The so-called “wars for Çankaya” are poised to darken Turkey’s future. While Turkey in the first two months of the year has managed to attract a record high in direct foreign investment of $7 billion, the İstanbul Stock Exchange (İMKB) has attracted over $2 billion in the same period and foreign investors have also expressed their full confidence in the Turkish economy. In politics some Turkish “patriots” are prepared to do everything at their disposal to prevent the presidency of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who will not stand as a candidate in any case. But for some opposition groups this is not really the point. They keep calling for the intervention of “dynamic forces” to prevent the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) from electing a president from within its party ranks. To that end they stage campaigns describing Turkey as a country that would turn the clock back 100 years by election time and ask, “Are you aware of the danger?” With such an unrealistic image of Turkey they alarm the people, and more importantly the military, into action. Instead of making a coalition to beat the AK Party in the upcoming general elections these fanatics do not mind regressing Turkey and its future into the darkness of isolationism, militarism and authoritarianism. Will they succeed? It depends.
To these small and marginal groups it seems that the leader of the main opposition party, Deniz Baykal, has joined in calling on the military to stop Erdoğan. He was reported as expressing his expectation that the chief of General Staff, Gen. Yaşar Büyükanıt, will warn Erdoğan not to stand as a presidential candidate. There are even some people saying and writing that if Erdoğan is elected then the military should move in and take over the government.
These are unbelievable things to hear in a democracy. All these indicate that there is a certain lack of commitment to democracy and rule of law among some of the opposition groups in this country. They must be insane to talk of a military coup. Can they not calculate the possible cost of such an adventure in terms of economic crises, unemployment, decrease in growth, financial turmoil as well and social and political damage? But I am sure the patriotic officers in the Turkish military do think of such things and they will not be seduced by some fanatical and ambitious politicians and the so-called intellectuals.
What I am really concerned about is that by even airing such views, pleading for the interventionist inclinations of the military and the mentioning of the possibility of a military coup are sufficiently harmful. As a result Turkey appears to be a country where democracy can at any time be interrupted by the military, meaning its democracy is not strong, consolidated and institutionalized but instead fragile…
In December 2004 the European Council decided that Turkey sufficiently met the Copenhagen political criteria for opening up the way for the accession negotiations currently being conducted. Let’s not forget what the “criteria” says: “membership requires that candidate country has achieved stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities…”
Meeting the criteria is not a one-time requirement but the essence of the whole process. If we are serious about it we must maintain the requirements of the criteria. I think the most critical phrase in the criteria is “stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law and human rights.” Can we claim that we have “stability of institutions” guaranteeing democracy as long as we think, talk and fear a military coup?
