Election 2007: Being aware of the danger

Anyone who happened to see a copy of Cumhuriyet this morning will have seen the paper has relaunched its advertising campaign of a year ago. The paper's name translates literally as "Republic"; the slogan they've recycled for their latest push for more readers is "Are you aware of the danger? Own up to your Republic!" A clever pun, you see.

Last year they wrote it backwards in a green font that resembled Arabic. This time around, they opted for a bog standard sans serif instead. "1881 - 2007", it reads. "The May 2007 Presidential election is taking place. Are you aware of the danger?" 1881 was the year Kemal Atatürk, founder of modern Turkey, was born.

Both versions, of course, allude to the perceived threat to secularism. It's not much of a campaign: Cumhuriyet's circulation hardly budged from its usual 60,000 during the Arabic phase last year, and this year is no different. They're not getting the readers. It's not exactly the Great Moon Hoax, is it?

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's AKP is on the verge of launching an Islamic revolution in Turkey. They will begin, god protect us, by installing one of their number as the new President. Then, before we know it, our alcohol will be outlawed and our women will all be forced into headscarves. That at least is what a large part of Cumhuriyet's target audience would have us believe.

I can't begin to count the number of people who believe a coup is nigh for Turkey. "If (parliament speaker Bülent) Arınç becomes President, the tanks will start rolling.....guaranteed." was the textbook comment from an anonymous reader in this blog a few weeks ago. Many have the same prognosis for an Erdoğan presidency too.

I have spent an awfully long time waiting for that Islamic revolution. Surely it must be soon that my place of work becomes legally obliged to operate minibus services to my local mosque, five times a day? And the day of rest should be switched back to Friday, like in all proper countries, yes? Oh, and is it not about time that we bring a healthy spot of polygamy back into marriage?

If that's the AKP's secret agenda, they're doing a good job of hiding it. Turkey has had plenty of things to distract itself with since 2002 - an economy in dire need of reform, a war on its southeastern doorstep, and a huge, corrupt state network made up of bureaucrats, soldiers and mafiosa. And on top of having all that, there has been the start of talks with a supranational bloc that has brought Turkey closer to the West than Atatürk could have possibly dreamed.

But if the Islamic revolution is upon us, but the voters certainly don't seem to care. The latest SONAR poll gives the AKP a 28.26 percent share of the vote. The main opposition CHP are at 13.21, followed closely by the MHP on 12.23 and the DYP on 11.68 percent. The results point, unsurprisingly, to another AKP victory and a greatly reduced CHP share in seats. AK too will probably lose a number of seats, as can only be expected after such a crushing majority, but might just be able to continue a single party government. It also seems very likely that there will be more than one party in opposition this time.

If the polls are to be believed, Turkey is looking at five more years of stable government and greater representation of the electorate in parliament. Tell me, where is the danger in that?

Thugs above the law: the Turkish police today

Nearly two years ago, a Women's Day celebration in Istanbul turned very ugly when police decided the women were demonstrating without permission, and were therefore doing it illegally. When the group refused to disperse, officers dived in with pepper spray. 29 women were arrested, countless more were beaten with truncheons. Turkish television filmed it all.

It just so happened that EU leaders were in Istanbul too. They were stunned by the violence, and were shocked further when the government shied away from criticising the police. The press was outraged. Istanbul's police chief did weakly claim the demonstrators were chanting pro-terrorist slogans, but the damage was done and the force's already dismal reputation sank that little bit further.

A month later, the national police office did something it hadn't done before. It launched an advertisement campaign. The intention, no doubt, was to remind those of us who might have forgotten about what the police actually did.

It wasn't so much a campaign, more a healthy spot of instilling Orwellian fear. I provide my translation below; the attached photograph is of a billboard on Turan Güneş Boulevard in Ankara, taken by me in April 2005.

What if it did not exist?

Perhaps your children
would know only
a dark world

A world of pitch black
where street law applies.

But these are only bad dreams.

Even if you only remember it
in times of woe
the police is always by your side.

Now, I'm sure most of you have seen how the suspected killer of Hrant Dink, Ogün Samast, was not immediately returned to Istanbul upon his arrest. Instead, police officers decided to give the suspect a Turkish flag and have their photo taken with him (see The Guardian's story). There are also reports Samast was given a hero's welcome when he eventually was transfered to Istanbul.

