Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies

Vol. 16, No. 3, 289–301, Fall 2007

Turkish Paradox: Progressive Islamists

versus Reactionary Secularists
MICHAEL M. GUNTER* & M. HAKAN YAVUZ**
*Tennessee Technological University, Cookeville, TN, USA
**University of Utah, Salt Lake, UT, USA

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (d. 1938) founded the modern Republic of Turkey as a secular
republic in 1923.1 Since that time, his followers, the Kemalists, and the military have
successfully maintained that a secular Turkey is the only road to progress, reform, and
modernization; today, to be modern is seen by many Turks as membership in the EU. The
Kemalists have always painted Islamists as reactionary impediments to their vision of a
modern progressive Turkey. Nevertheless, it has not been easy for Kemalists to dismiss
lightly the nation’s Islamic heritage.2 Since the beginnings of multiparty democracy in the
elections of 1950, Turkey’s Islamic roots have proven important and even decisive in
the evolution of Turkish politics. Both the ruling Democrat Party of Adnan Menderes in
the 1950s and the Justice Party of Süleyman Demirel in the 1960s and 1970s depended on
latent Islamic support. What is more, the various Islamic parties headed by Necmettin
Erbakan beginning in the 1960s boldly espoused an Islamic agenda. In 1996, Erbakan’s
Refah Partisi (RP or Welfare Party) briefly even came to power until it was forced to
resign as a result of military pressure in 1997.3 Both the Refah Party and its successor,
Fazilet (Virtue), subsequently were banned by Turkey’s Constitutional Court. However,
from the roots of this Islamic debacle, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan founded a new moderate
successor Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP or Justice and Development Party) in August
2001, and this party won a majority of seats in Turkey’s parliament in November 2002,
enabling it to form Turkey’s first majority government since the 1980s.4 After a brief

Correspondence Address: Michael M. Gunter, Tennessee Technological University, Cookeville, TN 38505, USA.
Email: MGunter@tntech.edu
1
A good introductory history is Eric Zurcher, Turkey: A Modern History, 2nd ed. (London: I. B. Tauris, 1997).
2
See further Serif Mardin, Religion, Society, and Modernity in Turkey (New York: Syracuse University Press,
2006); and Jenny B. White, Islamist Mobilization in Turkey: A Study in Vernacular Politics (Seattle:
University of Washington Press, 2002).
3
See further Michael M. Gunter, ‘The silent coup: the secularist-Islamist struggle in Turkey,’ Journal of South
Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, 21 (Spring 1998), pp. 1– 12.
4
See further M. Hakan Yavuz, Ed., The Emergence of a New Turkey: Democracy and the AK Parti (Salt Lake
City: The University of Utah Press, 2006). AK not only is the acronym for the party, but also the adjective ak in
Turkish means white, clean, or honest.
ISSN 1066-9922 Print/1473-9666 Online/07/030289-13 q 2007 Editors of Critique
DOI: 10.1080/10669920701616633
290 M. M. Gunter & M. H. Yavuz

interlude, Erdoğan became Prime Minister in 2003. These developments set the stage for a
paradoxical switching of roles: progressive Islamists versus Reactionary Secularists.
Erdoğan’s AKP committed itself to pursuing Turkish membership in the EU. This
policy, of course, entailed liberal political and economic reforms that challenged the
privileged position of the Kemalist secularists and the military. The inherent struggle came
to a head in April 2007 when the AKP nominated one of its own, Foreign Minister
Abdullah Gül, to be the new President of Turkey. Since the AKP possessed the necessary
majority in the parliament to elect him, Gül’s victory seemed a foregone conclusion.
The secular opposition, however, seized upon this moment to block what it saw as the loss
of one of its last bastions of power. On 13 April, General Yaşar Büyükanıt, the Turkish
military’s Chief of Staff, called a rare press conference in which he declared that he hoped
that the next president would not simply pay lip service to Turkey’s secular constitution
but genuinely respect it.5 Then just before midnight on 27 April, the military posted on its
web site, a so-called e-memorandum (e-muhtıra) warning against the threat posed by some
groups aiming to destroy Turkey’s secular system under the cover of religion.6 Outgoing
secularist President Ahmet Necdet Sezer had already claimed that ‘since the foundation of
the Republic, Turkey’s political regime has never been under this much threat’ and that
‘both domestic and foreign forces seek Turkey to become a conservative Islamic model.’7
At the same time, massive public protests against the AKP had begun in Turkey’s major
cities of Ankara on 14 April, Istanbul on 29 April, and Izmir on 13 May; each attracted
over one million participants. Smaller but still impressive anti-AKP protests of over
100,000 each also occurred in Canakkale, Denizli, Marmaris, and Manisa. Pro-secular
associations, with memberships comprised of many retired military officers, helped to
organize these protests and brandished slogans against the AKP, EU, and globalization.
Secular women’s groups were also prominent. The secularist opposition in the parliament
then managed to block Gül’s election simply by boycotting sessions and thus denying that
body the necessary two-thirds quorum, a questionable tactic whose constitutionality,
however, was quickly upheld by the secularist-controlled Constitutional Court.8 Erdoğan
was thus forced to call early parliamentary elections in an attempt to break the deadlock.
In an apparent effort to influence the voting against the AK, the military urged a ‘reflex
action en masse against these terrorist acts’ in a June web site message.9

