The ballad of Erdogan and Gül

In an earlier letter I tried to show why there are criteria to distinguish, in Turkey, a policy of democratization from one of Sunnitization, and how this is possible irrespective of the fact that in a country with a Sunni majority these options may frequently appear indistinguishable.

Those objective criteria, specified for the political sphere, are related to the questions of wether

 the political participation of the “heterodox” minority is increased - or not

 the political role of women is increased - or not.

The new cabinet

Judging from the new AKP government led by R. Tayyip Erdogan, which clearly signals two big NOT’s, the answer seems clear – this is a government of Sunnitization, not of democratization.

Looking at some details in the cabinet list, this seems to be confirmed in the position which was the most accused of managing creeping “Islamicization” in the previous term, the ministry of education under Huseyin Celik : it is left unchanged.

What may seem contradicting this preliminary assessment is the appointment of a well-known social-democrat, Ertugrul Günay, as a minister for culture and tourism. However, this ministry is scheduled to be divided in the near future. Moreover, there had been no obvious problem, from a social-democrat or liberal viewpoint, with the former holder of the post, Attila Koc. So this must be considered a merely cosmetic change. Two new ministers of the economically liberal camp, state minister Mehmet Simsek and the minister for trade and industry, Zafer Caglayan, will be under control of the deputy prime minister and co-ordinator of economic ressorts, Nazim Ekrem, a well-tested paladin of Erdogan from his times in Istanbul.

Three new ministers will still be appointed in fall to separated ministries, perhaps to the resorts of forestry, natural resources, and tourism. However “surprising” the new faces will appear, these technnical ministries will not substantially alter the picture of a conservative-Islamic and markedly male government. Once again, Erdogan dropped his former promises of opening, especially as regards the female half of the population.

The Erdogan connection

Approximately half of the cabinet, and all of the “co-ordinating” positions, is now held by intimate friends and allies of the Prime Minister, mainly from his period as Istanbul mayor. This may give us a considerably different impression of what has happened.

To understand this, we may have to go a bit into the past.

As the rumour goes, Erdogan intended to present a compromise canditate for the presidency in April, but was outmanoevred by the other two thirds of the leading AKP triumvirate, Bülent Arinc and Abdullah Gül. Subsequently, tensions with the secularist camp, especially the CHP and the military, increased.

Somewhat later, Erdogan omitted much of the Milli Görüs faction from the candidate list for the parliamentary elections. Before and immediately after the elections, Erdogan pledged to look for a compromise over the presidency and a new constitution. Once again, he was outmanoevred by Gül, with support of the AKP moderate-Islamist grassroots. Tensions with the military and its allies increased further, as could be expected.

The new cabinet may be seen as Erdogan’s response. He strengthens his grip on the government with his proxies, the “co-ordinating” deputy prime ministers and the old friends in other ministries, like finance and transportation. It may be by accident of his Islamist roots that there is only one unveiled woman, the old and new minister of women’s affairs Nimet Cubukcu, among his old Istanbul aquaintances. Otherwise, Erdogan retained the most successful ministers of his old cabinet and send some peace messages to the military (defense minister Vecdi Gonül), the business community (state minister Mehmet Simsek), the Islamists (education: Huseyin Celik), the center-right (justice: Mehmet Ali Sahin) and the social-democrats and labor unions (E. Günay, Faruk Celik). To this the relict of Erdogan’s original offer of compromise may be added, the speaker of parliament Koksal Toptan, who was elected even with CHP votes.

Erdogan himself dubbed this a “cabinet of stability”, and indeed it appears as an attempt of stabilization after the balances of the old system have been shattered by Gül’s presidency and Erdogan’s position as the leader of the AKP has been questioned implicitely. Whereas Gül succeeded to become the chief of state, and may now try his abilities to calm down the atmosphere between himself and the military which he is supposed to command, the position of Erdogan has been weakened. Promising “compromise” but incapable to keep his word, his credibility in the eyes of the main Kemalist opposition is lost. The chances to recover are limited, as agreements with a leader who cannot lead are futile by definition. So Erdogan is struggling to hold control of his government at least.

Doing so, unfortunately, he has nothing to offer to even his own female supporters, who provided much of the AKP street and house-to-house campaigns – let alone the scared or sceptic women in the Kemalist camp. While Erdogan apparently did not keep a promise given to the military, he did not keep his promise to the AKP women either. One might call this “balanced”, ironically. This may have a meaning in the coming year, when local elections will be held. As Erdogan’s crisis management obviously disregards this, it gives the impression of haste and shortsightedness. Wether he can compensate his failure in the cabinet composition by headscarf policies, without causing further difficulties with the military and the judiciary – and thus the opposite of stability -, remains an open question. But if he can not, the strong position of the AKP on the municipal level may be at risk.

A sideview on Germany

For the Turkey-sceptics in Germany – probably a slight but considerable majority - Turkey has become the land of the Islamic headscarf, of forced marriages and “honor” killings. As Turkey is now represented by three males –the president, the prime and the foreign minister- with a veiled wife, this perception is confirmed at a higher level. For the Greens, the only genuine and outspoken supporters of Turkey’s EU accession on the level of political parties, the new Turkish Cabinet is disappointing. For the first time in years I saw leading Greens quoted to call for a strong opposition as there is “much to criticize” (Claudia Roth) in the AKP government. This is by no means a drop of support for Turkey, but it may indicate the first step to question the AKP’s supposed role as a democratizing party.

All in all, the German attitude of “wait-and-see” has been reaffirmed. We sincerely wait for the democratic rabbit to be produced from what we can no longer expect to be a hat, but rather a turban.