic situation, they are
looking for a solution," he said. "It has pushed me to vote."
As Turkey, an important U.S. and NATO ally in the Middle East,
heads toward elections on Sunday, the country's disenchanted electorate appears
to be ready to throw out incumbent parties and vote in one that has Islamist
roots but claims to be remaking itself as a secular force -- the Justice and
Development Party.
The prospect raises questions about whether Turkey, whose military
bases served as staging grounds for U.S. and allied forces during the Gulf War,
will remain a reliable ally if the United States and Britain launch an attack
on neighboring Iraq.
It also poses potential problems for Turkey's bid to join the European
Union, which is demanding that the nation institute democratic reforms as
the price of admission. Turkey's military ousted the last Islamist party to
gain control of the government, drawing charges of repression.
The Justice and Development Party has not yet named a prime
ministerial candidate, although the power behind the throne is party chief
Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The former mayor of Istanbul has been barred from public
office for inciting religious hatred -- a taboo in this officially secular
nation.
Erdogan's party is polling 30 percent, and only its nearest rival,
the center-left Republican People's Party, which is currently pegged to get
about 15 percent of the vote, is above the electoral threshold of 10 percent
needed to enter parliament.
In an apparent backlash in response to the nation's economic woes,
none of the parties in the governing coalition of Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit
is expected to win enough votes to gain a seat in parliament.
Turkey's economy is still struggling to end a crisis that saw it
shrink 9.4 percent last year amid mass layoffs, and most Turks are still
feeling the pinch. The crisis is the country's first to hit white-collar
workers. In the banking sector alone, 30,000 people are out of work.
"Consider that these are 30,000 people -- people with really
good jobs -- who are not paid anymore," says Mehmet Kaytaz, the head of
the economics department at Istanbul's Bosporus University. "Imagine that
effect on the economy."
In the important carpet industry, both high and low ends have
suffered. Ibrahim Akkaya, 45, who owns a store where the average carpet runs
around $2, 000, says his revenues have plunged 50 percent. And in the street
markets, where Sekerci would sell about 20 handmade rugs a month, he now moves
only two.
Both support the Justice and Development Party, citing Erdogan's
accomplishments as mayor of Istanbul, where he increased public access to water
and led a drive to clean up trash. They also tout his honesty, although it
remains to be seen whether he will operate differently from incumbent
politicians, who have been accused of pressuring state banks to give loans to
businessmen who fill party coffers.
"I really believe (the Justice and Development leaders) are
honest," Akkaya says. "Maybe not pure honest, but definitely more
honest than the others."
Neither Akkaya nor Kaytaz mentions the party's religious roots.
Indeed, Erdogan, a veteran of two parties that have been shut down under
Turkey's secular laws for being too Islamist, has emphatically downplayed them,
arguing that his is now a secular party like any other.
"Being religious is not important for our party," says
Ismail Hakki Turunc, the party's elections coordinator in Istanbul's
conservative Fatih neighborhood. "We are not choosing a priest for a
church or an imam for a mosque. We are choosing someone for the state."
Past Islamist parties, including the outlawed Welfare Party of
former prime minister Necmettin Erbakan, to which Erdogan belonged, have sought
to move Turkey away from the West. In fact, the Welfare Party's attempt to ally
Turkey with countries like Iran and Libya earned the ire of the military, which
ousted it in 1997.
Erdogan himself has gotten in trouble for professing his religious
beliefs. He was jailed in 1999 for reading a poem at a political rally that
trumpeted Islamist pride, declaring: "Minarets are our bayonets, domes are
our helmets, mosques are our barracks, believers are our soldiers."
Last week, Turkey's chief prosecutor asked the nation's top court
to shut the party down, arguing that Erdogan's position as its leader is
illegal since he is barred from political office. Erdogan called the case
"another heavy blow to Turkish democracy." However, it is not
expected to derail the election results, because it could take up to a year for
the court to rule on the request.
The Justice and Development Party insists that it has turned its
back on that history and that joining the European Union is now a top priority.
The party also has promised to work with the International Monetary Fund to
handle the economic crisis and repay Turkey's $16 billion debt.
"How sincere they are is a big question mark in everybody's
mind," says Yilmaz Esmer, a political science professor at Bosporus
University. "Have they changed? We don't know. Have they learned a lesson?
Yes."
When it comes to war with Iraq, Justice and Development, like all
other Turkish parties, is firmly opposed. Anti-war sentiment is widespread,
based on fears that such a conflict could destabilize the region's economy and
incite Turkey's Kurdish minority to renew its fight for independence.
However, the party "has gone out of the way to make it clear
it respects the United States," says Soli Ozel, a professor of political
science at Istanbul's Bilgi University. If the United States and Britain go to
war, he says, Justice and Development "will do whatever is
expedient."
Other analysts are hedging their bets.
"Frankly, nobody knows -- we don't even know who their
ministers will be," said a Western diplomat. But even he is confident they
will go along with a war on Iraq. "So often, working with the U.S. has
been to the overall advantage of Turkey," he said. "I can't see how
anybody who gets elected will want to bail out Saddam."
Watching the election closely is the European Union, which is due
to decide in December whether to move toward letting this country of 60 million
people join.
With Turkey in the spotlight, analysts say, the military is
unlikely to step in this time, even if Erdogan's party moves toward more
overtly Islamist policies.
"A positive signal from the European Union would be a really
big stimulus, to both the people and the economy," says economist Kaytaz.
"If we get a negative sign because of a negative government, it will be
difficult to go back."
As Esmer puts it: "Turkey is headed for a period of unknowns."