Embodiment of New Turkey: Erdoğan

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was born on 26 February 1954 in Kasimpasa, Istanbul, but spent
his childhood in the Black Sea town of Rize, less than 200 miles from his family’s
ancestral homeland in Georgia. When he was 13, his family returned to Istanbul and, as a
teenager, Erdoğan sold lemonade and sesame buns on the streets of Istanbul to help his
family. He was educated at an Imam Hatip school, an Islamic clerical training institute
ironically made available by the Turkish military after its coup in 1980 in an attempt

5
‘Strong warning to Erdoğan by secular establishment,’ Briefing (Ankara), 16 April 2007, p. 2.
6
See the Turkish military’s web site: http://www.tsk.mil.tr
7
‘Sezer’s farewell speech: the republican regime has never been under this much threat,’ Briefing, 16 April
2007, p. 3.
8
Sabrina Tavernise, ‘Turkish court blocks Islamist candidate,’ International Herald Tribune, 2 May 2007.
9
‘The text of the general staff press release,’ Briefing, 11 June 2007, p. 14.
 Turkish Paradox 291

to preempt leftist and separatist movements.10 Erdoğan graduated with a degree in

management from Marmara University’s Faculty of Economics and Administrative
Sciences, where he first met Erbakan. In his spare time, he played semi-professional soccer
for 16 years. On 4 July 1978, he married Emine Gülbaran who was born in Siirt (Turkey’s
Kurdish area) but is of Arabic ancestry.11 They have two sons and two daughters. Because
his wife wears the traditional Islamic headscarf, secularists have heaped negative
comment upon him.
During the late 1970s, Erdoğan worked for the IETT, Istanbul’s municipal transport
company, and became active in Erbakan’s Milli Selamet Partisi (National Salvation Party
or NSP). After the military coup in September 1980, the NSP was banned and Erdoğan
himself briefly brought before a military court. He also served his mandatory military
service in 1982 as a commissioned officer. Erdoğan reentered politics, when Erbakan
founded the Refah Party (RP) in 1983. According to Yavuz, the nature of Turkish Islamic
politics was already beginning to reflect modern imperatives:
The Islamism of the 1980s differed from the Islamic movements of the 1960s and
1970s in its social basis, nature, and impact. . . . For example, the RP-led Islamic
movement shifted from being an anti-global, market-oriented, small merchant, and
farmer’s party to one that demands full integration into the global market and seeks
to reduce role for the state in the economy.12

During the local elections of 1985, Erdoğan became the chair of the RP branch in
Istanbul province and ran unsuccessfully for mayor of the Beyoğlu district. He was
elected to the Turkish parliament in 1991 when the RP finally managed to cross the
10 percent barrier, but was disqualified by the High Electoral Committee due to technical
voting rules. During the elections of 27 March 1994, however, the RP became the largest
party in Turkey and Erdoğan was elected mayor of Greater Istanbul. It is in this position
that he first drew national attention as a populist and effective administrator for helping to
reconstruct the city’s infrastructure and transportation network without being tainted by
corruption.
Erdoğan gave fuel to his secularist opponents when he declared that New Year’s
celebrations were a habit practiced by secularists and not a legitimate cause for him to
mark. He also said that he shook hands only with the opposite sex so as not to upset and
damage discussions but afterward he prayed to God for forgiveness. Then on 12 December
1997, Erdoğan ran afoul of the article in the Turkish penal code that banned ‘incitement
to religious hatred’ when he publicly read a poem originally written by the Turkish
nationalist theoretician, Ziya Gökalp: ‘Turkey’s mosques will be our barracks, the
minarets our bayonets, the domes our helmets, and the faithful our soldiers.’ For this
transgression, he was banned from politics and sentenced to 10 months in prison, four
of which he actually served. It was this criminal conviction that prevented him from
immediately becoming prime minister following the victory of his AKP on 3 November
2002.

