Political parties and democracy in Turkey

Political Parties and Democracy in Turkey Edited by

Metin Heper and Jacob M.Landau

I. B. Tauris & Co Ltd

Publishers London· New York

Published in 1991 by 1. B. Tauris & Co Ltd 110 Gloucester Avenue London NW1 8JA 175 Fifth Avenue New York NY 10010

In the United States of America and Canada distributed by St Martints Press 175 Fifth Avenue New York NY 10010

Copyright © 1991 by Metin Heper and Jacob M. Landau All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, must not be reproduced in any fonn without permission in writing from the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data 'Political parties and democracy in Turkey 1. Turkey. Politics, history 1. Heper, Metin II. Landau, Jacob M. 1924-320.9561 ISBN

1-8504~300-3

Printed and bound in Great Britain by WBC Print Ltd, Bridgend

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Contents Preface· AbbreviatioIlsi• •.• ·. . ii.··.·.·.·.·.·. .· .·.·.iii··iiiiiii·.·.·.·.·ii\.····i.ii . · . ·. ·. ·. ·. . . . . . . ..

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3> Atatiirk and Political Parties

~Th~·:~~ri:n~ People's Party, 19~~:l945. '--...-""

'. Kemal H. Karpat' .... ". .... . '., ",.' ". , . . ' tfFl; The Progressive. R.epublican Party, 1924-1925 V'. Feroz AhIllad

6 The Free Party, 1930 .. Walter F.Weiker • 7 The RepublicaIl People's Party, 1945-:-1980 'Frank Tachau .... '.•. '._......:.":~-""-"', ~ TheAliDemocratic Partyti94~ ~~-,~.,,) Ya§ar Sanbay , --,~ .. __'_._"M ..'-, ... 9 The Justice Party, 1961-1980 , Avner Levi \10 Th~ Motherland Party, 1983-1989 '1 Ustiin Ergiider .' ·11 The Social Democratic Populist party; 1983--1989 Andrew Mango . ~12 The True Path Party, 1983--1989 Feride Acar 13 Conclusion Jacob M. Landau Select Bibliography Index

v

vii ix xii

1 10

24 42

1.19 134 152 170 188 202 208

217

Preface This volume is based on the proceedings of a conference held at Bilkent University, Ankara, on 10--12 November 1988. Political scientists, sociologists and historians from' Turkey, the United States, Great Britain and Israel lectured on the role of parties in Turkish politics. Other than those who read papers, several Turkish scholars served as commentators; they were Professors Nermin Abadan-Unat, Ali L. Karaosmanoglu,' Ersin Onulduran, Ergun Ozbudun and tIter Turan. The product of these papers and of some of the main points in the debates - considerably revised by their authors and the editors - are presented here. The chapters discuss the main parties in existence at the time of the founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal (whose name we use interchangeably with Atatiirk, as he was known by the people), in the multi-party period, following the Second World War and ending with the military intervention of 1980; and du'ring the 19805, up to ~e present day. While the Editors have sometimes been unable to' decide between differing interpretations - nor, indeed, did they consider this to be always advisable - they hope that the, volume does present a unified theme, which is the relation of the political parties to the viability of democracy in Turkey. ' Special thanks are due to Bilkent University, whose Board of Trustees financed the Conference, especially to Professor ihasan Dogramacl and Mr Giindogdu Akkor, respectively the Head and' Acting Head of the Board. The University Rector, Professor Midhat' <;oruh; its Vice-Rector, Professor A. Dmit Berkman; the Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Professor 5iibidey Togan; and ¢,e.Conference Coordinator, Miss Tiilin Oguz - all displayed great interest and ensured the success of the meeting. Lastly, Mrs Anna Enayat of I. B. Tauris 'has co-operated with us at every stage. We are very grateful. Metin Heper and Jacob M. Landau Ankara, Istanbul and Jerusalem vii

Abbreviations CUP DkP DLP DP FP

JP MP M.P. NAP NDP NOP NP NSP NTP NUC PoP PP PRP RPP

RNP

RPNP RRP SDPP TPP

TWP

Committee of Union and Progress Democratic Party (in the 19705) Democratic Left Party Democratic Party (in the 19405 and 19505) Free Party Justice Party Motherland Party Member of Parliament Nationalist Action Party National Democracy Party National Order Party Nation Party National Salvation Party New Turkey Party National Unity Committee Populist Party Prosperity Party Progressive Republican Party Republican People's Party Republican Nation Party Republican Peasants National Party Republican Reliance Party Social Democratic Populist Party True Path Party Turkish Workers' Party

