Turkey ruling party seeks early election
By SELCAN HACAOGLU, Associated Press Writer 22 minutes ago
ANKARA, Turkey - Turkey's Islamic-rooted ruling party appealed to parliament Wednesday to declare early general elections to be held June 24, opening the way for an easing of tensions with the secular establishment.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the decision in response to secularists' fears that his administration, by proposing a candidate for president with a background in the Islamic political movement, was moving the country toward Islamic rule that would undermine their Western way of life.
By holding early elections for a government with a fresh mandate, Erdogan hopes to resolve a crisis that sent the stock market tumbling and prompted the pro-secular military to threaten to intervene.
"God willing, Turkey will get back on track," Erdogan told reporters late Tuesday, referring to the economic and political stability that Turkey had enjoyed in recent years.
In a setback for his government, the country's highest court on Tuesday halted the parliamentary vote for president that looked set to elect the ruling party's candidate, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul.
Acting on a protest from the opposition, the Constitutional Court ruled that there were not enough legislators present during the first round of voting on Friday, and canceled the round. The opposition had boycotted the vote, depriving the ruling party of a quorum of two-thirds of lawmakers in the 550-seat Parliament.
Gul said he would not withdraw his candidacy despite the ruling and urged parliamentary elections to be held "as soon as possible."
At the heart of the conflict is a fear that Gul's party would use its control of both Parliament and the presidency to overcome opposition to moving Turkey toward Islamic rule. More than 700,000 pro-secular Turks demonstrated in Istanbul on Sunday, many of them women who believe political Islam would deprive them of personal freedoms and economic opportunities.
Secularists are deeply skeptical of the government despite its stated commitment to secularism, as well as reforms aimed at gaining membership to the
European Union' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> European Union, because many ruling party members made their careers in Turkey's Islamist political movement. Erdogan once spent several months in jail after reciting an Islamic poem that prosecutors said had incited religious hatred.
The ruling party has advocated an eventual move toward a U.S.-style presidential system with a more powerful executive, adding to concerns about a president with an Islamist tilt.
Erdogan also said he would push for a referendum if necessary on a constitutional amendment allowing the president to be elected by popular vote.
"If we cannot get the Parliament to choose a president, we will take this subject to the people and we will find a way to open presidential elections to our people," he said.
Parliament, which since 2002 has been dominated by pro-Islamic politicians from Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party, elects the president in Turkey. In the first two rounds of voting, a candidate needs two-thirds of the lawmakers' votes to win, but by the third he needs only a simple majority.
The bitter debate over the role of Islam in politics has exposed deep divisions in Turkey. Pro-secular groups say the ruling party, which came to power in 2002 with 34 percent of the vote, did not have a strong popular mandate even though an electoral quirk gave it 66 percent of the seats in Parliament.
The showdown also has led to fears that the military could intervene and push the elected government out of power.
Those concerns were heightened Friday when the army released a statement saying it was watching the process with concern and reminded Turks that the army was "the absolute defender of secularism" and would act to prove it if necessary.
Asked by reporters about the military statement, Erdogan said Tuesday that such debate should be avoided.
"This would weaken our country's institutions and would cause the country to lose blood," Erdogan said. "If the blood loss starts, than its price could be heavy for our nation as it happened in the past."
In 1997, the military pushed the pro-Islamic prime minister, Necmettin Erbakan, out of power, sending tanks into the streets in a message that any concessions on secularism would not be permitted. It staged three other coups between 1960 and 1980.
The founder of modern, secular Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, was an army officer who established the republic in 1923 after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, giving the vote to women, restricting Islamic dress and replacing the Arabic script with the Roman alphabet. Wearing an Islamic headscarf, as Gul's wife does, is illegal in government offices and schools.
____
Associated Press Writer Benjamin Harvey in Istanbul contributed to this report.
By holding early elections for a government with a fresh mandate, Erdogan hopes to resolve a crisis that sent the stock market tumbling and prompted the pro-secular military to threaten to intervene.
"God willing, Turkey will get back on track," Erdogan told reporters late Tuesday, referring to the economic and political stability that Turkey had enjoyed in recent years.
In a setback for his government, the country's highest court on Tuesday halted the parliamentary vote for president that looked set to elect the ruling party's candidate, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul.
Acting on a protest from the opposition, the Constitutional Court ruled that there were not enough legislators present during the first round of voting on Friday, and canceled the round. The opposition had boycotted the vote, depriving the ruling party of a quorum of two-thirds of lawmakers in the 550-seat Parliament.
Gul said he would not withdraw his candidacy despite the ruling and urged parliamentary elections to be held "as soon as possible."
At the heart of the conflict is a fear that Gul's party would use its control of both Parliament and the presidency to overcome opposition to moving Turkey toward Islamic rule. More than 700,000 pro-secular Turks demonstrated in Istanbul on Sunday, many of them women who believe political Islam would deprive them of personal freedoms and economic opportunities.
Secularists are deeply skeptical of the government despite its stated commitment to secularism, as well as reforms aimed at gaining membership to the
European Union' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> European Union, because many ruling party members made their careers in Turkey's Islamist political movement. Erdogan once spent several months in jail after reciting an Islamic poem that prosecutors said had incited religious hatred.
The ruling party has advocated an eventual move toward a U.S.-style presidential system with a more powerful executive, adding to concerns about a president with an Islamist tilt.
Erdogan also said he would push for a referendum if necessary on a constitutional amendment allowing the president to be elected by popular vote.
"If we cannot get the Parliament to choose a president, we will take this subject to the people and we will find a way to open presidential elections to our people," he said.
Parliament, which since 2002 has been dominated by pro-Islamic politicians from Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party, elects the president in Turkey. In the first two rounds of voting, a candidate needs two-thirds of the lawmakers' votes to win, but by the third he needs only a simple majority.
The bitter debate over the role of Islam in politics has exposed deep divisions in Turkey. Pro-secular groups say the ruling party, which came to power in 2002 with 34 percent of the vote, did not have a strong popular mandate even though an electoral quirk gave it 66 percent of the seats in Parliament.
The showdown also has led to fears that the military could intervene and push the elected government out of power.
Those concerns were heightened Friday when the army released a statement saying it was watching the process with concern and reminded Turks that the army was "the absolute defender of secularism" and would act to prove it if necessary.
Asked by reporters about the military statement, Erdogan said Tuesday that such debate should be avoided.
"This would weaken our country's institutions and would cause the country to lose blood," Erdogan said. "If the blood loss starts, than its price could be heavy for our nation as it happened in the past."
In 1997, the military pushed the pro-Islamic prime minister, Necmettin Erbakan, out of power, sending tanks into the streets in a message that any concessions on secularism would not be permitted. It staged three other coups between 1960 and 1980.
The founder of modern, secular Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, was an army officer who established the republic in 1923 after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, giving the vote to women, restricting Islamic dress and replacing the Arabic script with the Roman alphabet. Wearing an Islamic headscarf, as Gul's wife does, is illegal in government offices and schools.
____
Associated Press Writer Benjamin Harvey in Istanbul contributed to this report.
No comments:
Post a Comment