The really curious thing is that you would think there would be an element of excitement and uncertainty about the general election. After all, voters are volatile and likely to change their minds, and yet that contest is regard as pretty much a foregone conclusion. The current government has a huge majority in parliament and MPs never change their minds - or at least, they generally do as they are told. And yet -- what should be the foregone conclusion -- the presidential contest is where the real uncertainty lies.The reason for this paradox, if explanation were needed, is that no political force during the last five years has managed to organize itself as a credible alternative to the current Justice and Development (AKP) Party. Of course, the government may not get as many seats as it did last time. Under the fiendishly complicated electoral system, a party needs to get over 10 percent of the popular vote nationwide to qualify for any seats at all and only the Republican People’s Party did so in 2002. Many people voted for parties that never got any MPs elected. So the government’s majority was magnified by a lot of “wasted” votes. It might not be so lucky at the upcoming poll. Yet unless the months ahead see one government disaster after another, few will be taking bets on the AK Party losing outright.
Only person will ultimately decide the presidential contest, and that is Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. If he runs, he’ll win. If he nominates an alternative candidate so not to offend a military jealous of his power, he’ll still win. However it would be a different sort of victory. At the moment it is the president, not the parliament, which has presented the only effective opposition. The president has the right to veto legislation or send it for judicial review, and he has to sign off on major appointments, from the governor of the Central Bank to senior judges. The result is that despite the AK Party’s command of parliament, they have not had things entirely their own way. This is set to change.
So the main issue in the next months is one of real estate. Mr. Erdogan may decide to move house to the presidential palace or to stay put in the prime minister’s residence. Either way, he is likely to want to surrender control over government and over his party. Many, including a reported majority of his core supporters in the country, would like to seem him retain his hands-on role as premier. A look at recent history suggests that this would be the easier option. Turgut Özal became president, before the party he founded took a beating at a general election, and so in a sense, he jumped ship. Suleyman Demirel chose to become president as vindication of a lifetime struggle with the military. He wasn’t entirely happy with the results. He used the remote to turn off the sound off on his television when his successor Tansu Çiller appeared on the evening news.
“President Erdogan” too, would be a vast symbolic victory for the political movement he led. He actually went to jail in 1998 for “using religion to incite hatred” when he quoted at a public rally a poem with religious and nationalist imagery. His opponents, who included not just the secularist establishment but the leader of his own Virtue Party, were happy to see him do a spell inside. In their eyes, his real offence was his ability to attract voters who wouldn’t normally opt for a party with an Islamic reputation.
Less partisan critics felt he was just too provincial an intellect to reform Turkey and lead the country into Europe and the world. His reply was that no one else could persuade ordinary Turks that those goals were within their reach.
If anything, this remains the key question in the twin electoral contests ahead: does Mr. Erdogan have a real vision for the first decades of Turkey’s new century or will he let the country drift?
Benzer Haberler 