10
M. Hakan Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity in Turkey (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 122–128.
11
On Emine Erdoğan, see Edibe Sözen, ‘Gender politics of the JDP,’ in: M. Hakan Yavuz, (Ed.) The Emergence
of a New Turkey: Democracy and the AK Parti (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2006), pp. 268–270.
12
M. H. Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity, p. 213.
292 M. M. Gunter & M. H. Yavuz

Erdoğan became the leader of the AKP when it was established on 14 August 2001, by
the more moderate members of the former RP, while the conservatives of the now banned
RP created the Saadet Partisi (SP) or Felicity Party. Having apparently learned a lesson
from his earlier political experiences, Erdoğan specifically declared that the AKP did not
have a religious agenda and would work within the secular democratic framework.13
Increasingly, the AKP has assumed a position as a center-right party, rather than an
Islamic one. Some analysts have seen an analogy between the AKP and Europe’s post-
World War II progressive conservative Christian Democratic parties as well as the modern
West’s catchall parties. Erdoğan repeatedly has stressed that the AKP is committed to
democracy and Turkey’s secular identity.14 In power, he has established a can-do
reputation of clean government instituting democratic reforms necessary to achieve
eventual EU membership. He successfully endeavored to market Turkey abroad, attract
foreign capital, pursue privatization and a liberal market economy, provide necessary
services, and initiate a host of political reforms to harmonize Turkish and EU law. Under
Erdoğan, Turkey has enjoyed an average of 7.5 percent in annual growth, $20 billion in
direct foreign investment, annual export volumes of almost $100 billion, an inflation rate
below 10 percent, and a record 50,000-plus point high on the Istanbul Stock Exchange.15
Such stunning economic achievements can be expected to benefit the masses in terms
of higher employment opportunities, greater tax revenues, more social spending, and
improved educational opportunities, among others. Even his opponents admit that
Turkey’s economy has done very well under Erdoğan. In August 2005, Erdoğan addressed
the long-taboo subject of the country’s ethnic Kurdish minority, stating publicly that
Turkey had a ‘Kurdish problem’ and needed more democracy to solve it.16 Many analysts
would agree that further democratization of the Turkish political system is essential not
only to help resolve the ethnic issue but also to further the goal of Turkey’s integration
with the EU. Erdoğan’s policies demonstrate that he understands the necessity for
openness, tolerance, and transparency in government and for Turkey’s future. In this
respect, one may argue that secularists owe a huge debt of gratitude to Erdoğan and the
AKP for their reforms that actually have bolstered secularism within the context of
Turkey’s cultural heritage.
To appreciate how far Erdoğan has transformed his original Islamic position, it would
be useful to compare it with what Erbakan, the longtime Islamic leader and Erdoğan’s
earlier mentor, still is saying. Unlike Erdoğan, Erbakan continues to give speeches about
Western and Zionist conspiracies against Islam. Secularists, who tend to view all religious
persons as backward, are unable to distinguish the differences in ideology and tone
between Erdoğan and Erbakan. For that reason, they try to associate Erdoğan and his
current associates with Erbakan and question the reasons why they left Erbakan’s party to
form the AKP. Accordingly, many secularists are unable to comprehend that the AKP
program has transcended its Islamic roots and is committed to pursuing Turkey’s destiny

13
For background, see Berna Turam, Between Islam and State: The Politics of Engagement (Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press, 2007), esp. pp. 134 –150; Muammer Kaylan, The Kemalists: Islamic Revival
and the Fate of Secular Turkey (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2005), pp. 410, 412, and 438; and Yavuz,
(Ed.) The Emergence of a New Turkey.
14
‘Das Sakulare Gesicht der Turkei Bewahren,’ Neue Zurcher Zeitung (Zurich), 18 May 2007.
15
Ihsan Dagi, ‘The roots of the AK party’s strength,’ Today’s Zaman, 12 July 2007.
16
‘The sun also rises in the south east,’ Briefing, 15 August 2005, pp. 1–2.
 Turkish Paradox 293

in the EU. Indeed, the AKP’s democratic and economic reforms have made it all but
impossible to establish an Islamic state in Turkey. Even history may judge Erdoğan to be
modern Turkey’s most successful leader only after Atatürk himself and the late Turgut Özal.
Who then would be the Islamists if the AKP members are not? Turkey’s Islamists do not
constitute a cohesive movement but rather are comprised of diverse groups. Sufi orders
such as the Naqshbandis and Qadiris, for example, constitute more traditional Islamists,17
while the Nur movement of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi (1876 – 1960)18 and its neo-Nur
offshoot headed by Fethullah Gülen19 represent more modern, scientifically inclined
Islamic movements. In addition, the SP represents the more conservative elements of
Erbakan’s now defunct Refah Party (banned in 1998). According to Erdoğan’s secular
opponents, he maintains close relations with these openly Islamic groups and has a secret
Islamic agenda for Turkey. In particular, they accuse Fethullah Gülen’s movement of
establishing an international reach that includes hundreds of schools indoctrinating youths
with intensive Islamist training in keeping with the teachings of Nursi and also creating
a hierarchy of activists in municipalities and businesses. Although pretending to be
moderate and apolitical, secularists say that Gülen was indicted in 1999 for his activities,
documented with film in which he allegedly reveals his aspirations for an Islamist Turkey
ruled by the sharia and calls for clandestine means to achieve such a goal. Secularists cite
also a statement of Gülen as evidence:

