Still Secular

23 July 2007



Turkey’s Islamic Ruling Party Wins Re-Election

Turkey has re-elected the Justice and Development Party, known by its Turkish initials AKP, a party with an Islamic pedigree. The election stemmed from a constitutional crisis brought about by opposition parties blocking the election of the AKP candidate for president, one of the first issues to be resolved now. The AKP won 341 of the 550 seats in the new parliament, not quite the 2/3 majority needed to ram through their presidential choice. Either the AKP decides on a compromise candidate, or the constitutional crisis gets revived.

The trouble began when the AKP nominated Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul to be the next president of Turkey. Mr. Gul is a devout Muslim, but then, most Turks are pretty faithful to the teachings of Mohammed, peace be unto him. What riled most of the opposition politicians was the fact that Mrs. Gul wears the Islamic headscarf upon which Turkish officialdom frowns. The republic created by Kemal Ataturk is a secular one, and the thought of the president's wife covering her hair at an official event terrified them.

The analysts in Turkey have an interesting view of the AKP and its electoral success. The electorate appears to think that the AKP is not a threat to the secularism of the republic. It has run the nation reasonably well in the last five years, the economy is growing and losing some of its endemic weaknesses, and talks about joining the EU continue.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said last night as he and his party celebrated its victory, “No matter who you voted for, I respect your choice.” He added, “As you can see, one thing that unites all of us is our goals. We will empower our democratic, secular government based on social laws.” He at least sounds like he means to keep secularism at the heart of his program, and one can envision a secular program that adheres to the tenets of Islam. After all, the United States is a secular republic with a very religious electorate.

The fireworks, presuming the presidency is settled without further suffering, will come from the minor parties that have won seats. The rightist National Action Party [MHP] has about 70 seats, and Kurdish “regionalists” picked up a handful. These two have irreconcilable positions on the nation’s Kurdish minority, and the Kurds of Iraq remain a perceived threat in Ankara. All the same, the Turks have accomplished something with their election. They have proved yet again that Islam and secular democracy needn’t be mutually exclusive. One hopes that the other two great Islamic peoples, the Arabs and the Persians, noticed.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.


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