Ismet Berkan says in today's Radikal that the idea of terror being praised by people wearing official uniforms is like a punch in the stomach. But it is the truth. Turkish police already has a notorious history of thuggery; this week, it added to that a conspiracy with murderers. The force will find it very difficult to try and claim the moral highground in this one. After all, if some of its officers seem to think Hrant Dink's killer is a hero, why should the Turkish people want the police at their side?

Not a very normal threshold

The European Court of Human Rights reported back yesterday on the case of Mehmet Yumak and Resul Sadak, who had taken Turkey to the court over the 10 percent electoral threshold. Both Mr Yumak and Mr Sadak were candidates for DEHAP - the predominantly Kurdish People's Democratic Party - in the 2002 general election. They stood in the province of Şırnak and won a considerable majority, nearly 46 percent, but did not enter parliament in Ankara because their party failed to cross the 10 percent national electoral threshold (see "Will the electoral threshold ever fall?").

The injustice of the threshold is plain: after that 2002 election, around 45 percent of Turkish voters found their vote didn't really count. All five of the parties that had vaulted the barrier three years previously this time stumbled at it. They included the three parties that had been in government. True, they were all subject to an overwhelming protest vote, but they still did have around eight million votes - nearly a fifth of all those cast - between them. Add to that the ballots for the other parties that failed to cross the threshold, and you get nearly 14 million votes. That is almost one in every two votes disregarded. Never in the history of Turkish democracy have so many been represented by so few.

All this was why I rather stunned when I saw this morning's headline in Türkiye: "European Court of Human Rights say 10% threshold is normal". The ECHR surely couldn't have ruled in favour of a measure that smothers broad representation - could it?

It seems it could, although I have to make one thing clear: the Court did not refer to the threshold as normal. In fact, in the text of its judgement, it says it considers it "very regrettable to prevent political parties which represent millions of voters from entering the national legislature". The threshold, the Court says, is "twice as high as the European average" and there is a lack of corrective counterbalances to ensure the free expression of all people, however they voted.

But the Court does also say that it cannot order the lowering of the barrier. Electoral barriers are in place in many other European democracies, and although Turkey's is among the highest, the Court has no specific threshold law on which it can depend, nor any examples it can suggest.

So that's that. The ECHR has avoided wading into the debate, and the Turkish press has chosen to interpret it as an approval of the barrier. Radikal's headline, for instance, is "ECHR visa for 10 percent threshold". But closer inspection of the judgement text reveals the Court's real thinking: "the electoral system, including the threshold in question, is the subject of much debate within Turkish society and ... numerous proposals of ways to correct the threshold’s effects are being made both in parliament and among leading figures of civil society".

That is perhaps the most important sentence in the entire document. The electoral threshold is wrong, yes, and it needs to be lowered, yes. But it is not a problem that will be solved with an instinct order from a distant court. The threshold can only be lowered in Turkey, by Turkish politicians. The more pressing question is whether it will happen before this November's elections.

For the Court's judgement in full, visit their website at http://www.echr.coe.int and search for Yumak and Sadak v. Turkey (application no. 10226/03).

Why, for once, I agree with Bülent Arınç

There's been a considerable amount of excitement in this morning's Turkish newspapers over a few words uttered by the speaker of the Turkish parliament. Bülent Arınç told reporters this morning that he believed Recep Tayyip Erdoğan should remain prime minister for the next term: "with his charisma and dynamism, there is much that he can give to Turkey over the next five years. Turkey shouldn't be drawn back into coalitions. Drawing from the experience of the last five years, (Mr Erdoğan) can achieve the unachieved."

You can imagine how the pulses of several reporters around that breakfast table quicked. A flurry of questions followed: "Are you saying Erdoğan shouldn't be president? Are you nominating yourself? What about (the foreign minister) Abdullah Gül? Does the president have to be one of you three?" Mr Arınç did answer the first by saying he would support an Erdoğan presidency, if that's what he wanted, but he managed to avoid directly answering all the others.

Taha Akyol in Milliyet writes that the reporters then asked him to define what a president should be. The speaker reeled off a list: "He must have experience in the state, he must have a vision, he must support freedom, he must be on the side of the people and he must be someone who allows discussion of his own position.

