BY ILTER TURKMEN
HURRIYET- We have a saying: Democracies never run out of solutions. We often cite it, but many times we have seen solutions run out. And we have paid a heavy price whenever we became helpless. Let's take a look at recent history. We see that Turkey has faced a bumpy road since 1983, that political crisis has never been lacking, that we've overcome some of the difficulties we encountered in the democratic system but had to resort to means inconsistent with the ongoing system for all these years just in order to continue our system. On the other hand, throughout all these years the cutthroat struggle between the ruling and the opposition parties has stymied a common will aiming at protecting democracy. We can't deny the role of this phenomenon in the current dangerous deadlock.
Clearly, everyone made has miscalculations over the presidential election. After giving the impression that a candidate whose wife doesn't wear a headscarf would be elected president and then picking Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul as the ruling party's candidate at the insistence of Parliament Speaker Bulent Arinc, the prime minister should have realized that this would trigger protests. On the other hand, the General Staff would have done better to voice its concerns behind closed doors when Gul's candidacy was announced, just before the first round. If this private declaration produced nothing, then it could have issued a statement later. It's always difficult to settle a conflict which has gone public through one side retreating. One way to overcome this crisis would be the Constitutional Court ruling that 367 deputies are needed to vote for president in the first round. Should it rule this way, general elections will immediately be triggered, as the presidential election couldn't continue. However, such a decision would lead to claims that it was made under the pressure of the General Staff's statement. Law would be sacrificed to politics, and the Constitutional Court would be gravely injured. Another way would be Gul's withdrawing his candidacy. But of course no one can urge him to do so, as his running is in full compliance with the Constitution.
Seeing a way out this crisis is quite difficult. Can't President Ahmet Necdet Sezer try to find a compromise?