Contributors Dr Feride Acar is at the Department of Public Administration, Middle East Technical University, Ankara. Dr Acar contributed to such collected volumes as Zeitschrift for Tiirkei Studien, From

Token Women to Gender Equity in Science, Stonning the Tower: Women in Academic Work, and Islam in Turkey: Religion, Politt'cs' and Literature in a Secular State. Professor Feroz Ahmad is at the Department of History, University of Massachusetts, Boston. Professor Ahmad is author of The Young Turks: The Committee of Union and Progress in Turkish Politics, The Turkish Experiment in Democracy, 1950-1975, and The Making 0/ Modern Turkey. Professor C.H. Dodd is at the Centre of Near and Middle Eastern Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London). Professor Dodd is author of Political Development, Politics

and Government in Turkey, Democracy and Development in Turkey and The Crisis o/Turkish Democracy. Professor Ustiin Erguder is at the Depa:rtrrtentofPoliticalScience and International Relations, Bogazi~i{]niversity,IstanbuLProfessor Ergiider is author of Electoral Systetns and.l'urkish Democracy (in Turkish) and Agricultural Price SuftPortPolicyandPolitics in Turkey (in Turkish) and contributed to sllchco~ecte~volumes as The

Political Economy ofI nc01lZe D~trilJu,tt'on't'n1'~rkey,.E leelions in the }Jiddle East:lmpUeati0ns olgecent1'rends,.cpdState,. Democracy and the Military: Turkey in,theJ98(Js, and t()such scholarly journals as the Journal ofPublic Policy;··; Professor M:etin H~per {co-~dit()r)i~attlle I)ePartmerit of Political Science .and;~ublic i\drrlirlistI"(lti()m~iJ](eIl.t tJniversity, Ankara. Professor Heper isco,"edit()rof!sll.l~a1tdJ>olitics.· in the Modern

MidIJleEastand§tczte,Milftllrytfn~[)e11J9crat:Y:Turkey in the 1980s, editor?! ·pilent1n(JSot[)e~~1Z~r(llizlfffm:¥.tfnicipal Government in. Turkey,Def!'0eracyand.p()etflg()1)e.m~nt:lstanbul in the 1980s,

xi

Local Government in Turkey: Governing Greater Istanbul, and The State and Public Bureaucracies: A Comparative Perspective, and author of The State Tradition in Turkey. (Distinguished) Professor Kemal H. Karpat is at the Department of History, University of Wisconsin, Madison and editor of International Journal 0/ Turkish Studies. Professor Karpat is, inter alia, editor of Political and Social Thought in the Contemporary Middle East and Social Change and Politics in Turkey, and author of Turkey's Politics: The Transition to Multi-Party System, The Gecekondu: Rural Migration and Population, and The Ottoman

Population, 1830-1914. Professor Jacob Landau (co-editor) is at the Department ofPolitica1 Sciences, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Professor Landau is, inter alia, co-editor of Electoral Politics in the Middle East: Issues, Voters and Elites, editor of Man, State and Society in the Contemporary Military East and Alaturk and the Modernization 0/ Turkey, and author of Radical Politics in Modern Turkey, Politics

and Islam: The National Salvation Party in Turkey, Abdul-Hamid's Palestine, Pan-Turkism in Turkey: A Study o/Irredentism, Tekinalp: TurkishPatriot, 1883-1961, and The Politics ofPan-Islam: Ideology and Organization. Dr Avner Levi is at the Institute of Asian and African Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Dr Levi is author of Hand-Written

Manuscripts and Official Records in Ottoman Script in Jerusalem (in Turkish) and History ofJews in the Republic 0/ Turkey (in Turkish), forthcoming.

Dr Andrew Mango is an Honorary Fellow at the Centre of Near and Middle Eastern Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London). Dr Mango is author of Turkey, Discovering Turkey, and Turkey: A Delicately Poised Ally. Professor Ali Ya§ar Sanbay is at the Department of Public Administration, Uludag University, Bursa, Turkey. Professor Sanbay is co-editor of Turkish Political Development (in Turkish) and author of Modernization, Religion and Party Policy in Turkey: The Case of the National Salvation Party (in Turkish). (Distinguished) Professor Dankwart A. Rustow is at the Graduate Center, the City University of New York and is editorin~chiefofthe quarterly journal Comparative Politics. Professor Rustow is author, inter alia, of Middle Eastern Political Systems,

