A step back from the brink

They must be exhausted, and it is easy to understand why: the eleven judges who sit on the Constitutional Court only met on Monday to begin deliberating over the chief prosecutor's case to close the ruling AK party. Their decision was announced at six o'clock this evening, meaning that the judges squeezed a week-and-a-half's work into just three days. They met at 9.30am each morning, and did not adjourn for the night until 10.30pm. Even the most optimistic press reports were not predicting a result until Friday.

But it is a reflection of how pivotal this case had become for Turkey that the ruling came so quickly. Court chairman Haşim Kılıç looked visibly tired, bags swinging under his eyes, when he appeared in front of a horde of journalists at six o'clock his evening. He was then prompty bathed in white light as every camera flash in the room went off at once. He had to ask the reporters to stop taking his picture before reading out the decision: six judges - a majority - voted to close Turkey's ruling AK party, four voted to impose financial sanctions, and one voted to dismiss all charges.

Seven votes were needed for closure, a threshold which was not met. The results mean the Constutional Court has accepted, albeit not unanimously, to cut AK's funding. The ruling party will receive only half of its funding this year; the precise figure will be determined when the Budget for 2009 is accepted.

It was so agonisingly close. The deciding vote, if there was such a thing, was probably cast by Mr Kılıç himself, who revealed he was the only one who voted to dismiss the charges. It would have taken just a single judge voting the other way to have brought a decision to close, and put the country into the unprecedented position of bringing down an overwhelmingly popular governing party in an instant. But that is not what happened. The AK Party remains open, its politicians remain unbanned, and the Turkish lira even managed to climb a kuruş or two against the dollar this evening.

AK supporters were naturally delighted. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was greeted with footall chants when he emerged to make a statement at party HQ. He said the decision had lifted away a great uncertainty in Turkey, and reiterated his commitment to European values: "Our path is that towards the EU. There is no return."

He avoided commenting explicitly on the outcome because, as is standard procedure in such cases, the judges' reasons for their decision has not yet been published. But while it is true that their response to Chief Prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalçınkaya's charges will make interesting reading, it is pretty clear what their decision says already: the AK party has been deemed to have behaved in an unsecular manner, but not to so violent a degree that it merits closure.

This is the best result any of us could have hoped for. The Court has demonstrated that Turkey's political system is not necessarily inflexible and compatible only with parties that are militantly secular. There is room for diversity here. At the same time, it has warned that such diversity can only go so far, and that the AK Party has seriously pushed the limits of the secular system. This is more than a slap on the wrists; it is a demand for the government to change its ways.

So what next for Mr Erdoğan's party? The ruling should hopefully subside some of the arrogance and complacence with which it has approached the business of government, particularly since its phenomenal electoral victory last summer. It is true that AK has a very powerful mandate, but it certainly does not have a universal one, and it would do well to remember that more often. Its approach to the recent headscarf debacle was a telling example: having secured the support of the opposition Nationalist Action Party, AK proceded to draft its own law without consulting secularist parties, non-governmental organisations or - heaven forbid - women, and passed it easily in parliament. The law was promptly annulled by the same Constitutional Court that today voted to keep the party open. In matters as controversial as the headscarf, AK must recognise that to govern does not necessarily mean to impose; it can also mean to consult.

That, however, is for the future. Tonight, Turkey takes a step back from the brink. Things could have been a lot worse.

More from me, more from Turkey

Thank you to everyone for the kind comments you left both on this blog and in my inbox. I spent the last few months writing a rather taxing research dissertation about Turkey's position on the Armenian genocide and had little time to keep anything else going. This is now complete and I am duly posting here once again. I do enjoy keeping this blog and intend to continue with a greater degree regularity in the future. But having not posted since February, that could mean anything...

Times have been turbulent in Turkish politics during my absence. The most striking development has been a case, by no less than the chief prosecutor, to close the ruling AK Party, on charges of not being secular enough. It calls for 71 members of the party, including prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and President Abdullah Gül, to be banned from politics.

The AK Party's predecessors, Welfare and Virtue (RP and FP, respectively), were themselves closed down by the Constitutional Court in similar circumstances; the charge here is that AK is merely their continuation. But many have expressed disappointment at the prosecutor's case, as it appears to hinge largely on the public speeches made by those 71 implicated leaders and less on, for instance, evidence of non-secular AK legislation.

AK was the moderate half of a split that occurred following the FP's closure. The other half, which became the Felicity Party (SP), is pious, xenophobic and not very popular. It won just two percent of the vote in last year's election; AK won forty-six percent. It was the SP that was behind protests against Pope Benedict's visit in 2006, where "he's coming to resurrect Byzantium" was the bizarre rallying call. The SP has also organised similar protests denouncing such targets as Israel and the Danish cartoonists who depicted the Prophet Muhammad. Mr Erdoğan met the Pope, was only the second Turkish prime minister to visit Israel, and stayed sensibly quiet on the cartoon issue. You would think it would be the SP, not AK, that is targeted in an anti-secular lawsuit.

This leads commentators, including this blog, to conclude what everyone in Turkey already knows: that the chief prosecutor's case is about more than AK's overtly religious behaviour, of which there is scant evidence. The lawsuit reflects an ever-growing concern in Turkey that while AK might not be staunchly Islamist, it certainly is not staunchly secularist either.

In some areas of Turkey, fewer and fewer restaurants are granted licences to serve alcohol, and there has been recurent talk of creating "alcohol zones" in towns and cities and prohibiting licenced establishments outside of them. Many Turks also say more girls than before sport the Muslim headscarf and that this is noticeable in cities as western-orientated as Istanbul. There is little doubt that AK's six years in power has bolstered confidence among Turkish Muslims; many say the lawsuit is a reaction to that.


Photographs such as the above, of First Lady Hayrünnisa Gül and Queen Elizabeth at a state banquet in Ankara earlier this month, are a firm confirmation that times have changed in Turkey. The Queen last visited Turkey in 1971, not long after the country's second military intervention, when it would be unthinkable for the First Lady to have her head covered. It would have been unthinkable this time last year. But Mrs Gül accompanied the Queen throughout the four-day visit. Yes, things have changed.

Whether the lawsuit will be successful is unclear. AK originally planned to change a part of the constitution to render the case illegal, but the idea found little support among the opposition and has since been dropped. AK will now defend itself against the charges in court, but Mr Erdoğan is also rumoured to be arranging a successor party in case he loses. He has also been involved in a fiery and very public argument between the government and the judiciary. Those clashes will continue for sometime yet, both inside and outside the courtroom.