BY ISMET BERKAN
RADIKAL- On the Internet you can find a recording of then Board of Higher Education (YOK) Chairman Erdogan Tezic saying that last night he slept peacefully. He said this last April after the first round of presidential elections at Parliament and the subsequent memorandum from the General Staff. Of course, one could expect Tezic to sleep well after this initiative meant to prevent Abdullah Gul from being elected president. I wonder who else felt that way. For example, did main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal sleep peacefully that night, when Turkish democracy faced a serious threat and the hint of a coup?
Last April, we all waited for the same thing: 1. How would the government respond to the memorandum? 2. What would the parties react, especially the CHP? The government issued a statement holding its head high. I would expect Baykal to defend the democratic regime either through a written statement, or in front of cameras, by, for example, saying that the military shouldn't get involved and derail the normal workings of the system, because civilian politicians like him must protect secularism and the regime. He could also have said that they would take part in the presidential vote (and end the CHP boycott), so long as the government cancelled plans for early elections, and that they would withdraw their petition to the Constitutional Court. I wonder if CHP would have won or lost votes under these circumstances.
Back then Baykal hid behind the military and threatened the Constitutional Court, saying that if it didn't cancel the presidential elections, then there would be a regime crisis, and now he's having an absurd argument with the General Staff. This argument also has a dangerous side. Baykal's debate has also the potential to provoke the army's lower ranks against its leadership. Obviously, there were serious communication problems over the start and end of the recent ground operation in northern Iraq, and a misimpression was inevitably created. But claiming that the Turkish government and army started and finished the anti-PKK operation at the behest and with the permission of the US is improper for a person who is in theory a candidate to govern the country. If Turkey is the country Baykal describes and its army was completely `taken prisoner,' it means the post of prime ministry that Baykal wants to hold is meaningless.
We can see that Chief of General Staff Gen. Yasar Buyukanit is trying hard to dispel the misimpressions which emerged at the end of the operation. Buyukanit spoke to the Dogan News Agency and Milliyet daily on the same day, then to Hurriyet daily, and finally held a press conference on Monday. But all this only dragged out the debate. Finally, Baykal and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahceli criticized Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Buyukanit so much only because of an impression and perception impossible to prove. They accused Erdogan and Buyukanit of being liars and said the Turkish army and government were like puppets taking orders from the US.
When the General Staff responded that he shouldn't have done this, accusing the CHP and MHP of being `worse than traitors,' the CHP said this was an insult coming from recognition, and thus upped the tension. No one can understand what the CHP and MHP expect to gain politically from this argument, except provoking the lower ranks against the army leadership. Defending war, death and killing and criticizing the government and army for not doing these things isn't a good strategy for attracting votes - in fact, it might do just the opposite.