OPEC: Success and Prospects, Oil and Turmoil: America Faces OPEC, and the Middle East, and Turkey: America's Forgotten Ally. xii

Professor Frank Tachau is at the Department of Political Science, the University of lllinois at Chicago. Professor Tachau is co-editor of Electoral Politics in the Middle East: issues, Voters and Elites, editor of Political Elites and Political Development in the Middle East, and author of Turkey: The Politics of A·uthority, Democracy

and Development. Professor Walter F. Weiker is at the Department of Political Science, Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey. Professor Weij{er is author of Decentralizing Government in Modernizing

Nations: Growth Center Potential ·of Turkish Provincial Cities, The Turkish Revolution, 1960-1961: Aspects of Military Politics, Political Tutelage and Democracy in Turkey, and Modernization of Turkey: From.Atatiirk to the Present Day.

1

Introduction Metin Heper

-=-t=--

Liberal democracy has both a horizontal and a vertical dimension. The

conc~pt c~s fo~d,. where such a regime has b~e.n c~nsolidated, the

praxIs' evmces/a clelicate balance between P2CIPatiOn on the one hand, and responsible leadership on the other. he fonnula of liberal aemocracy is equal.ity tht:.Qugh liberty. 1 Liberal emocracy is predicated upon a ~,~conciliation of autonomy and control. 2 The ideal notion of democracy is related to its horizontal, or participatory, dimension. The approach is prescriptive. The problematic is that ,of bringing about 'more democracy'. Conversely, the realistic notion of democracy strives to find ways and means of establishing a viable democracy in a given place and time. What makes democracy possible is not the same thing as what makes democracy

more democratic. Atatiirk attempted to plant the seeds in Turkey for both the horizontal and the vertical dimensions of liberal democracy. He placed particular emphasis on the nation as the source of ultimate values and goals for society. It is true that during his lifetime, except for a brief experiment in 1930,3 a multi-party system was not installed. Atatiirk, however, had an emphatic belief in the irmate capacity of the people to develop and, in due course, impinge upon government. 4 This particular approach has borne fruit in later years. A multi-party system was finally established in 1945. This was, followed in the next two decades by the emergence of political parties such as the Democratic Party (~and theJ~e Party OP); both the DP and the JP were responsive in~easure to civil.societal elements. 5 In the late 1960s eVeQthe Republican People's Party, the single party from 1923 to 1945, managed to extricate itself from its symbiotic relationship with the state, then represented by the bureaucratic and the military elites. And during the 1980s, the erosion of Atatiirkism as the official ideology could be seen - 6 a development that provided far gr~ater scope for 'politics'. The 'political will' rather than the 'bureaucGitic

2

POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

will' now had the upper hand, particularly in those areas that were not preserved as the 'sphere of the state'. 7 In the process - at least in theory - the political party gradually came to have greater responsibility for nurturing the vertical as well as the horizontal dimension of liber3.t democracy. Concerning the functions of the political party in Turkey, Atatiirk placed sole emphasis on the vertical dimension of democracy. In his view, the political party had to be a no-nonsense party. The post~Atatiirk bureaucratic elites, which converted Atatiirkism as a mentality8 into an ideology in the Shilsian sense, i. e. into a closed system of thought,9 expected an unrealistic degree of idealism and statesmanlike behaviour from political party leaders. The 1960 military intervention, for instance, was carried out against a political party whose leaders were considered to have acted against the best interests of the country. 10 The constitutional and legal restructuring in the wake of the 1980 military intervention, too, aimed at producing -sensible politicians. ll This preoccupation with recruiting by fiat political party elites, which would be more attentive to the vertical requirements of liberal democracy, was an outcome of the idea of ~ationa1ist democracy\ subscribed to by the state elites. The latter were engaged in the ' (inevitably unsuccessful) political.engineering in question. The notion of the rationalist democracy adopted in Turkey considered democracy as an inieIfectuaI debate WIth the intention of determining the best policy, and not as an effort to recpncile and aggregate different views and interests. The efforts throughout the Republican period (1923 to the present)" of institutionalizing in Turkey both the horizontal and the vertical dimensions of democracy do not seem to have been entirely successful. If nothing else, during this period Turkey experienced three military interventions (in 1960, 1971 and 1980)~ The first and the last of these took as a target one (the DP) and all political parties, respectively. This was not surprising. Given their predilection' for viewing democracy as an end - i. e. promoting the general interest through debate based on reason - and not as a means to promote as well as reconcile ·interests' vis-a-vis the problems of liberal democracy in Turkey, the military never found fault with the regime itself, or with social groups or with themselves (after all, they intervened 'to restructure and make democracy viable'), but with politicians :who, as already implied, were accused of acting irresponsibly. 12 At times, associational interest group organizations too were suppressed. But they were not perceived as culprits on their own aCcOlmt; they were considered to have been 'too politicized' by the political party elites.

