MILLIYET- Columnist Derya Sazak comments on the recent elections in Germany and their affect on Turkey. A summary of his column is as follows:
The success of the Social Democratic-Greens coalition in Germany’s elections, even if only by a nose, inspired optimism in terms of the effects of ‘Schroeder’s coattails’ on Turkey. It’s important for Turkey, which is trying to get a timetable for negotiations from the EU at the Copenhagen summit, that the power in Germany didn’t change hands. A victory by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), led by Edmund Stoiber, might have raised difficulties for Ankara in the process of its EU membership. Obviously Schroder’s ‘second term’ prime ministry cannot be considered a guarantee before the EU, but the German Social Democrats’ keeping the reins of power is in Turkey’s favor in terms of maintaining the balances in Europe.
Half a million Turkish people living in Germany cast votes, and three of the 21 candidates of Turkish origin there won their seats. Since the moment the German ballot boxes were opened, we started to get excited about the surprises waiting for us after our own elections in November. Two alliances clashed in Germany -- Prime Minister Gerard Schroder’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Greens, on one side, and the union between the Christian Democrat Union (CDU) and Bavaria’s Christian Social Union (CSU), led by Stoiber, on the other. The opposition parties tried to win the elections by emphasizing the problem of unemployment. Although at first it seemed that Stoiber was set to win the elections, the victory eventually went to the partnership of Schroder and Foreign Minister Joschke Fisher, leader of the Greens. The parties in power won the majority with nine seats ahead. The votes expected from rural areas didn’t rescue Stoiber, either. Thus, with the events in Germany, just over a month before our Nov. 3 elections, we now turn to the question, ‘What will happen to Turkey?’ We scarcely dare to consider the prospects. The elections campaigns are too calm and the Turkish nation too weary. Rather than elections, people talk about the prohibitions. It’s not known what deputies excluded from their parties’ candidate lists will do. It’s known that the election postponement lobby has submitted a proposal with over 100 signatures to hold an extraordinary parliamentary session. In this session, the 10% threshold might be lowered. Yesterday an initiative was begun on behalf of the Motherland Party (ANAP) group to lift various political prohibitions. It was requested that Article 76 of the Constitution and Article 11 of the Election Law be changed. However, it will be difficult to get any result from these efforts. Actually, the ANAP administration confessed that this initiative was aimed at blunting the negative signals which the prohibitions might send to the EU. Efforts for democratization will fall to the future Parliament. We will see the effects of Schroeder’s coattails at the Copenhagen summit in December. Can Turkey’s pro-EU lobby be helped by the elections in Germany? It’s possible. I’m almost hearing our own social democrats, mostly the Republican People’s Party (CHP), saying ‘May our turn for good luck come next!’
SOURCE: OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER, DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF PRESS AND INFORMATION