Turkish Elections Spell Alienation

By Gerald Robbins

Alienation was the major theme in the March 27 Turkish municipal elections. Although Prime Minister Tansu Ciller's True Path Party (DYP) won the overall percentage of total votes cast, it was an unimpressive triumph laden with warnings. DYP garnered only 22 percent of the votes cast nationwide, and the campaign's true winner, the pro-Islamic Welfare Party (RP), won the mayoral elections in the two major cities, Istanbul and Ankara. RP's ascendance is not a direct challenge to the nation's secular foundations, however. A growing malaise with the overall system was a primary reason for its success.

A pre-election survey conducted in February by the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet tellingly reflected public sentiment. Preliminary polls indicated the Islamist RP mayoral candidate would win in Istanbul, and Hurriyet asked its readers to explain RP's burgeoning popularity. Over half of the respondents referred to government incompetence or a decaying political infrastructure as primary reasons for Welfare's appeal, while scarcely one-sixth cited its fundamentalist notions as a chief factor for their support. The results indicated that Turkey confronts the populist discontent of many post-Cold War democracies, albeit in a religious context.

Turkish punditry lost sight of this groundswell of discontent. Allegations regarding RP's indebtedness to Arab financial backers and of the diversion of Bosnia bound money into party coffers gave rise to the idea that Welfare's allure had peaked. Political commentators believed that the public would reorient toward the "mainstream" True Path, Motherland (ANAP) and Social Democrat Populist (SHP) parties. Conjecturing that Welfare was a spent force, the media predicted a right-of-center showdown among mayoral candidates.

News coverage especially focused upon ANAP Chairman Mesut Yilmaz's criticism of Prime Minister Ciller's administration. The nation's economic prospects have disintegrated since Suleiman Demirel replaced the late Turgut Ozal as president, ceding the prime ministry to Ms. Ciller.

The good news of last year's seven percent economic growth rate is overshadowed by a spiraling fiscal deficit that presently equals 17 percent of total GNP. Expanding imports were a major factor in Turkey's $6 billion deficit, the largest in its history, Since January 1994, Standard and Poor has twice downgraded Turkey's international credit rating, forcing a 12 percent devaluation of the Turkish lira.

Businessmen chide Ciller for the lax management style that caused two Central Bank governors to resign over policy differences. Add to this scenario an inflation rate hovering around 70 percent, and the commercial outlook is rife with problems. Alluding to Ms. Ciller's professorial background, the March 23 Turkish Daily News commented: "We feel she deserves the Nobel Prize for economics in 1994, as her achievement in ruining a sound economy in such a short period of time should be regarded as an unprecedented success. The economy destroyed by a professor of economics, that is the real irony.

Against this background, ANAP projected an image of technocratic efficiency. This was the party established by Turgut Ozal to confront DYP's unwieldy operation. Groups which prospered during the 1980s economic liberalization period corporations, yuppies, the "nouveau riche" comprised ANAP's support, although they were worried by its brusque, impersonal attitude.

The DYP cast Mesut Yilmaz as a cold, diffident personality who was the wrong leader for the times. Ms. Ciller labeled him "Mesut the Fearful."

Just before election day, a political advertisement appeared in the newspapers quoting a statement by Turkey's late President Turgut Ozal before his death last year that "The person I would like to see leading the Motherland should be reformist, progressive and innovative. Mr. Yilmaz preferred to become a party leader who wants to preserve the status quo.

A Costly Split

In the end, ANAP finished one point behind its inimical DYP cousins. It was a costly split for both parties.

Because the SHP's left-of-center orientation set it aside from the ANAP-DYP center-right squabbles, some columnists had predicted that SHP would sweep the Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir mayoralties.

These pundits did not realize that instead of embracing SHP's liberalism as a viable option, many Turks instead went to the far right because of Western indifference about Bosnia and Azerbaijan, and a perceived double standard regarding Kurdish human rights. With nationalism in vogue, the only party besides the Islamist RP to show discernible gains was the ultraconservative Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). It did especially well in those areas affected by the Kurdish conflict.

With centrist parties perceived as detached from public concerns, Welfare's cry for a "just order" struck a responsive chord among the masses. "The polls lie and the politicians are frauds," a cab driver told me while we were stuck in Istanbul traffic. "Refah's (Welfare's) waters are too deep for their understanding. "

This simple observation proved accurate. Shantytown inhabitants otherwise known as gecekondus ("night built") formed the vanguard of Welfare's support. Hailing from underdeveloped Eastern Anatolia, their migration to bustling Turkish cities exploded during the 1980s. Nearly three-fifths of Turkey's population now lives in metropolitan areas, dealing with erratic services and random supervision. Municipal neglect is especially noticed within the gecekondu communities.

In addition to government neglect, relocation's trauma produces an Islamic subculture marked by beards, worry beads and veiled women in gecekondu neighborhoods. "This is a fashion statement reacting to the growing political and economic disparities," commented Aydin Yalcin, editor-in-chief of the Turkish magazine Yeni Forum. "Torn between lessening opportunities and conspicuous consumption, many gecekondu youth are adopting a religious pose."

This is the background which propelled Refah from a fringe organization into Turkey's second most powerful polity (considering that DYP and ANAP embrace the same convictions), winning almost 40 percent of the nation's municipalities.

"The country was sick before March 27 due to the other parties, but on March 27 we left the hospital," RP Chairman Necinettin Erbakan declared.

Prime Minister Ciller, too, declared victory, but then announced a three month austerity package and further devalued the lira by 28 percent. State controlled consumer prices promptly doubled, furthering fears of hyperinflation. Yilmaz criticized these measures, calling them a "bad copy" of earlier stabilization programs where workers become the big losers.

The onus is now upon RP to demonstrate results in the cities where its candidates won. Mr. Erbakan realizes that Welfare's progress isn't a mandate for Islamic rule, and his 19 percent nationwide support is provisional. Turkey's rightward drift can easily reverse course, and the current financial crisis will test the validity of Refah's programs.

Gerald Robbins is a New York-based writer and consultant specializing in Turkish affairs.