INTRODUCTION

3

Leaving aside for the moment the Question of the degree to which~' political parties were indeed responsible for the bottlenecks the Turkish democracy had faced, it cannot be denied that parties continued to have a critical role in the Turkish polity. Political openings (aperturas) in Turkey were neither the upshot of a falling-out among themselves of the authoritarians, as has been the usual pattern in many Latin American cotmtries,13 nor initiated by the pressure of emerging social forces, as was the case in the earlier, major revolutions. 14 Rather, the openings were initiated by the alternative political party elites at the 'centre', which attempted to replace the state-dominant political system by a party-dominant one, i.e. by a political system largel'i autonomous of social groups. 15 As compared with the situation in many Third World contexts, with their fairly well-developed and distinct party platforms, relatively complex organizations highly differentiated from traditional social structures as well as from the military and the Church, and with their active role in government, the Turkish political parties have had a significant impact on politics. As compared to their cotmterparts in the Western industrialized cOWltries, too, political parties have figured prominently in the Turkish polity. 16 Neo-corporatist arrangements, let alone their more recent complex versions, i. e. 'networks' between organized society and governmental actors (in both patterns the ,igovernment shares responsibility for policy-making with the 'private' bodies) had been alien to the Turkish scene. 17 Also, unlike the secular developments in the Western industrialized contexts, in Turkey the bureaucratic elites have. not so far begun to dominate public policymaking on account of their expertise;18 In the event, Turkish politics have been dominated by two categories of elites - the bureaucratic and military on the one hand, and the political on the other. Furthermore, not only the political elites, but, sometimes frOIn behind the scenes, sometimes more openly, the bureaucratic and the military elites too have wished to play a significant role in politics. As already noted, clinging on to their concept of rationalist democracy, the state elites expected political party elites to 'place primary emphasis on the general interest, as the state 'elites themselves have defined it. During the 1950s, for instance, the state elites insisted on strictly secularist policies. Following the 1960 military intervention they managed to legislate public interest in the fonn of the 1961 Constitution. The latter was partly a programmatic docwnent - a mild form of political manifesto to which political party elites were expected to confonn. 19 The 1961 Constitution was also a 'mixed' constitution in that 'national sovereignty' was to be exercised not only by parliament but by 'the ,authorized agencies', which, by implication, included the bureaucratically staffed agencies such as the Constitutional Court and

4

POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

the National Security Council. The 1982 Constitution, which in turn was written in the wake of the 1980 military intervention, was less progranunatic than the 1961 Constitution, but introduced into Turkish politics a stronger state-politics duality. A strengthened National Security Council and a presidency with extensive powers took their places alongside the more ·political' institutions. 20 It would be logical to arrive at the conclusion that the 1961 and 1982 Ire-equilibrations' - to use Juan Linz's tenninology - resembled the post-Second World War restructurings of democracy in such countries as France, West Germany and Au~tria, 21 in that the rules of the democratic game were dictated by the Constitution. But in practice, the re-equilibrations in Turkey differed from the latter ,in one important respect: The mixed nature of the 1961 and 1982 Constitutions was overlooked, among others, by political Q.arty elites in Turkey. ,-.. ::: The West German project of gradual democratization, for instance, , was reflected in German constitutional theory as well as constitutional arrangements. Historically, the dominant schools in German political and legal philosophy placed the needs and interests of a reified, anthropomorphic state above those any of its components - particularly parties and interest groups - and asserted the overarching identity of private and public values in the German nation-state. 22 West German political leaders may have acted as representatives of heterogeneous interests, but they insisted that the citizen's first duty was to the state. 23 Even many convinced democrats reluctantly came to accept the fact that the German definition of democracy tended to mean a 'government for the people' more than it did 'government by the people'.' They placed a premium on the leader who could keep a firm hand on the tiller.24 It is true that there were those - primarily intellectuals - who pursued 'ultimate goals' and who were opposed to pragmatic action and making compromises. The radical critique of the values of the political system, however, was more of a corrective than a de legitimation .of the political order. 25 In Turkey, despite the 1961 and 1982 re-equilibrations, the idea of the state as 'a generalizing, integrating and legitimizing entity'26 the particular notion of the state which informed the restructurings of democracy in continental Europe - found its way to neither political theory nor political discourse. Only a limited aspect of the idea of the state - the paternal state, which in the last resort would extend a helpful hand - ca.me to have a niche in the political consciousness of many. Otherwise, the state we have in mind here remained an enigma. While Turkey continued to experience political instability, the attempted restructurings were not considered necessary to bolster the

