Whatever lies behind the Constitutional Court's decision, a major political and economic crisis with ramifications for Turkey's international relations has been averted
By Semih IDIZ
TDN- Looking at the Constitutional Court`s decision on the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, one has to say that those who believed this party was going to be closed - including this writer - were not completely wrong. After all, six members out of 11 voted for a closure and fell only one member short of seeing this go through.
Some will of course see a secret design on the part of the court here. In other words the members decided in a calculated way that did not close the AKP but nevertheless found it "guilty as accused" because 10 out of the 11 members in effect said so, and four of these members slapped a financial fine on the party.
Only inches away:
Such a planned outcome, it will be argued, lets the AKP off the hook but also gives enough material to its opponents by saying that this party is not as innocent as it makes itself out to be. That the members of the Constitutional Court "designed" this outcome is, of course, very hard to believe. The bottom line is that the absolute majority voted for a closure, but the required qualified majority could not be found.
The AKP, in other words, was only inches away from being closed. This also shows that most members of the Constitutional Court were not that concerned with the damage this decision of theirs would have done to Turkey`s democracy, its image abroad or its economy at home. Put another way, the decision of the court may have relieved the AKP but has given enough material to its bitter opponents to continue their high-tension attacks on this party.
So one can expect the political cacophony in Turkey to continue. Little of this is, however, of real significance to the European Union and the United States, which clearly opposed closure. In pragmatic terms, the AKP has not been banned and the show will go on without any political or economic crisis that leaves the country in chaos.
This is also how the AKP will look at the matter, whatever its opponents may say. But no AKP supporter can argue that his or her party came out unscathed from this experience. While opposing closure, even senior EU members and diplomats have been conceding that the government mismanaged the strong mandate it received in the July 2007 general elections and brought much of its troubles on its own head.
Neither will the AKP be able to take any steps now smacking of serving any "secret Islamic agenda," and the headscarf issue will have to wait another day to be resolved. In the same way, the AKP knows now that it will not be able to engineer constitutional changes that appear to serve the interests of its constituents only.
The short of it is that the AKP will be even more under the watchful eyes of the hard-line secularists in this country, with its every step being judged accordingly. This then leaves the party with only one option if it wants to go ahead and maintain its political support. It will have to return to its reformist track and continue in this line in a convincing manner -- which is something that has been missing since it came to power a second time.
This in turn means that it will have to pursue the EU track more determinedly and convincingly from now on in order to reinforce its credibility on this score at home and abroad.
No doubt some in the AKP will also see the pursuit of this line as a way of hitting back at hard line secularists, as these people are also increasingly anti-EU and thus opposed to many of the reforms that have come and have yet to come in line with Turkey`s EU perspective.
A strong warning:
Some analysts even believe that the six members of the Constitutional Court also had this in mind when they decided to vote for the closure of the AKP because they knew full well this would harm Turkey`s relations with the EU.
Much of this is political speculation, of course, and this being Turkey, it is often hard to separate reality from fiction at such times. The important thing is that whatever lies behind the Constitutional Court`s decision, a major political and economic crisis with ramifications in terms of Turkey`s international relations has been averted.
In the meantime, the AKP has received a strong warning in terms of how it should proceed henceforth and hopefully it will act in line with this and not give fresh material for those who are relying on political crises in Turkey to either further their own agendas or to protect their own vested interests. After all, the country has lost enough time already.