Flags and Mosques

Two things you can't miss when walking on the streets of Turkey are Turkish flags and mosques, those are actually summarizing the state. These rapidly expanding flags and mosques reflect the Turkish state, what on its turn has influence on the population. You are either an islamist or a nationalist; a third way does not exist. If this is the case, to what extent can we consider Turkey a democratic country?


The current prime minister is an Islamist; two thirds of the parliament is Islamist; the parliament's chairman is an Islamist; the presidential candidate, who will be chosen by parliament, is an Islamist. These Islamists are known as economically neo-liberal and culturally conservative. The other group, the secularists and the nationalists, is on the one hand made up of the other big political parties and on the other hand of the Army, which carried out three coups in 1960, 1971 and 1980. In 1997 it intervened to bring down Turkey's first Islamist Prime Minister, which can be seen as a post-modern coup. A second post-modern coup took place four days ago, on 29 April 2007. The Army gave a political note to the ruling party – Justice and Development Party, AKP – in connection with the presidential candidate, because he is an Islamist. The note can be summarized as: “watch out AKP, you're going too far!”. In addition, the Army was behind the organization of the demonstrations in the capital Ankara and the biggest city Istanbul, in which hundred thousands of people participated, against the ruling party and in favor of secularism. Turkish flags and Atatürk's portraits raised in the air. The message: “we will save the country from islamists”.


Turkey's democracy has a very strange system. To participate into the parliament a political party has to get at least ten percent of the votes. Consequently, because just two parties surpassed this political threshold in the last elections, AKP possesses two thirds of the parliament seats, while they had only won one third of the votes. The other seats are owned by the Republican Peoples Party, CHP. A small number of seats belong to parliamentarians who are independent or changed over to another political party. Because the president will be chosen by parliament, and he needs two thirds of the votes, it was possible for the Islamist candidate to become the next president. On the other side, the Army did not accept an islamist president, because otherwise islamists would become too powerful and therefore the Army gave a political note. The Secular opposition party CHP did not accept this president either and charged the ruling party, because during the presidential election the parliament was populated by less than two thirds. According to parliament's chairman, who is an Islamist, the number of the present parliamentarians was not important, but according to the Constitutional Court the number does matter: it must be two thirds, so, the president could not be chosen. As a result, national elections will be sooner.


After Turkey's establishment in 1923, the state's course was decided by Turkish-Sunni elites. The power swings between Turks and Sunni's. Sometimes little more nationalistic, sometimes little more religious. The Army, one of the main players of the Turkish secularist camp, does not want to lose any power. It intervenes at times, when there is a risk of losing any power. On the other side, after their coup in 1980, it gave more freedom to Islamists to islamize the country, because the Army was the ruling party and islamists were not a threat. Nowadays, Islamists have become too powerful, so the Army want to decrease their power.


In sum: it is possible to make some changes in Turkey, to make an improvement, or a deterioration. However, these alterations should conform to the Army's will. The three, or five, coups shows that the Army has the last word. So, it seems that democracy in Turkey exists only within the boundaries of the Army.