BY MURAT YETKIN
RADIKAL- Even if Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan doesn’t want to bring the issue on the agenda, the presidential election started to be discussed. These discussions started early, but they did. Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal started these discussions. Maybe he started to focus on this issue, as he thought that this is Erdogan’s weak point. President Ahmet Necdet Sezer’s term in office will end on May 16, 2007. In other words, there are nearly two years for elections. However, the discussion deriving from the possibility of holding general elections on November 2007 is climbing the tension already. It has a couple of reasons. Firstly, although the presidency is perceived as symbolic in terms of using the state’s authority, it’s considered the head of the executive branch in Turkey. Each assertive politician would like to live in the Presidential Palace one day. Great and harsh political discussions were made before every presidential election in this country. Secondly, this presidential election started to force Turkey to think of the symbolic characteristic of presidency. Speaking to the CNN Türk channel yesterday, Baykal said, ‘Presidency is a very important office both constitutionally and symbolically. The picture reflected by presidency as a symbol is very important.” Thirdly, this time we also started to walk on ideological fault lines. The Republic’s principle of secularism started to be discussed in relation with wearing headscarves under the discussions on presidential elections. The assumption that Erdogan would certainly want to become a president lies under this. This is the only reason for political, administrative, legal and militarily lobbies in Ankara to reduce the political equation to the presidential election.
Baykal said he wouldn’t want to personalize the issue for Erdogan, but he added that this is a very basic discussion about Turkey’s future. ‘Where is Turkey going? Will it be a country where women can freely walk on streets without wearing a headscarf in 25 years? I’m not against headscarves, but I’m against formalizing it,’ he said. Erdogan previously said, ‘There will be no early election. Parliament will elect the president. He shouldn’t tire himself.’ Replying to Erdogan, Baykal said, ‘It’s not important if I get tired or not. We should be tired, so Turkey doesn’t get tired. Presidential election will be a source of tension. A statesman who wouldn’t want to tire his country should think of it.’
Baykal wants to spoil the competitive balances within the AKP with a new election and ensure that the government’s political power will be too long to increase the exhaustion. He also wants to strengthen his strategy with new alliances. Politics is gradually focusing on presidential elections.