"The president," Mr Arınç went on, "has a list of duties that covers four pages of the consitution. He has more power than necessary. The opposition are turning this into a regime feud, a discussion over secularism." He gave the example of Abdullah Gül willingly relinquishing his premiership to Mr Erdoğan in 2003. "We don't fight over positions. I myself have proposed a change to parliament's internal regulations to allow votes of no confidence in the speaker."

Some newspapers have taken Mr Arınç's words a step further by saying he has unofficially acknowledged his own presidential prospects. His candidacy would create more unease than even Mr Erdoğan's - he is regarded with more suspicion, having been more involved than the present AK leader with the religious wing of the former Welfare Party. But there is no Arınç candidacy yet. His comments were simply too vague to be interpreted as a declaration of any kind. There is no new presidential candidate, nothing has changed there.

What has changed is that the speaker of parliament, second only to the president in the state hierarchy, has agreed with the views expressed in this blog last month. Mr Erdoğan has proved himself remarkably adept as prime minister since taking the post in March 2003, and for all his faults he remains more popular a figure than any other politician in the country.

At this stage in his career, he needs to put aside personal ambition and pursue national interests. The presidency, like nearly every Turkish institution, is in dire need of reform. Mr Erdoğan's role at this stage is not one of being reformed, but of making reform.

In a crowded street. On a busy morning.

I was in London when I found out. Having emerged from the cellular blackout of the London Underground, my phone beeped back into life with a voice message. "Call me back as soon as you get this," said an urgent voice. It was my friend in Ankara. "They've shot Hrant Dink. He's dead." I called her back and she told me what little she knew: "It was apparently some boy. Eighteen, maybe nineteen years old. He died instantly."

I had to hang up and continue my tube journey. Frustrated and away from a computer, I sat twiddling my thumbs. I needed to write. So I wrote this, with a pen I found in my pcoket, on the back of the London Underground Customer Charter. It was the only piece of paper I could get my hands on. I had to record my utter disgust and revulsion somewhere. A man was shot today for speaking aloud. It is an incredible tragedy, and I'm desperate that people know that.

Hrant Dink was a journalist. He was a Turkish citizen. His origins, however, were Armenian. He was among the first to be tried under Article 301, that notorious clause in the Turkish penal code that makes it a crime to denigrate "Turkishness". Like Orhan Pamuk, the nobel laureate, Dink too faced trial for his thoughts. Unlike Mr Pamuk, Dink was found guilty. The court gave him a deferred six month prison sentence.

Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan today said it was significant Dink was targeted. "A bullet has been fired at democracy and freedom of expression," he said. "Our nation, most particuarly our citizens of Armenian origin, have the sense and forethought to overcome this test."

The Nationalist Action Party (MHP) made just a written statement calling for the Turkish people to not be provoked by the incident. "We invite (all) to behave with the utmost responsibility."

I am angry. I am angry because there are people out there who seem to think it is perfectly justified to kill a man who speaks contrary views. I have a perfectly clear idea of who I think is responsible, but there is little use in churning out conspiracy theories now. Suffice to point out that it was in a crowded street, on a busy morning. This was no impulsive killing.

Hrant Dink, journalist. Born September 15th 1954, died January 19th 2007.

Presidential Election: The Vox Pop

It's funny how these things turn out. Last week, I asked the blogging community at large what they thought about the upcoming Turkish presidential election. Having got a response from a mighty two people - not to discredit IstanbulTory and yuvakuran, thank you both so very much for writing your thoughts - I went and did what any other self-respecting journalist would do: pinch what people have said elsewhere. Here's what I found interesting:

"I don't know who this J. Vincent is," reads one of my favourite (anonymous) comments, "but it's not important. There are many things in life that we don't know anyway - it will do if this isn't known either." Not to worry, I'll be sure to make my introductions over there shortly. The comment goes on: "Does it matter what happens in the election? This country has been ruled by juntaist soldiers, contracted servants, plundering conmen and fascist dogs. What difference will it make for us if the sharia comes in - aren't we still going to be the ones who lose out?"

"The President won't be Tayyip," says IstanbulTory, posting on this blog. "The military/mass media are working to ensure that this doesn't happen." Nor, says he, will it be a consensus candidate such as Hikmet Çetin. "It's more likely to be a fairly obscure AKP member of Parliament whose wife is not veiled. And more importantly someone who will not inflame secular opinion once elected." Defence minister Vecdi Gönül is fielded as a potential compromise - Abdüllatif Şener is another possibility, perhaps?