You must move in the arteries of the system, without anyone noticing your
existence, until you reach all the power centers . . . until the conditions are ripe. . . .
You must wait until such time as you have gotten all the state power.20

Secularists prone to believe in conspiracy theories found further evidence of a presumed

Erdoğan – Gülen alliance in May 2006, when the AKP government modified the criminal
code provisions pertaining to public speech (in response to EU pressures for Turkey to
democratize its legal system), and consequently Gülen was acquitted. Later, in the 2007
elections, the Gülen movement’s media outlets (daily Zaman, Bugün, and TV stations) all
supported the AKP government and adopted a hostile attitude toward the opposition
parties, as well as toward the military.21

Secularists
Like the Islamists, Turkey’s secularists have also evolved in terms of their attitudes and
political positions. Historically, Turkish secularism has been synonymous with Kemalism,

17
On the Naqshbandis, see Hamid Algar, ‘The Naksibendi order: a preliminary survey of its history and
significance,’ Studia Islamica 44 (1976), pp. 123–152; idem, ‘The Naksibendi order in Republican Turkey,’
Islamic World Report 1, 3 (1996), pp. 51 –67; and on both the Qadiris and Naqshbandis, see Martin van
Bruinessen, Agha, Shaikh and State: The Social and Political Structure of Kurdistan (London: Zed Books,
1992), pp. 216– 265.
18
On Said Nursi, see Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity in Turkey, pp. 151–178.
19
On Fethullah Gulen, see ibid, pp. 179–205.
20
Cited in Omer Erbil, ‘Sects, religious communities, and the 22 July [Elections],’ Milliyet (Istanbul), 10–14
July 2007.
21
Cited in Rod Dreher, ‘For Turkey, a clash of civilizations,’ Dallas News, 15 July 2007.
294 M. M. Gunter & M. H. Yavuz

an often flexible ideology named for modern Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
Kemalism consists of six principles: republicanism, populism, secularism, revolution,
nationalism, and statism. Revealingly, democracy is not one of these essential principles.
Since the establishment of the republic, Kemalists have pursued two of these principles
with ideological fervor: secularism, i.e., the control of Islam by the state and the
disestablishment of religion from the public sphere; and nationalism, i.e., creating a nation
state out of diverse ethnic groups. Secularism opposed any sort of Islamic orientation,
while nationalism came to view any sort of Kurdish identity as a mortal threat to Turkey’s
survival.22 Despite legislative reforms to allow the usage of the Kurdish language,
Turkey’s highest administrative court, the Council of State, ruled in June 2007 to dismiss
Abdullah Demirbas, the mayor of the Sur district of Diyarbakir province, because he had
voted to provide public services in languages other than Turkish (an official survey had
found that 72 percent of Sur’s population spoke Kurdish while only 24 percent spoke
Turkish).
Accommodating Kurdish culture, especially linguistically, is necessary for Turkey
to pursue its application for membership in the EU. Secular nationalists, however,
tend to equate any expression of Kurdish ethnic identity with separatism and thus a threat
to Turkey’s territorial integrity. Pressures from the EU for Turkey to be more
accommodative of its Kurdish minority have thus prompted some secularists to question
the goal of EU membership. For example, General Yaşar Büyükanıt, the military’s
outspoken Chief of Staff, has implicitly opposed Turkey’s EU candidacy on the grounds
that it is ‘creating minorities in Turkey.’23 He also implied that the United States was
part of the problem because of its support for the autonomy of Iraqi Kurds; the latter,
according to Turkey, refuse to expel members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)—a
Turkish Kurdish guerrilla group—that has bases in the Qandil Mountains of northern
Iraq.24 Büyükanıt’s views are relevant because the Turkish military thinks of itself not
just as the ultimate guardian of the Turkish state but also as the ultimate interpreter of
what is Kemalism.25 Indeed, the military has intervened to remove civilian governments
four times (1960, 1971, 1980, and 1997) and seriously considered yet another coup
in 2004.26
This attitude has historical roots going back to Atatürk, who based his original and
ultimate power on his role as the supreme military commander in Turkey’s epic War of
Independence during the early 1920s. The military’s insistence on its unique role in
interpreting and defending Kemalism not only contradicts democratic ideals but also
presents serious problems for Turkey’s EU candidacy.

