Tensions run high as Turkey prepares for elections

As a two-month long electoral campaign gets under way in Turkey, it is uncertain whether the outcome of the 22 July parliamentary election will resolve the deep and bitter divisions that underpin the current Turkish political crisis.

The month of May saw huge demonstrations in Turkey’s major cities, with millions marching in favour of secularism and against the nomination by the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) of Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül as their candidate to become Turkey’s next president. Last week, the stakes were raised further, when President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, whose term should have ended in mid-May, rejected the AKP’s proposed changes to the constitution to elect the president in future by universal suffrage and not by parliament. It is now likely that the proposed changes will go to a referendum, possibly on the same day as the parliamentary election.

While some commentators have characterised the crisis as a clash between secularist nationalists and Islamic democrats, others claim that secularism and democracy are indivisible.

Mehmet Dulger, an AKP member of parliament and chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the Turkish Grand Assembly, argued that the secular-Islam divide was a smokescreen for a deeper power clash the military and political establishments.

"[Military] takeovers are not as violent as 47 years ago," he said, adding that the army was still trying to interfere in politics. "It is more civilised now, but they still like to have the last word in political life," he said.

"On one side are those who want a further step in democracy and on the other side are those who want to keep the status quo… this is the deep reason [for the crisis], not headscarves or secularism."

Onur Oymen, deputy chairman and member of parliament for the Republican People’s Party (CHP), whose boycott of the vote for the presidency precipitated the crisis, rejected this view. He insisted that the debate was about secularism versus Islam and that those western media who said that Turkey must choose between secularism and democracy were wrong.

"We see these unprecedented demonstrations, millions going to the streets against the unsecular policies of the government…the preservation of secular democracy is absolutely important for Turkey as, with Turkey’s Muslim majority population, you can’t have democracy without secularism. That would be like an omelette without eggs."

But Hakan Altinay, director of the Open Society Institute in Turkey, expressed concern at the polarisation of the country and at the intervention of the military, whose threat to intervene against the mildly Islamist government, posted on the general staff’s website on 27 April, amplified the crisis.

"27 April was a surprise ‘e-ultimatum’, I thought these days were behind us," said Altinay. "It destroyed this understanding that we had elaborately built a modus vivendi since 1997 [between different political views]…and the EU had been a soothing backdrop, offering the possibility of more rights for the pious in the EU and being an ultimate guarantee for the secularists," he said, adding that Turkey was now in a limbo. "If the previous modus vivendi is not valid we have not yet got a new one."

Altinay said that the demonstrators called European liberals like himself "gullible" and accused them of being blind to AKP’s violation of secular practices in local areas. But he said that such problems could be dealt with in democratic ways, for instance "by having a secular ombudsman". "You do not need to bring the whole country to its knees because we can’t effectively negotiate our differences," he added.

Cengiz Aktar, an Istanbul-based academic and commentator, said that it was too early to see the outcome of the current crisis. "27 April," he said, "was an ‘e-coup’. But I don’t know if the military is ready to do a coup again like in 1980. I don’t think so - this is the new fashion of doing business, warning but not going further than that."

Aktar said that the EU’s conduct of accession negotiations with Turkey is partly to blame for the military’s behaviour. "If Turkey had been negotiating with the EU like it is with Croatia then the military would never have dared come out with their ultimatum."

He said that because the EU was dragging its feet in negotiations, EU politicians have lost influence in Turkey. "When people like Rehn, Barroso and Schulz now make statements against the military, frankly it is either no news or a small paragraph," he said, referring to Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn, Commission President José Manuel Barroso and Martin Schulz, leader of the Socialist MEPs in the European Parliament.

Aktar said that the outcome of July’s election was unclear, as the pro-secularism demonstrators on Turkey’s streets have been a patchwork of types of people. "The AKP is too sure of a landslide victory…and there might be surprises. For now the predictions are for five parties to make it into parliament," he said.

Dulger said that he was sure the current crisis could be resolved by elections and that the AKP will win. He added that despite rumours that if the AKP won there would be a coup d’etat, the party did not "believe the army would do that".

Altinay predicted a "war of nerves", as after the April e-coup, the genie was "out of the bottle".

"We had the e-ultimatum and for the first time a democratically elected government didn’t back down. It’s like a die that is still spinning - will it be a 2 or a 6?"

• Kirsty Hughes is a freelance writer based in London.

As a two-month long electoral campaign gets under way in Turkey, it is uncertain whether the outcome of the 22 July parliamentary election will resolve the deep and bitter divisions that underpin the current Turkish political crisis.