Yuvakuran focused more on the election aftermath: "(An AKP president) will certainly push the country with all measures, legislations, appointments towards a new environment as moderate Islamic republic in the region. So all secular forces are to defend the existing Western Democratic system to prevail."

It's certainly a bleak outlook. But in all the despair, it seems, there's a victory for academia: "The Middle East Technical University's Alumni Association has created a new working group to review the local Presidential election process in detail." Hooray! "We invite all international interested parties to review the issue and put their intellectual contributions. Also there is practically no application of local penal law if a document is written and released in a foreign language." You'll be hearing from me soon, Yuvakıran.

"Just like parties, the president should also be elected by public vote at the same time with general elections," writes John Gurcam on Yuvakuran's blog. "The president should also be elected for 4 years to work with the party elected for the same period."

The Turkish Daily News also got its finger out last week for a bit of comment: "The presidential elections will be a deciding factor in whether the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) remains an influential political actor in the general elections." Göksel Bozkurt's piece goes on to outline a number of possible scenarios for the government and opposition. It's well worth a read, although I would question the claim that President Sezer can unilterally scrap a presidential vote and call an early general election.

The wonderful thing about a vox pop is that there's no need for a balanced argument. The above is by no means a cross-section of the presidential debate, although it does raise some interesting points about the course of the next few months. Your comments, as ever, are welcome below. Mine will continue in these pages in the days to come.

Election 2007: Predictions

The election of a new president in May, and of a government in November, will focus minds. If the parliament, dominated by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) of the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, elects an Islamist as president, secularists will be appalled. Either way, the AKP will win the general election.
  Turkey prediction from "The World in 2007", published by The Economist

Many of the visitors to this blog in the last few months have come having searched "Turkey election 2007", or something similar, in Google. There is little need to question why: the two upcoming elections are events that will eclipse all others in the Turkey of 2007. We can only hope the two votes will indeed focus minds.

Ahmet Necdet Sezer has 99 remaining days in office, and it is still no clearer who his replacement might be. It is unlikely a candidate will emerge until at least February; we may even have to wait until March. This blog has already endorsed Hikmet Çetin as Turkey's next president, but I'm curious to know what the remainder of the blogging community has to say on the matter.

What do you think? Do you agree with a recent Hürriyet interview in which Süleyman Demirel said he expected Mr Erdoğan to become the next president? Do you think I'm right to push for a Hikmet Çetin presidency? Or perhaps, even though it is highly unlikely, would you support an overhaul of Turkey's presidential system that would allow presidents two terms of five years each, thus giving Mr Sezer another three years in power? Such a motion was tabled at the end of Mr Demirel's presidency seven years ago; it failed, and the result was a crossparty compromise in Mr Sezer. Can there be a compromise this time?

The second election of the year is due in 301 days. The Economist is almost dismissive of what will happen in that election ("the AKP will win") but they are right. In a political scene where there is no strong challenger to the governing party, and not enough of a reason to vote them out, why shouldn't they win?

Presidential election: It is not Erdoğan's time yet

Deniz Baykal appeared on NTV with something of a threat earlier this afternoon. If the prime minister emerges as a presidential candidate, he said, the CHP will not take part in the vote. His exact words were: "in such a scenario, we will not be standing by as decoration."

The reality of next year's presidential election is that Mr Baykal's party is going to be decoration regardless of who is on the ballot paper. The governing AK party has an overwhelming presence in parliament, just a handful of seats short of the two-thirds majority needed to elect a president in the first two rounds. Even that isn't much of a problem: the rules dictate that if there is no clear winner after the second round, the winning threshold is dropped to a simple majority for the next ballot. That's 276 votes, which the AK party can supply comfortably.

With the mathematics beyond dispute, it really isn't a question of whether the AK party will win, but rather with whom. Prime ministers have certainly become presidents before - look no further than Turgut Özal and Süleyman Demirel - which suggests Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is the most obvious candidate. But it does not necessarily mean he is the right candidate.

Turgut Özal was a remarkable prime minister. He was not a remarkable president. Visibly frustrated by his former party's defeat in the 1991 general election, he never bridged the gap with the victors, the party of longtime rival Süleyman Demirel. Before his untimely death, Özal had a firm vision of what direction Turkey should take forward. It was a vision suited to a prime minister, a man accountable to the general public, but not to a president who serves only as a final check on parliament.