22
The Kurdish problem in Turkey is beyond the scope of this article. For overviews of continuing problems
involving the usage of the Kurdish language, see Scott Peterson, ‘Why Turkey’s Kurds are ever more edgy,’
Christian Science Monitor, 29 June 2007; and Joost Lagendijk (Cochair of the Turkey–EU Joint
Parliamentary Commission), ‘Kurdish: a different language,’ Zaman (Istanbul), 28 June 2007.
23
See Ihsan Dağı, ‘Is the military in favor of EU accession?’ Today’s Zaman (Istanbul), 19 April 2007.
24
See Ihsan Dağı, ‘Ready for an anti-western coup?’ Today’s Zaman, 17 May 2007.
25
For background, see William Hale, Turkish Politics and the Military (London and New York: Routledge,
1994).
26
See the detailed analysis in Walter Posch, ‘Crisis in Turkey: just another bump on the road to Europe?’
Occasional Paper No. 67 (Paris: Institute for Security Studies, 2007), p. 18ff. The prominent Turkish journal
Nokta was forced to close down in April 2007 after publishing apparent details of the attempted coup.
 Turkish Paradox 295

During the initial years of the AKP’s government, Turkey’s ‘EU-phoria’ disinclined the
military from confronting its policies. Once skepticism about EU membership had set in,
however, the military felt emboldened. The AKP attempt to nominate Gül as President
would have removed one of the last bastions of political power from the control of
Kemalists, and this prospect alarmed the military. Thus, the current struggle for ultimate
power in Turkey may be seen as more between the AKP and the military, rather than
between Islamists and secularists. For example, organizations such as the Türkiye Emekli
Subaylar Derneği (Society of Retired Officers or TESUD), headed by retired Major-
General Riza Kucukoglu, and the Atatürkcü Düşünce Derneği (Society for Kemalist
thought or ADD), headed by retired General Şener Eruygur, the former commander of the
Gendarmerie, played an important role in galvanizing the popular demonstrations against
the AKP in April and May.
Although understanding the role of the military is important, it is essential to appreciate
that even the military is being influenced by the economic and social changes that have
been occurring in Turkey since the early 1990s. The country’s phenomenal economic
growth has created a new socially conservative Anatolian middle class of urban migrants
with strong Islamic roots who have become entrepreneurs, intellectuals, and politicians.
Industry, represented by the Türk Sanayici ve İşadamları Derneği (Turkish Association of
Industrialists and Businessmen or TÜSİAD), which is dominated by large holding
companies such as Koc, Sabancı, and Eczacıbası, is part of this new mix. This new middle
class is represented by the AKP and challenges the long existing privileges of the older
Kemalist middle class that largely consists of bureaucrats. Politically, this older Kemalist
middle class has been represented by the party Atatürk himself founded back in 1923, the
Republican Peoples Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi or CHP). Since the beginning of
multiparty politics in Turkey in 1950, the CHP has largely been on the defensive, and
despite occasional revivals, slowly losing support. CHP head Deniz Baykal has come to
see his party’s future as closely tied to that of the military rather than to its supposed social
democratic ideology. During the AKP’s sweep to power in the election of November 2002,
the CHP was the only other party that managed to pass the 10 percent threshold and enter
parliament, albeit with less than 20 percent of the overall vote. Although this was actually
an improvement over its previous showing (in 1999) when the CHP failed to get enough
votes to enter parliament, between 2002 and 2007, it proved to be largely an ineffective
opposition to the AKP, with the exception of blocking the election of an AKP as president
in April 2007.
In its 2007 election manifesto, the CHP questioned Turkey’s negotiations with the EU
because it knew that it would be impossible to maintain a Kemalist state if Turkey joined
the EU.27 Almost desperately, Baykal declared that ‘Erdoğan speaks with the language of
terrorists and supports the view of (Iraqi Kurdish leader) Barzani.’28 These references
were an attempt to paint the AKP as weak on the national security issue because it was
unwilling to authorize a large-scale military intervention against the PKK in northern Iraq.
Such a position, of course, offered the disaffected Kurdish population little in the way of
democratic promise. Furthermore, the CHP established a tacit alliance with its theoretical

27
Ihsan Dagi, ‘The CHP and MHP: a joint nationalist foreign policy front,’ Today’s Zaman, 28 June 2007.
28
Cited in ‘Election campaigns take a start,’ Briefing, 18 June 2007, p. 4. Also see Ihsan Dağı, ‘The CHP and the
military: what are they up to?’ Today’s Zaman, 14 June 2007.
296 M. M. Gunter & M. H. Yavuz

rival, the openly nationalist Milliyetci Hareket Partisi (National Movement Party or
MHP). The latter also sees the national security issue as its own special domain. Presently,
Devlet Bahçeli, a former economics professor, leads the MHP. Frustrated by Turkey’s EU
candidacy, which it sees as a conspiracy against the very independence of the state, the
MHP also sees the Kurdish issue as one of terrorism and economic marginalization, rather
than a struggle for legitimate democratic rights. The CHP and MHP embrace a
xenophobic, antiglobalization rhetoric that accuses the AKP of submitting to the United
States and the European Union, as well as having a secret Islamic agenda.
Despite the secularists’ verbal attacks, the AKP has clearly benefited from the
incompetence and corruption of the other political parties. Almost by default, it is the only
mainline party that plausibly has something positive to offer toward dealing intelligently
with the economy and minority problems.29

