Turkey’s bitter battle between its secularists and those who want the people of an overwhelmingly Muslim country to be able to express and practice their faith freely has reached a critical stage. The petition from the country’s chief prosecutor to the Constitutional Court to close down the Muslim-rooted ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has put Turkish politics on a knife-edge. The party could well be closed and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul thrown out of office. That would plunge the country into its worst political crisis in decades and the fears of such a crisis have already had an impact upon what was a booming market.
It would be folly to assume that a ban will not happen. The Turkish judiciary, like the Turkish military, is a solid element in the secularist establishment. The Constitutional Court annulled the first round of voting in last year’s presidential election which the AKP’s Abdullah Gul won. Two months ago, the court’s eleven judges agreed unanimously that there were grounds for banning the party, the prime minister and the president and that the case should proceed. Such circumstances do Turkey great damage, not only in the eyes of the Muslim world but also in the very places the secularists so admire, notably Europe. Turkey has come under criticism in the West for what is seen as curbs on its people’s freedom to criticize the state or wanting, as in the case of some Kurds, to secede. Last year, because the law was seen as fundamentally undemocratic, the EU specifically called on Ankara to change the law on “Insulting Turkishness” as a condition for EU membership. Yet what is the difference between using the law to prevent free speech and action by Kurds and using it to prevent free speech and action by Muslims? Not a great deal.
The real reason for what the secularists want to do is that they know they cannot win through the ballot box — the place this particular battle should be fought. Last year when the Constitutional Court annulled the presidential election in Parliament which Abdullah Gul was set to win and the government called a general election, the AKP won a landslide. All the signs are that if there were another election today, the AKP would repeat that victory.
Attempts to paint the AKP as some sort of reactionary Islamist front are demonstrably ridiculous. Only last week, in fact, Queen Elizabeth was in the country on a state visit, praising the policies of AKP-led Turkey; she would hardly have been there, let alone saying such things, if Turkey were in the hands of fundamentalists in disguise.
Will a ban work? Unlikely. In any subsequent election — and there will have to be an election if there is a ban — the AKP will simply rebrand itself or its members will stand as independents. They will almost certainly win, leaving the secularists even more bitter. But in the meantime, with both government and president removed, Turkey could be politically rudderless. No country can afford such a power vacuum. It is hardly a recipe for stability.
