Turkey's Election: No Solution to Religious Tension in Politics
As a mandate on the role of at least some religion in Turkey's secular political order, the outcome of Sunday's nationwide parliamentary election could not have been clearer. The governing Justice and Development Party (AKP), led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and known for its strong Islamic leanings, took almost half the total vote, improving upon its 2002 performance by slightly over 12 percentage points. But if the vote left the old-guard secularists of the Republican People's Party (CHP) with even less political clout, it is far from certain that the results will resolve the tensions that precipated the early election.
Those tensions came to the surface last April, when the AKP attempted to elect its foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, to the presidency. Gul was considered a less provocative alternative to Erdogan, who was widely regarded for his successful economic programs but viewed suspiciously by many Turks because of his ties to a now outlawed Islamist party. Though Erdogan presented himself as a forward-looking leader committed to bringing Turkey into the European Union, his critics cited various AKP efforts to bring more religion into Turkey's secular public sphere, including a controversial proposal to criminalize adultery.
But the AKP's selection of a compromise candidate did not allay opposition fears. Although Gul won the majority of parliamentary votes in the first round (but not the two thirds necessary for immediate selection), the Turkish Supreme Court annulled the results after a CHP challenge and a threat of intervention from the military's staunchly secular general staff. Unable to go forward and unable to push through a referendum proposing the popular election of the president, the AKP called for a general parliamentary election five months ahead of the scheduled date.
During the long run-up to last weekend's vote, Turkey has seemed like a nation sharply divided. While secularists took to the streets of Istanbul and other cities to defend the legacy of Attaturk, AKP supporters have emphasized the party's moderation and achievements. Erdogan himself stressed that he would continue to support Turkey's role in NATO while pressing ahead on EU membership. And while he and other party leaders admitted to missteps in breaching the mosque-and-state divide, they also insisted that most Turks were ready to tolerate some religious symbolism in the public sphere, most notably the wearing of head scarves in schools and government offices.
To hard-core secularists, even those symbolic changes pose a threat. And that is why this important election leaves the biggest question unresolved: No one can say what will happen if the AKP presses ahead to capture the presidency and meets with the same resistance that it faced before. Ironically, even though it won more popular votes than in 2002, the AKP actually ends up with fewer seats because more opposition parties were able to meet the 10 percent threshold to be represented in the legislature. This means that the AKP will be even further from the two-thirds majority needed for either the first-round election of a president or the passing of a constitutional amendment.
Turkey's electorate has signaled its confidence in the AKP as the party of responsible leadership, economic prosperity, and moderate religiosity. But the office of the presidency, while largely symbolic, has powers of appointment in those very areas that are considered the bastions of Turkey's secular democracy: the general staff of the military, the high court judges, and the upper tiers of the state bureaucracy. How any of those bastions will respond if the AKP captures the presidency—or even moves toward doing so—remains the crucial question of the hour.
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