INTRODUCTION

5

vertical dimension of democracy, but only as threats to its horizontal dimension. The studies of Turkish democracy, too, were addressed to the question of what makes democracy more democratic and not to 'the issue of what makes democracy possible. In this vein, scholarly studies in general focused their attention on whether and to what degree Turkey came to have the 4pJ"~@Y@~es' of democracy; the less scholarly ones stressed more participation'. 27 For the present purpose these developments had one crucial consequence: the political party elites had to strike a balance between the vertical and horizontal dimensions (if democracy and arrive at a consensus on the procedural rules of democracy all by themselves, i.e. without effective constitutional checks and balances. This they had to achieve while pursuing a rigorous opposition to the bureaucraticmilitary elites and, in the absence of effective linkages to social groups, that is, without the benefit of moderation such relationships might have brought about, and while constantly being socialized to the idea of the virtues of horizontal democracy only. Have they succeeded in this complex task? If they did make mistakes, where did they go wrong? Or was the task always an impossible one? Were they justified continuously to blame others and exonerate themselves? These questions are difficult to answer categorically but are worth raising if one wishes to understand the trials and tribulations of democracy in Turkey. In order to approach the problems raised or implied one has to adopt, in its general lines, the genetic approach to democracy, as fonnulated by Dankwart A. Rustow. Within this framework the· stages through which d~mocracy would be installed and consolidated· can be explored from a diachronic perspective. The assumption is that a viable democracy wotU(l be established through a process of polarization, cri_~~_~Q!!!Eromise; in the last analysis, a smoothly fUilctioning democracy woulObe the handiwork of politicians skilled in bargaining techniques. 28 Guillenno O'Donnell and Phillippe Schmitter. having studied the experiences of a number of countries in Latin America and southern Europe, suggested that where the political actors are likely to fail at reaching a dynamic consensus· they should try to make pacts with the military, among themselves or with the economic forces. 29 As already noted, in Turkey one angle· of· the .triangle in question is missing. Late to join the club of classsoCieties,political instability leading to the frequent shelving of democracy in Tllrkey has not been - at least not so far - the upshot of a threat from the Left. In Turkey the niilitary intervened wherieither the political party elites did not live up to their expectations andlor.whellthe political party elites were engaged in continuous strife,. which,' in the eyes of the 4

l

6

POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

military. endangered the best interests of, the country. as again the

latter themselves defined them. In the genetic approach to democracy the question of whether the political a~tors have taken ,~eir lessons from past experience is dominant.{ According to this view d1ffiocracy would be consolidated when the actors in question lIe am' . \ Elsewhere, the present author made a distinction between an absence of learning, super:ficraTIe~g and genuine learning. An absence of learning, of course, needs no explanation; superficial leaining is understood as becoming aware of the immediate causes; and genuine learning is related to the enduring Wlderlying causes of poijtical instability. 30 Which stage of learning have the Turkish political party elites reached, if any? . The chapters that follow take up directly and indirectly some of the questions and/or their permutations and combinations raised here. The particular choice of parties was dictated by two basic assumptions. One was that learning never starts from a tabula rasa. The past has a lingering effect, though it is not forever fixea---th. the present. Thus those political parties that rnhre left indelible marks on Turkish political life were selected. A second assumption stennned from the very problematic delineated above. Learning by the elites belonging to the more centrist political parties was deemed more critical. It was thought, after Juan Linz,31 that learning' on the part of pro-system political party elites would neutralize the adverse implications for stability; as the military saw it, of 'disloyal opposition'. The particular conception of political stability and its requisites as delineated here may be challenged, and not without reason. As Sartori tOQ noted, 'the vertical dimension of democracy remains to this day ideal-less; and the predicament is that it easily finds in our repertoire of ideals only the hostile ones'. 32 In order to have more democracy, however, we should first have democracy. Notes 1.

2. 3. 4.

