Analysis: Turkish Court must set emotion aside
The comment by Turkey’s Opposition leader, Deniz Baykal, says it all: “The Republic is going back into the hands of its true owner.â€
While the crisis in Turkey over the possible election of its first president with an Islamist past looks like a battle between secularists and Islamic traditionalists - with the very fabric of secular Turkish society at stake - the reality is in fact very different.
The secularist-Islamist struggle is an important element that cannot be overlooked. However, the tussle, which escalated late on Friday when the military weighed in with a threat to act, is more about the people who have become accustomed to their kind running the country and how far they are willing to allow democracy to infringe against the strict spirit of Turkey’s constitution.
And the results of the row could be a period of chaos that will benefit no-one at a time when Turkey, a candidate for the European Union, is enjoying a rare spell of political stability and low inflation.
Mr Baykal’s definition of the Republic’s true owner would be the secularist elite – people like him, and the military they are so fond of, top secularist judges, bureaucrats, and those Turks who consider themselves to be the best advertisement for the vision of Kemal Ataturk, the blond blue-eyed military hero who was modern Turkey’s founding president. The sort of people, in fact, who turned up in their thousands to this weekend’s mass anti-Government rally in Istanbul and another similar march in Ankara two weeks ago.
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Source: www.timesonline.co.uk
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