The July 2007 Elections

The national elections held on 22 July 2007 are likely to have a major impact on the future
of Turkey. Four parties—the AKP, CHP, MHP, and the pro-Kurdish DTP—achieved
representation in the parliament. The ruling AKP emerged the strongest party. After
receiving 34.4 percent of the vote in the November 2002 elections, it increased its total to
46.5 percent in the July 2007 elections. This was an increase of 12 percent for its second
term. This total would give the AKP 341 seats in the 550-member parliament.
The secularist CHP and the nationalist MHP won an estimated 112 and 71 seats,
respectively. Up to 25 seats will go to independent candidates, including 20 Kurdish
representatives who are expected to merge under the pro-Kurdish Demokratik Toplum
Partisi or Democratic Society Party.
That the AKP emerged as the number one party in the 2007 elections is not a surprise.
Most political analysts expected it to win enough seats to form the government. However,
very few, including the AKP itself, expected such a landslide victory. This victory is a vote
for the policies of the AKP and a vote against the crisis created by the secular – military
establishment over the presidency. The AKP is the only party with dense social networks
in every corner of the country, and, along with municipal governments, all these networks
were mobilized for the party’s victory. Due to the role of dominant religious networks in
the Kurdish regions, the AKP also received a major victory in these provinces. One could
argue that the only chance for ending the relentless and destructive Kurdish insurgency
will come from the AKP since it is the only Turkish party that appeals to voters in Kurdish
regions. For the national integration of Turkey, this offers great hope.
There are two key reasons for the AKP’s landslide electoral victory: economic and
political. According to the public surveys, the most important factor that determined
people’s decision to vote for the AKP was the economic situation. As already noted,
during the previous five years, Turkey achieved a 7.5 percent average annual growth,
record foreign investments jumped from $1.2 to $20 billion, and the inflation rate declined.
The AKP-led social welfare networks also played an important role in terms of reducing
the negative consequences of the market economy. Moreover, the Turkish currency was

29
On Turkey’s minorities and the EU, see Suat Kolukırık and Sule Toktaş, ‘Turkey’s Roma: political
participation and organization,’ Middle Eastern Studies, 43(5) (September 2007), pp. 761–777.
 Turkish Paradox 297

replaced with a new one that has maintained its value. The party also used municipalities
to provide food, coal, and especially health care through new reforms to millions of
people. Under the new health-care reform, people have access to private health care with
the government’s support. In other words, privatization of health care improved the
situation at least in the short run. The AKP government also expanded the bureaucracy
through new bureaucratic hires. In short, people cared about their daily lives more than any
supposed long-term ideological threat from the AKP. Thus, neither identity nor ideology
but rather services and improvements in living standards determined how people voted.
As far as political factors are concerned, the most crucial one was Erdoğan’s charisma
as the populist leader of the conservative masses. He always has been viewed as one of
them in terms of his body language, the model he presents, and his overall life style.
In addition, Gül became as significant as Erdoğan in the 2007 elections because the AKP
election platform was built largely around the Kemalist campaign against his presidency.
The impact of the presidential election worked in favor of the AKP, whose election
platform was very much based on the ‘mazlum’ (wronged one) and the exclusion of pious
people from the public sphere by the ‘white Turks.’ The Kemalist establishment was
framed as ‘white Turks’ and the supporters of the AKP as the ‘blacks Turks’ who have
been marginalized by the system. This ‘framing’ of the crisis was very successful among
the ordinary Turks. The framing mobilized Islamic networks, especially the Gülen
community, which has an ongoing conflict with the military, in favor of the AKP. The AKP
organized more meetings and carried its message to every corner of the country.30 For
instance, the AKP organized mass rallies in 58 provinces, whereas the CHP had them in
only 20 provinces.
Even though the AKP government did not propose any political solution to the Kurdish
issue or put forward a regional economic development program, the Kurds voted for it.
There are three reasons for this situation. Many Kurds regard the AKP as an anti-
Kemalist and antisystemic party that has been ‘suppressed’ by the same enemy as they
have. The e-memorandum of the military created a sense of unity among the Kurds and
the AKP that they all confront the same oppressive military and the Kemalist state.
Moreover, many people liked the counter memorandum of the AKP leadership against
the military. When terrorist attacks increased two months before the elections, the AKP
presented this through its ‘local rumor channels,’ such as the coffeehouses, as the work of
the ‘hawks’ within the military to militarize the region and even to intervene in northern
Iraq. Many religious Kurds believe that the AKP has a ‘hidden agenda’ to transform
the Kemalist state through a new civic constitution. Moreover, the AKP deputies in the
Kurdish region carried out a vocal campaign against the military threat to intervene in the
affairs of northern Iraq. The AKP had a Kurdish-first election platform in the region, and
the people regarded it as a way of de-Kemalizing the state and reconstructing a binational
state with decentralization of the power under a new ‘civic constitution’ that the AKP
promised to create.
Is this the beginning of a new Kurdish politics in terms of supporting a center-right party
rather than only a Kurdish-based party? Does this represent a change in the political
landscape of Kurdish politics? Did many Kurds vote for the continuation of the AKP

