Turkey is doing a Very Good job in Afghanistan

The Observer ^ | June 30, 2002 | Johnny Dymond

[pkpjamestown]

Sickly Turkey gives way to despair

With the economy in tatters and their veteran leader dying, the Turks' fate seems to lie either with Islamists or the far right

Turkey's political and economic elite is so fearful of what the future might hold that it is praying that the dying 77-year-old Prime Minister, Bulent Ecevit, can somehow hold on.

He has been away from his office for almost two months, with spinal problems, stomach problems and a neurological disease that leaves him looking shaken and confused.

Pale and frail, Ecevit faced MPs from his left-of-centre party three days ago. He had travelled from his home to the parliament in Ankara to show he was still in control.

He could, he said, see early elections 'on the horizon'. Deputies should return to their districts and listen to the people in preparation for a campaign. It was what many had been saying ever since his long absence from official duties began. The financial markets shuddered.

An hour later came a correction; a written statement from his office said he had made a mistake; there were no plans for early elections; the government would serve out its full term. Even for a Prime Minister renowned for his corrections and clarifications, this was an impressive volte-face.

Turkey is now the International Monetary Fund's biggest single debtor. Partly because the markets are suspicious of the intentions of opposition parties when it comes to carrying out the IMF's plans, the Turkish lire has lost more than 20 per cent of its value since the Prime Minister's illness began (there are almost 2.5 million lire to the pound); interest rates have climbed by 15 per cent. One of the larger banks was taken into receivership this month; the shares of its sister bank, the second largest in Turkey, halved in value.

Turkey, a key Nato member, 65 million people strong, is at the edge of a political and economic precipice. Ecevit is almost certainly the only man who can hold the governing coalition together. Opinion polls suggest that the coalition would be swept from power in fresh elections.

The most popular group in parliament is the Islamist Justice and Development Party; the most energetic member of the coalition is the far-right Nationalist Action Party. Things have been bad before; but things have rarely been so bad for so long.

In a sports club in an upmarket part of Istanbul a group of young professionals play a long, hard game of volleyball until the sun has gone. Sitting down for orange juice and coffee afterwards, none is positive about the future. The contempt for the politicians of all colours spills out. 'Some of the politicians are illiterate,' says Haki Yigit, 41, a credit officer with the bank ABN Amro. 'One of them didn't finish primary school! Some of them can't talk properly, and one of them has got, is it two or three wives?'

'Something has to change in the way that politicians affect the economy,' chips in Nesli Hanaker, a 29-year-old woman who works in exports. 'There is something wrong with the politicians. If you don't have money you can't be elected.'

It is the threat of the Islamists, led by Tayip Erdogan, that inspires most comment rather than the far-right Devlet Bahceli, whose party has links with the Grey Wolves, a neo-fascist organisation that spread terror in the 1970s with assassinations and assaults on the Left.

'The Islamists were clever,' says Yigit. 'They changed the education system with their religious schools. Then when they came to power in 1997 they changed the people working for the state-owned companies so that it became their system.'

It is perhaps not surprising that the Islamists arouse their ire; the newspapers, owned by people who like to stay close to the government of the day, have been pouring scorn and scandal on Erdogan ever since he emerged as an electoral threat.

One paper which does not follow that line is the weekly cartoon paper LeMan; there is a lot of scatological humour, but there is a big dollop of politics too. For Turkey, still under the grip of the censor, it is close-to the-bone stuff.

The editor, Tuncay Akgun, sits in a small third-floor office in central Istanbul. Cartoons with grotesque caricatures of the Prime Minister sit on his desk. But he says he is stumped by Erdogan and Bahceli. 'Both of them have few of the gestures that a human should have and they are irritatingly aloof. Their politics are transparent - you can't see what they stand for. It's very hard to feel them, so they are not good cartoon characters,' he says. 'When these two take power we'll even miss Ecevit. But our pens will be much sharper this time,' he adds, making a stabbing motion, 'We will stick our pens straight into their hearts.'

Turkey often feels ignored by the outside world; foreigners who live here do not understand why there is so little interest in such a large and complex country. But that may have to change; an unstable Turkey on Europe's edge will set alarms ringing up and down the Foreign Ministries of Western Europe.

Among those who work on, watching their politicians manoeuvre as the economy plunges, there is not much hope. One volleyball player stayed silent throughout the conversation at the cafe. The bank Dilek Akan works for was announcing redundancies the next day; half the staff were to be dismissed.

'The politicians don't want to deal with the problems of Turkey,' he spat, 'they just want to earn money. As for the future, it won't be good for us; I think we are going down and down.'

[dighton]

Turkey is doing a Very Good job in Afghanistan

I believe it.

The original headline, though, is Sickly Turkey gives way to despair