For all his faults - and there are many - Mr Erdoğan too is a competent politician. He has done more to encourage reform, challenge state taboos and raise living standards than any other politician since Özal. But that does not mean he has the indeterminate qualities needed in a head of state. The president is a unifying figure, a statesmanlike individual who embodies all aspects of the country and represents it at home and abroad. Mr Erdoğan is no statesman. Like Özal twenty years before him, he does not have the experience. He has been in national politics for barely half a decade - again, not unlike Özal.

But brushing aside vague ideals of statesmanship, the Turkish constitution offers a far more concrete obstacle in front of Mr Erdoğan's candidacy: impartiality. "Upon election," the constitution reads, "the president must sever all ties with his party." It is one thing to tear up a membership card - like they did with Özal's Anavatan party membership - but actually severing those ties altogether is another matter. At this difficult time in Turkish politics, it will be immensely difficult for Mr Erdoğan to prove he is a Turkish president and not an AK president. And while the electorate might be happy to give him a chance, the state establishment will not.

The Turkish presidency has been ailing for decades. It is the office of a distant figure, disconnected from the public, a man who lives in a high security base in south Ankara and vetoes laws. These were problems less noticeable when the position was occupied by a prominent individual - say, a prime minister or an army chief. But when the post was taken by Ahmet Necdet Sezer, an obscure judge, the presidency was exposed as nothing short of elitist.

The way to change that is to make the president more endearing to the public, by letting the public elect him directly. Despite calls from the opposition, it is unlikely there will be a direct presidential election this time around. Far more likely is for a president to be directly elected in 2014, after Mr Sezer's successor.

In the meantime, someone must be found to become that successor. The candidate must have experience (which rules out Mr Erdoğan for now), he must be known by the public (which, it is hoped, will deter the election of another judge), and he must be liked by the public (which is Mr Baykal's come-uppance). But in these times of political polarisation, the candidate must also not be deeply infused in party politics.

It is time for both parties to nominate - and endorse - Hikmet Çetin to become Turkey's 11th president. Mr Çetin has formerly been foreign minister, deputy prime minister, CHP leader and parliament speaker. He left domestic politics to serve as NATO's highest civilian representative in Afghanistan for two terms, and returned in August of this year. He has never been endearingly close to Mr Erdoğan, but there has not been much love lost with Mr Baykal either.

Hikmet Çetin is a capable, experienced statesman, and the most suitable candidate for Turkey's next president. By nominating Mr Çetin now, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan would not only intercept Mr Baykal's cheap threats of withdrawal, but also establish himself as the man who had the opportunity to rise to the top, and decided to wait. He is not an old man, and 2014 is only seven years away.

How skipping Antalya could help solve the Cyprus problem

Tony Blair was in Ankara yesterday to offer Britain's support at a time when Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's case for Turkey's EU membership has never looked quite as bleak. The visit came as the EU confirmed eight chapters of Turkey's entry negotiations would be suspended in response to Turkey's staunch refusal to open up to Cyprus. There is little hope of those chapters - or indeed of other unrelated topics, such as Education and culture - being opened anytime soon.

Mr Erdoğan needed a boost in the face of growing EU antagonism at home, and that boost came in the form of a direct acknowledgement from Mr Blair that Britain was looking into - and had therefore not automatically rejected - a Cyprus Turkish Airlines request to fly directly to the UK. Mr Blair said he personally supported the idea, and that they were looking into the legalities of starting direct flights.

As it stands, the only planes flying out of Ercan Airport go to Turkey. There are flights to places such as Britain and Germany, but these legally have to call at a Turkish airport - usually Antalya - before proceeding on to their final destination. Save a few token flights to Azerbaijan, there have been no other flights out of North Cyprus since the trade embargo was first placed in the 1970s.

Tourism is Northern Cyprus's largest source of income - even now, when the only route of entry is via Turkey, it overtakes agriculture. This was the principal reason behind Turkey's insistence on opening more than just a single seaport in the north: it is, after all, far easier to bring the tourists in by air.