30
On the mobilization of the Gülen networks in Kurdish provinces, see Altan Tan’s interview in Milliyet, 30 July
2007.
298 M. M. Gunter & M. H. Yavuz

policies or did they vote with the expectations of a new policy? The DTP was certainly
taken aback by the AKP’s strength in the Kurdish areas of Turkey. Indeed, the AKP
victory was a response against those who had an identity-based election platform and
sought to separate Kurds from Turks further.
Within the Kurdish political landscape, different voices are emerging. Ayşel Tuğluk
(the cochair along with Ahmet Turk of the DTP) is calling upon the Kurds to understand the
fear among Turks of the 1919 Treaty of Sevres (that had provided for a division of Anatolia
but subsequently was abrogated in 1923) and embrace a new reconciliation,31 whereas
Leyla Zana called for the division of Turkey along new federal lines.32 One may inquire
whether the vote for the AKP in the Kurdish region is a vote for the current AKP policies on
the Kurdish question or a vote on expectation that the AKP will deliver a new republic
along the lines of a new civic constitution that might get rid of Kemalism and also open the
door for a binational state solution. It is believed, for example, that the AKP is not
comfortable with the Kemalist state ideology and wants to transform it without openly
saying so. The ‘unspoken project’ of the AKP is to transform Turkey from a rigid nation-
state into a new community of ethnic identities held together by their Muslim identity.
Thus, the party supports ethnic and cultural rights for the Kurds and other minorities within
the framework of conservative (religious) values. In short, the AKP does not accept the
Kemalist solution of homogenization (nation-building) to diversity but rather seeks to
recognize diversity. Its different notion of political community is similar to that of the
pre-Republican Ottoman millet system.
The smallest party to enter the parliament is the pro-Kurdish DTP. It was created by
Kurdish politicians with the goal of addressing the Kurdish issue in Turkey. It has close
ties with Abdullah Öcalan, the former PKK leader who has been in jail since 1999, but
who has renounced violence as the way to resolve Kurdish grievances. In order to get
around the 10 percent (of total national votes) threshold for a political party to gain
parliamentary representation, DTP decided to run its candidates as independents. These
pro-DTP independents received a slightly smaller percentage of the popular vote than did
their Demokratik Halkin Partisi (DEHAP) predecessors in the 2002 election. Through this
maneuver, the DTP candidates were not subject to the 10 percent threshold and managed
to win seats in the parliament while the DEHAP was subject to the threshold and, falling
short, did not win any seats.
Although the independent DTP candidates did well in the Kurdish regions, a majority of
Kurds actually voted for the AKP due to three key reasons. First, the DTP has no economic
policy to give hope to the youth or emerging Kurdish bourgeoisie. Thus, it has no policy
for the regional development or distribution of the growing national ‘pie’ of Turkey. Yet
Kurds do not vote only on the basis of identity politics but also consider economic
conditions. Second, the DTP rhetoric about the brotherhood of people, freedom, and peace
are concepts too abstract in the face of the immediate needs of the region. None of the
candidates explained to the Kurds how these concepts would improve their daily lives.
Third, there is very little bridge between the secular Kurdish leadership of the DTP and the
conservative religious masses of the Kurds. Indeed, most DTP supporters are closer to the
leadership of the AKP in terms of their moral values and piety.

