BY DERYA SAZAK
MILLIYET- Turkey has again entered troubled days. When the Constitutional Court yesterday unanimously accepted the indictment seeking the closure of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), economic indicators for the last quarter of 2007 were also announced. The decline in such major sectors as agriculture, construction and manufacturing pushed growth figures down to 4.5%, their lowest level in years. It's inescapable that the crisis in global markets will influence the country in the second half of 2008. During this time of slowed growth and incipient economic stagnation, we're set to deal with real problems, particularly unemployment. In such an atmosphere, having to deal with a case to close the ruling party and ban Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and 71 AKP members from politics is very thought provoking in terms of the current situation of the parliamentary regime facing the dilemma of law and democracy.
European Commissioner for Enlargement Olli Rehn warned that the AKP closure case might cause a suspension of Turkey's membership talks. Accusations and defenses arguments during the AKP trial will determine what comes next. Interestingly, for the first time in the republic's history, a president will face a possible ban at the Constitutional Court.
The court accepted the indictment's section on President Abdullah Gul by a vote of 7-4. The trial process won't influence his duty as president, but if he's banned from politics for five years, he won't be able to leave the Presidential Palace to found a new party. Obviously, the fact that the case was filed doesn't mean that AKP will be closed, but clearly democracy suffered damage. Many people in Ankara talk about what would happen if 40 or more deputies are banned from politics. The AKP might pass a constitutional amendment making it harder to close a party before the trial is concluded, and then put it to a referendum.
Erdogan and the AKP seem to want to use their parliamentary advantage to escape this process with minimum damage. Early elections might also be called. The AKP's stubbornness on the headscarf issue brought Turkey to the brink of a political and economic crisis. If the government had grasped the global risks at the beginning of the year and saw that the party was over, we wouldn't have gotten into this mess!