If Britain's civil aviation authorities approve the Turkish Cypriot request, it would start the first direct flights between North Cyprus and Europe in decades. It would pre-empt an EU review of Northern Cyprus planned for the end of January, which looks likely to be vetoed by the (Greek) Cypriot government. It would give a much-needed injection of cash at a time when even EU aid is set to be derailed by a southern veto.

But perhaps most importantly of all, it would demonstrate to the EU that the Cypriot issue is not one that can be solved merely by enforcing existing treaties a month before a summit deadline. It would show that a dedicated push - perhaps the efforts of an entire six-month presidency - is needed to solve the Cyprus issue once and for all.

The next rotating president is Germany, whose foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has promised to personally involve himself in the Cyprus issue. He says he is hopeful the problem can solved by June. His optimism provides little reassurance, but what else can be done but hope?

Reforming Republican People

Deniz Baykal is an excellent director. He must be. He is a man who can craft, and weld, and manoeuvre. Surely that makes him excellent politician. How else can you explain the 13-year leadership of Turkey's most sacred political party by a man so incredibly disliked?

Deniz Baykal was only the fourth leader of the 69-year-old Republican People's Party (CHP) when he first took the helm in 1992. He resigned twice, first in the wake of an impending merger with the Social Democrat People's Party (SHP) and later after an embarrassing showing in the 1999 elections. But in each case he returned to defeat his successor. It amounts to a cumulative thirteen years as leader.

In the summer of 2002, when hordes of MPs resigned Bülent Ecevit's governing party and triggered yet another crisis in the Turkish left, Mr Baykal saw the opportunity to rebuild his position. He persuaded countless former Ecevitites to switch to the CHP, knocking the wind out of Ismail Cem's attempts to establish a new political force on the left wing. He also scored a big coup in Kemal Derviş, the man credited with resuscitating Turkey after the latest economic crisis, by snatching him away from Mr Cem's clutches.

His tactics worked. When the election came, the country was far too distracted by the prospect of a single party government - and an Islamist one, at that - to notice the CHP's showing. Ataturk's party was back with 178 seats. It was their best result in thirty years.

The result was a personal victory for Mr Baykal, propelling him into a position more influential than when he was deputy prime minister a decade ago. He had become the de facto leader of the secular Turkish left in the face of a resurgent religious threat. He is no longer that leader.

Mr Baykal's failure is partly because he is not an endearing man. He is staggeringly unpopular, especially among secularist Turks who say they vote for him because he is the only viable challenger to the AKP. He is a man driven by his ideology, unable to empathise with the average voter. He is, in fact, a member of that "old guard" of Turkish politics - among the likes of Bülent Ecevit, Mesut Yılmaz and Tansu Çiller - that was purged in the 2002 election. The reason Mr Baykal survived is because he is not as well-known.

But there is more to it than personality. If Mr Baykal's pre-election resurgence was shrewd and calculated, his post-election performance was rash and tactless. He failed to recognise that his party's return to parliament was not from an electorate endorsing his policies, but from part of an electorate worried about an Islamic future. The CHP was not the party of choice, it was the only choice.

Deniz Baykal has done little since to consolidate his party's position. He has not pushed hard enough to unify the Turkish centre-left. He has not made a serious attempt to endear himself to the voting public. He has even lost his badge as leader of Turkey's Kemalists. That title is now shared by Ahmet Necdet Sezer, the president who has vetoed more parliamentary laws than any other in Turkish history, and General Yaşar Büyükanıt, the chief of the army.

The CHP has paid for Mr Baykal's mistakes already. His party performed badly in the 2004 local elections, losing council seats nationwide and barely holding onto traditional strongholds like Ankara's Çankaya district. Mr Baykal, however, refused to accept a defeat, prompting a bemused Radikal headline: "CHP wins victory - apparently".

The downward trend looks set to continue, too. Opinion polls ahead of next November's general election all suggest the far-right Nationalist Action Party (MHP) will return to parliament. But the resurgent nationalist vote, it seems, will not be at the expense of the governing AKP, but of the CHP.

Deniz Baykal has to go, and he has to go soon. But who to come in his place?

There have been mutterings of President Sezer joining active politics. There is, though, a far more sensible replacement in Ismail Cem, who still commands a certain degree of respect in Turkey. He joined the CHP two years ago after his new party experiment failed. When it comes to dismissing Mr Baykal, however, the only solution might be to field him as the compromise successor - to Mr Sezer.

Image © Copyright Circassian Canada, 2006.