31
Aysel Tuğluk, ‘Sevr Travması ve Kürtlerin Empatisi,’ Radikal, 14 June 2007.
32
‘Pro-Kurdish politician Zana: time to divide Turkey into states,’ Today’s Zaman, 21 July 2007.
 Turkish Paradox 299

The CHP remains the largest opposition party in the parliament. After merging with the
Democratic Leftist Party (DSP), they received 20.9 percent of the vote and got 112 seats in
the parliament. The CHP failed to translate the momentum of the pro-secular mass rallies
into voter support. The main problem of the CHP is that it represents the ‘old order’ and is
very much out of touch with the current socio-economic realities of the country. Indeed,
the CHP’s election platform was based on fear of Islam. Its aggressive leadership asked
people to vote for the CHP as a vote for the reforms of Atatürk. Its leader, Deniz Baykal, a
political science professor and a former foreign minister, is a divisive personality whose
goal of remaining head of CHP is stronger than becoming prime minister. Furthermore,
Baykal’s party failed to build bridges with the new emerging actors in the society. Its
election platform was built on fear and the supposed threat to secularism. The result,
however, was a vote against the military’s interference in politics and, especially, the
politics of fear that was manipulated by the generals. Thus, the military received a
rejection from the nation over its self-declared guardianship. The people preferred that the
army withdraw to its barracks in accordance with the EU standards, as many Turks do not
see the country at risk or in danger of fragmentation.
By receiving 14.28 percent of the vote, the MHP is the third party to enter parliament
with 71 seats. Although many people expected the MHP to receive around 18 percent of the
vote, it had to compete with the AKP in Anatolia. It remains the main Turkish nationalist
party, although it has shifted from ethnic to civic Turkish nationalism. Its leader, Devlet
Bahceli, an economist and a former Deputy Prime Minister, is skeptical about Turkey’s
EU bid, accuses the AKP government of being too soft on separatist Kurdish guerrillas,
and supports a military incursion into northern Iraq to crack down on Kurdish rebels based
there. Interestingly, the MHP also has distanced itself from the military agenda and does
not support military interference in politics.

Conclusion
On 22 July 2007, the AKP cruised to a landslide victory, securing an unparalleled
46.5 percent of the vote. It was the first time in more than a half-century that an incumbent
government actually had increased its share of the national vote. The Turkish people had
obviously opted for democratic and market economy reforms as well as for continuing
their EU candidacy.33 They also had voted against inward-looking nationalism, military
interference in politics, and ultra-secular fears of a secret Islamic agenda—all
characteristics of what many have termed Turkey’s ‘Deep State.’34 Gracious as well as
prudent in victory, Erdoğan assured his opponents that ‘there will be no concession on the
basic (secular) characteristics of the republic.’35 He also promised to ‘press ahead with
reforms and the economic development that we have been following so far’ and to
‘continue to work with determination to achieve our EU goal.’36 Although he vowed to
continue the fight against the PKK, it seemed possible to pursue a political solution to the

33
On the ups and downs of Turkey’s EU candidacy, see Michael M. Gunter, ‘Turkey’s floundering EU
candidacy and its Kurdish problem,’ Middle East Policy, 14 (Spring 2007), pp. 117– 123.
34
For an analysis of this concept, see Michael M. Gunter, ‘Deep state: the arcane parallel state in Turkey,’
Orient, 43(3) (2006), pp. 334 –348.
35
Cited in ‘AK party wins big despite all odds,’ Today’s Zaman, 24 July 2007.
36
Cited in ‘Turkish PM vows to pursue reform,’ BBC, 23 July 2007.
300 M. M. Gunter & M. H. Yavuz

Table 1. Turkish Parliamentary Elections Results, 2002 and 2007

Party Votes Percent Seats Percent

AKP 2007 15,641,382 46.49 340 61.45
AKP 2002 10,804,458 34.41 365 66.36
CHP 2007 6,974,598 20.90 112 20.18
CHP 2002 6,096,488 19.42 177 32.18
MHP 2007 4,842,024 14.28 71 13.45
DTP/Independent 1,713,769 5.7 27 4.91

Kurdish problem and oppose an invasion of northern Iraq.37 Indeed, the AKP further
surprised analysts by winning 52 percent of the vote in Turkey’s ethnic Kurdish areas of
the southeast.
Despite its impressive victory, the AKP fell short winning of the two-thirds
parliamentary majority to force through its presidential choice. Indeed, the AKP’s seats
in the parliament actually declined slightly because both the CHP and MHP passed the
10 percent threshold to enter parliament. This denied the AKP the extra seats it had taken
in the election of 2002. In addition, 24 members of the DTP were able to circumvent the
10 percent threshold by winning as independents (Table 1).
The Turkish President is important because he can hold up parliamentary legislation,
choose members of the high courts and board of higher education, and must approve
all the highest military appointments. Given its tremendous electoral victory and the
resulting need to satisfy its constituency, the AKP decided to resubmit Abdullah Gul’s
presidential candidacy to the new parliament. On 28 August 2007, Gul was finally elected
on the third ballot. Although it remains to be seen what the future holds now for Turkey,
hopefully the electoral crisis of 2007 will result in a maturation of the Turkish political
system and an increased respect for the democratic process on the part of all parties.

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