Turkey’s politics: All-powerful, but not at ease

Date: 23/08/03

Erdogan's power rises, his opponents crumble. But he still faces trouble

LIFE has never been better for Turkey's prime minister, Tayyip Erdogan. On August 14th his Justice and Development Party (AK) celebrated its second birthday by adding two opposition members to its parliamentary ranks. With 368 of the 550 seats, his party - not Islamist but not far from it - could now amend the constitution without opposition support. No government since Turgut Ozal's single-party one of 1983 has had such a free hand.

The only serious opposition, the secularist Republican People's Party (CHP), is in chaos. When it opposed an amnesty law for Kurdish guerrillas, one Kurdish member defected, and more threaten to do so. The other defector to join AK was also a Kurd, the sole member from the once powerful Motherland Party.

Mr Erdogan's other main rival, Cem Uzan, a tycoon turned politician, is in far worse shape. Two of his clan's electricity firms have been seized for violating regulations; one bank, Imar Bank, has been put into receivership; and regulators imposed new management on another, AdaBank. Last week police were searching for various relatives suspected of siphoning off huge sums from Imar Bank. The government has been eyeing the operating licence of Telsim, the number-two mobile phone firm, after the Uzans transferred their shares in it without due notification. The broadcasting watchdog slapped a month-long ban on five of Mr Uzan's television channels for airing propaganda on his behalf. And in New York a federal court on July 31st ordered the Uzans to pay more than $4 billion in a dispute between Telsim and two foreign creditors.

Mr Uzan and his newborn Young Party last autumn, with 7%, fell short of the 10% of the vote needed to get into parliament. But until recently it looked likely to pose a serious challenge to AK in next April's municipal elections. No longer.

And what of Mr Erdogan's most powerful challengers, the generals? Among a raft of reforms approved by parliament last month, one relegates the National Security Council, until now their formal source of power, to a largely advisory role. Some hawkish generals were retired, for all their kicks and screams, by the chief of the general staff, General Hilmi Ozkok, a liberal by Turkish army standards, and one who does not share many generals' distaste for Mr Erdogan over his Islamist past.

On the economic front, the IMF on August 1st released a long-delayed tranche of its $16 billion credit, and agreed to reschedule repayments of some $11 billion due in 2004 and 2005. Interest rates are now near 40%, against 70% a year ago, easing management of the huge internal debt.

Yet Mr Erdogan must still walk warily. To mend relations with America, hurt by parliamentary refusal in March to let Turkey be used as an invasion base against Iraq, he has offered up to 10,000 troops to help run that country. Most Turks opposed the war, and the offer is deeply unpopular. Anti-American sentiment had already been sharpened by the unceremonious detentions in July of some Turkish special troops in northern Iraq, accused of plotting to murder various Kurdish politicians. And the Americans, fed up with Turkey's attitude before the war, are in no mood to offer Mr Erdogan voter-pleasing rewards now. Nor is there much sign that they are ready, as promised, to disarm and evict 5,000 Turkish Kurd rebels in northern Iraq who have rejected Turkey's amnesty and threaten to resume their armed campaign if the Americans try.

And then there is the European Union and the Cyprus hurdle. Despite his initial support for the United Nations plan to re-unify the island, Mr Erdogan has backed away from it, under pressure from the generals, who still see Cyprus as a military asset and, whatever their other reverses, still have a strong hold on policy. Yet the EU will not give the Turks a date for accession talks unless they play ball on Cyprus - and it has been further irritated by a recent customs-union plan aimed at easing Turkish- Cypriot exports via Turkey. Another plank of Mr Erdogan's platform is at risk.

Tayyip Erdogan's powers as Turkey's PM rises, his opponents crumble. But he still faces trouble.

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