Democracies with this dimension generate the danger of laying down the groundwork for a majority dictatorship. Therefore real democracies are those that secure the rights for minorities against overwhelming majorities. As in all democratic countries, political parties are opting for the shortest path that will carry them to a political victory at the ballot box: They employ rhetorical statements liked by the majority and make promises that will appeal to the majority’s sentiments.
As they are focused on a tangible interest, the statements and actions aimed at appealing to the majority don’t give much idea of where a political party stands on the continuum of democracy. What matters ultimately in terms of being a real democrat is how these parties are assessed by the minorities, even though the minorities don’t offer a large potential vote. Briefly, the best litmus paper to evaluate the level of democracy in political parties competing in an election process is how minorities view those parties.
With this reality in mind, Today’s Zaman presented two case studies on the issue on its front page (”Minorities to shun nationalist parties in elections,” prepared by our friend Evin Barış Altıntaş was published on June 14, “Minorities to choose pro-EU candidates,” prepared by our friend Jasper Mortimer, was published on June 23) and in the meantime made use of another news story published by Reuters, also on the front page.
What is interesting is, all of these news stories pointed out one and the same reality. This reality was that the AK Party, branded by some as Islamo-fascist and accused of being anti-secular and of following a secret Islamic agenda to establish a regime like that in Iran, was the first preference of all the minorities.
As Mortimer remarked, the minority communities are tiny in Turkey -- 60,000 Armenians, 25,000 Jews and 3,000 Greeks in a population of 72 million. But at a time when the world is watching Turkey closely, their influence outweighs their size. The way that the minorities vote is a weathervane of democracy and human rights in Turkey.
As we found out from these case studies, the first choice of our Armenian, Jewish, Greek and Syrian citizens are independent candidates like Baskın Oran and Ufuk Uras. When it comes to parties, they don’t view any party other than the AK Party positively.
For instance Etyen Mahçupyan, a political columnist for Today’s Zaman and the managing editor of Armenian weekly paper Agos, said, “July 22 may be the first time in Turkish electoral history that the Islamic party gets at least a third of the votes of the Armenians.” He estimated that in the 2002 elections only 5 percent of Armenians voted for the AK Party. Of course, the role of the reforms on human rights realized by the AK Party as a requirement of the EU membership process cannot be denied.
Meanwhile, as Mihail Vasiliadis, publishing director of Apoyevmatini, an 80-year-old newspaper for the Greek community in Turkey, said, the AK Party’s deposing of the Minority Commission, a secretive advisory body that was believed to exercise wide powers over minorities, was one of the chief reasons for his sympathetic reception. In addition, the law on foundations passed by the AK Party in 2005 seems to have been a source of relief for minorities and directed them toward this party.
As Mortimer stated in his article, everyone agrees that in constituencies where there is no credible independent, minority voters will most likely back the AK Party. Here are a few sentences from the prominent figures of these minority groups:
Vasiliadis: “The AK Party has to come to power so that I can feel myself as a citizen after 60 years.”
Armenian Patriarch Mesrob II: “The AK Party is more moderate and less nationalistic in its dealings with minorities. The Erdoğan government listens to us -- we will vote for the AK Party in the next elections.”
Mahçupyan: “Some minority citizens would vote [for the] CHP but generally, they don’t like the CHP and they fear the MHP. The CHP represents the state and all the laws against the minorities. Minorities see the MHP as ‘an extremely nationalistic party whose policies could provoke street violence’.”
Turkey’s last surviving ethnic Armenian village Vakıflı’s headman Berc Kartun: “The AK Party has tried to help the minorities, while other parties just talk.”
Zeki Basatemir, chairperson of the Syriac Catholic Church Foundation: “I can’t say we are unhappy with this current government. We think they are good at solving our problems.”
Being a real democrat and real secularism lie in the democratic attitude adopted toward religious minorities, regardless of their voting potential -- an attitude that views them as essential elements and first-class citizens of this country. It seems that the AK Party is streets ahead of its rivals.
