Ali Yüksel, according to the Radikal newspaper, is the father-in-law of a senior Justice and Development Party (AK Party) deputy, but was also the self-styled Sheikh ul-Islam in Germany -- the title more normally reserved for the cleric who in Ottoman times would have been the equivalent of the archbishop of Canterbury. Mr. Yüksel was also the head of the National View movement in Europe, a faith-based political organization where many in the current government, including the prime minister, took their first steps in public life. Those links have since been broken. The National View remains the movement associated with the former prime minister, Necmettin Erbakan, and the camp from which the AK Party seceded back in 2001.We know all about Mr. Yüksel’s extended family life from interviews he and his first wife gave to the journalist Fehmi Çalmuk for a book written some time ago. The first Mrs. Yüksel confessed to be not entirely pleased with her husband’s notion of married life, but confessed it was not her business to protest. “There are seven days in a week” appears to have been the family motto although nowadays that has probably been altered to the Cole Porter lyric, “it’s too darn hot.” According to the book “The Girls You Wonder About” (Merak Edilen Kızlar), there was indeed a heated family debate over whether the Yüksels should fill their permitted quota and take in wife number four.
The debate has not stopped there. The discussion over the prime minister’s choice of advisor has gone viral and even had its 15 minutes of fame by becoming a Twitter trend. The most heated comments come from, if the headscarved photos are to be believed, pious women. The overall consensus is that Mr. Yüksel is not so much a religious authority as a bit of a creep. “You can’t expect constancy from a man who can’t stay faithful to his wife,” writes Emine Arslaner.
What we have yet to discover is what exactly Mr. Yüksel advises the prime minister about. The assumption is it has something to do with religious affairs but one can always speculate under the hot August sunshine whether this is not all part of a clever strategy to lure in the National View movement into the AK Party camp. At the moment, that movement appears to be divided between the followers of Mr. Erbakan who is elderly, slightly batty and determined to install his son as his political heir and the followers of Numan Kurtulmuş who is well-spoken and remarkably sane. Under Mr. Kurtulmuş’ leadership the Felicity Party (SP) has regained modest core support and has the capacity to deprive the AK Party of a few percentage points in the polls. This could make all the difference if the coming referendum is a close run. Not surprisingly, we know for a fact that Mr. Erdoğan is trying to lure Mr. Kurtulmuş into his camp. On the other hand, it is not clear which faction of the SP controls the polygynous vote -- but clearly per household you get twice the political bang for your buck.
Though the thermometer is still rising, there is a serious point to all this. Bigamy is illegal in Turkey which means that the additional wives in religious marriages are deprived of their legal rights. So should the prime minister be taking advice from someone who happily admits to breaking the spirit if not the actual letter of the law? And what does it say about the government’s readiness to tackle the root causes of the very real discrimination against women in Turkey. Nearly 90 years after the founding of the republic, Turkey still lingers nearly the bottom of league tables measuring its gender gap. If Twitter is to be believed, it is Mr. Erdogan’s own supporters who are angriest at the careless chauvinism in his party. A chance perhaps for Mr. Kurtulmuş to pick up a few more votes?
