Competing visions for Turkey's future
On Sunday, voters weigh the ruling party's strong economic record against fears of a growing Islamist agenda.
from the July 20, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
Secularist worries
Indeed, the AKP has been campaigning on nearly five years of solid economic improvements that have nearly doubled gross national income, boosted growth, and brought inflation to its lowest point in decades.
The AKP political machine has used its wide grass-roots network and countless building-sized posters of Erdogan to spread its message across the country.
The AKP's challenge is overcoming secularist fears that it's using its growing influence to infuse Turkey – founded as a secular republic by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in the 1920s – with Islam. In fiercely secular Turkey, where headscarves are banned in state offices and institutions, and the presidency is seen as the guardian of secularism, the AKP set off a firestorm this spring by nominating Abdullah Gul – the foreign minister with an Islamist past and a headscarf-wearing wife – for president.
Amid a series of huge pro-secular rallies that precipitated early elections, the military issued a warning that the armed forces "are a side in this debate" for secularism, and that "no one should doubt" it would display its position – igniting speculation about another military coup.
With a single deployment of tanks in 1997, the military forced the Islamist government of the time – the forerunner of the AKP, to which Erdogan and Mr. Gul belonged – to step down.
But there are limits, analysts say, to what the military may be prepared to do. "[The military] are the founders of the state, but this will not go on and on" explains Hasan Koni, a professor at Bahcesehir University in Istanbul, who says such intervention has made Turkey a "kind of military democracy."
But he adds that a fifth "coup" is unlikely.
"The military follows public opinion and doesn't do anything without [broad] approval," says Seyfi Tashan, head of the Turkish Foreign Policy Institute at Bilkent University in Ankara, noting unmistakable signs during the pro-secular rallies that read: "No sharia [Islamic law]. No military. No coup."
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