BY ISMAIL KUCUKKAYA
STAR- The businessmen stand in the foreground among those who are trying to understand these incredibly important historic events. They are curious about the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and current conditions in Turkey and the world and trying to see how and why certain developments occurred and predict the future by making healthy analyses. The Turkish Association of Contractors is one of the institutions which have been making similar efforts for a long time. It invites journalists to its monthly meeting of the board of directors, ask them to make a speech and provide the opportunity of making evaluations mutually. I was invited to its meeting of September and thus seized the opportunity of mentioning my views and evaluations on developments which occurred particularly during the last year in Turkey to a group of businessmen. I tried to conclude my speech on the basis of such questions as why did the AKP won the elections, why Abdullah Gul was elected the president, how will be the course of civilian-military relations and what will happen between Gul and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan from now on.
I can summarize the speech that I made yesterday as follows: `Turkey has been going through great change since 1980. We are constantly under the influence of domestic migration. We can't understand the truth about AKP, unless we see social, economic, cultural and political dimensions of this wave. Turkey's extraordinary transformation intersected with the concept of globalization. The flow of capital accelerated greatly and such countries as Turkey started to seem more attractive following the Sept. 11 attacks in the US. The AKP got free of all the ideologies and it was integrated with the world's finance markets from a completely pragmatic perspective. In addition, it followed fully liberal policies. While doing this, AKP defined itself as conservative-democrat and claimed on the Washington-Brussels line that it can be role model for the Islam world. They said that a country with a majority Muslim population can live in democracy. Thus, they presented an alternative prescription for the tension between the West and East in the world and displayed a strong engagement to Turkey's European Union bid, unexpectedly. They were also supported from outside and made health and education reforms and conquered the people living in rural areas and the poor people in cities. The welfare was ensured relatively in the country thanks to the great amount of liquidity provided by the world conjuncture. They became a sort of executer of social policies with their grants of coal and food, course books and provided everybody with the opportunity of benefiting from the health system. They could operate this strategy, as mayors of metropolitan municipalities have been from the AKP for the last 15 years. Now it's in the position of supra-ideologies, but it could also easily win sympathy of a wide range of voters in Anatolia. This is another fact in Turkey. This entire picture was meaning a ruling party with an expectation of nearly 35 percent of votes for the AKP during the elections held in this year's July 22 in Turkey. In addition, adding the influence of things which happened during the process of presidential elections, the rate climbed to 47 percent. This result proves that the nation doesn't believe that the regime is endangered. It's certainly wrong that most of the nation doesn't protect the Republic's values.'
Erdogan has an understanding that as AKP can win elections thanks to economic stability, this road should be maintained. He established his Cabinet with this understanding. Although they are different political figures in terms of their perspectives about the world and styles of doing politics, I don't expect that a great tension will occur between Gul and Erdogan. They might disagree with each other sometimes, but they will be able to solve these problems without any reflection on the nation. I think there will be no problem in AKP's operations and Gul's stance during the course of his presidency, in terms of the Republic's acquisitions, particularly secularism. I also think that the military is interpreting all these developments and taking its stance as part of this. Within this framework, normalization will be ensured step by step.