Receding Power of Turkey’s Military: A Leap for Democracy or Another Power Struggle?

They chanted pro-Islamic slogans, shredded Biret’s posters, and then prayed en masse. Their fury was centered on news that the spectators would be consuming alcohol within close proximity of the Prophet Mohammed’s holy relics on display at the Topkapi museum. Besides, how could anyone be steeped in wine and music while the Chinese in Eastern Turkistan were slaughtering Muslim Uighur Turks? The demonstrators demanded to know. The incident has sharpened fears among Turkey’s pro-secular elite that their freewheeling lifestyles are at greater risk than ever before because the army, which they long viewed as the sole custodian of Ataturk’s secular order, is weaker than it has ever been.

Without question, the army’s influence has been steadily waning ever since the Islam-friendly Justice and Development Party (AKP) shot to single rule in 2002. Under a series of reforms aimed at winning European Union membership, the AKP has sought to trim the generals’ powers on paper at least. The single biggest reduction in their political weight came when the AKP relegated the National Security Council, through which the army would dictate domestic and foreign policy, to an advisory role and decreed that henceforth its secretary general would be a civilian not a general.

On June 26th, the military suffered an even bigger blow when the AKP-dominated parliament, in a post-midnight session, rushed through legislation that bars military courts from prosecuting civilians, and allows civilian courts to prosecute officers who commit crimes within their jurisdiction. The measure was adopted after another alleged coup attempt was leaked to the press and the law was approved soon after by Abdullah Gul, the Turkish president, despite considerable pressure from the generals for him to strike it down. In a sop to the generals, Gül did add a footnote to his signature calling for the law to be refined in ways that would address their concerns. But this has not stopped Gül’s detractors from accusing him of leaning in favor of the government.

Even so, the law has been widely hailed as a big leap for Turkish democracy that will put an end to coups and bring the meddlesome military under greater civilian control. But it has left the secular elite feeling even more defenseless and has reinforced their suspicions that the AKP’s “real agenda” is to defang the army so it can impose religious rule.

More likely, the AKP’s campaign to whittle down the army’s influence has less to do with democratic or Islamist zeal than with a desire to cement its control. Otherwise put, the constitutional amendment marks the latest stage in the AKP’s ongoing power struggle against the generals. Their differences have been more broadly framed as a tug of war between the old elites and an encroaching class of pious Anatolian entrepreneurs who have prospered under the AKP. Either way the army is losing ground; a string of abortive coup plots and its bungled campaign to block Gül’s ascent to the presidency has further eroded the army’s image, and it is once again the pro-secular main opposition Republican Party (CHP) that is riding to the rescue. CHP leader Deniz Baykal has vowed to appeal to the Constitutional Court to get the law overturned, and herein lays the problem.

One of the biggest failings of Turkish democracy is that its secular opposition has opted to become the fiercest opponent of pro-EU reforms, rather than spearhead them. This has led to accusations that the CHP is nothing more than a stalking horse for the generals whose sole aim is to perpetuate their dominance over politics. The CHP’s dogged resistance to change has sapped its popularity. The party has not won a single election for more than half a century. In 1999, the CHP failed to get into the parliament altogether. Yet Deniz Baykal, who has led the party for over two decades, is firmly glued to his seat. This is thanks to internal party regulations that allow the party leaders to appoint delegates who in turn vote them back into power. (This is the case for virtually all-political parties in Turkey, with perhaps the exception of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) whose leaders are vetted by the outlawed Kurdish rebel group, PKK).

The CHP’s opposition to the law allowing army officers to be tried in civilian courts looks doubly bad because it comes amid revelations of an alleged plan by the army to discredit the AKP. A copy of “The Plan to Combat Islamic Fundamentalism” was published on June 12 by Taraf, a liberal daily newspaper, touching off a political storm that culminated in the parliament’s adoption of the law, clearing the way for prosecution of the plan’s alleged perpetrators.

Signed by Dursun Cicek, a navy colonel serving in the army’s psychological warfare unit, the plan calls for “mobilizing agents” within the AKP to discredit the party and foment internal divisions. More controversially, it speaks of planting guns and explosives in the homes of members of Turkey’s most influential Islamic brotherhood, led by Fetullah Gülen.

The generals count the Gulenists among their most formidable enemies. The Gulenists are widely thought to have heavily penetrated the police force and, to a far lesser degree, the army itself. Indeed, it is generally assumed that it is these Gulenist elements that leaked the plan as well as other military documents that exposed the army’s alleged incompetence in staving off major PKK attacks along the Iraqi border in November 2007 and October 2008.

The controversy swirling around the alleged plan took an embarrassing turn when a civilian prosecutor called in Colonel Cicek for questioning, and then ordered his arrest within a day of being cleared by military investigators. The colonel, whose name has been linked to an earlier plan to besmirch non-governmental organizations (including TUSIAD, the largest industrialists’ lobby), was freed soon after for lack of generals who are being investigated over their alleged attempts to unseat the AKP could end up in jail. On July 13th, a group of lawyers in the mainly Kurdish city of Van, lodged a formal complaint against General Yasar Buyukanit, the former chief of general staff, over his alleged involvement in extrajudicial activities during his term in the mainly Kurdish southeast region.

General Ilker Basbug, Buyukanit’s successor, has repeatedly asserted that he will not tolerate coup plotters within the army’s ranks. Yet, the alacrity with which he dubbed the latest plan a fake “piece of paper” (it was allegedly cooked up in April), and his failure to suspend Colonel Cicek from his duties during the army’s own investigation, has raised questions about his sincerity. A further test will come in August when the army holds its annual supreme council meeting where promotions, expulsions, and other personnel related matters (including the fate of Colonel Cicek) are decided.

Meanwhile, all eyes are turned to the Constitutional Court, which is expected to deliver an opinion on the CHP’s petition soon. Whichever way it rules, the genie is out of the bottle. The army is no longer untouchable, at least in the national debate. The onus is on the AKP now to prove that it is not selective about reforms and to push through other changes that do not necessarily chime with its outlook. The onus is also on the CHP to find a way to unseat its moribund leader and give the millions of Turks, who neither want Sharia nor coups, a credible alternative to the AKP.