Giovanni Sartori, The Theory of Democracy Revisited. Part 2: The Classical Issues (Chatham, N.J.: Chatham House, 1987), pp. 131ff. Robert A. Dahl, Dilemmas ofPluralist Democracy: Autonomy vs. Control (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 1982). See Chapter 6, this volume, on the Free Party, formed in 1930. Metin Heper, 'Transfonnation 'of charisma into a political paradigm: "AtatOrkism1' in Turkey' , Journal ofAmerican Institute for the Study ofMiddle Eastern Civilization, 1 (1980-81): pp. 65--82.

INTRODUCTION

7

For Atatiirk's views on some of the issues this book addresses, see Chapter 3, this volume. 5. On the Democratic Party and Justice Party, see Chapters 8 and 9, respectively, in this volume. 6. This point is elaborated in Metin Heper, The State Tradition in Turkey (Walkington: Eothen Press, 1985), Chapter 6. The military intervenors of 1980 have stressed AtatUrkism, but only as an antidote to the extremist views on the Left and the Right, and not as a source for public policies. 7. The 'state', represented primarily by the President and the National Security Council, was seen as responsible basically for the internal as well as the external security of the country. 8. Ergun Ozbudun, cThe nature of the Kemalist political regime', in Ali Kazanclgil and Ergun Ozbudun (eds), Ataturk: Founder of a Modem Regime (London: C. Hurst, 1981). 9. Heper, The State Tradition in Turkey, Chapter 4. 10. The critical parts of the Report (prepared by professors handpicked by the military) making this criticism are reproduced in Feroz Ahmad, The Turkish Experiment in Democracy, 1950-1975 (London: C. Hurst, 1977), pp. 162, 163 and 164. 11. For details, see Frank Tachau, cPoliticalleadership in Turkey: continuity and change', in Metin Heper and Alunet Evin (eds), State, Democracy and the Military. Turkey in the 1980s (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1988). 12. This view is elaborated in Metin Heper, 'Extremely "strong state" and democracy: Turkey in comparative and historical perspective', in Deborah Greniman (ed.), Democracy and Modernity (Leiden: E.J. Brill, forthcoming). 13. See Guillermo O'Donnell and Philippe Schmitter, Transitions

from Authoritarian Rule. Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies, Foreword by A.E. Lowenthal (Baltimore, MD and London: lolms Hopkins University Press, 1986). Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions. A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia. and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979). 15. This point is taken up at length in Heper, The State Tradition in Turkey, Chapter 5. 16. For a comparison see Vicky Randall (ed.), Political Parties in the Third World (London: Sage, 1988), pp. 183-5; and James JuPP, PoliticalPames (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970), p.97. 17. Metin Heper, 'Interest group politics in post-1980 Turkey', Paper submitted at the international conference, 'Government and Organized Interests', Zunch, 27-30 September 1989.

14.

8

POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

18.

See Metin Heper, 'A methodological note on bureaucratic modernization: prevalent attitudes of the Turkish civil servants', InternationalReview ofModernSociololfj, ·12 (1982): 75-103; and idem, 'The Turkish bureaucratic elites: latent versus manifest role identities', in V. Subramaniam (ed.), Public Administration in the Third World (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1990). Cf. Mattei Dogan, 'The political power of the we.stern mandarins: introduction', in M. Dogan (ed.), The Mandarins of Western Europe. The Political Role of Top Civil Servants (New York: Sage, 1975), pp. 7ff; and Joel D. Aberbach, Robert D. Putnam and Bert A. Rockman, Bureaucrats and Politicians in Western Democracies (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1981), Chapter 4. On the progranunatic dimension of the 1961 Constitution, see C. H. Dodd, Democracy and Development in Turkey (Walkington: Eothen Press, 1979), pp. 94ff. The 1961 and 1982 restructurings are discussed at length in Heper, The State Tradition in Turkey, Chapters 4 and 6, respectively. For such restructurings see, inter alia, Alan Ware, Citizens, Parties and the State (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1987), pp. 191ff. Lewis J. Edinger, Politics in Germany: Attitudes and Processes (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1968), p. 63. Ibid., p. 95. Arnold Heidenheimer, The Government of Germany (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1971), p. 156. M. Rainier Lepsius, 'Institutional structures and political culture', in Herbert Doring and Gordon Smith (eds), Party Government and Political Culture in Western Germany, (London: Macmillan, 1982), p. 127. Kenneth H.F. Dyson, The State Tradition in Western Europe. A Study of an Idea and Institution (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1980), pp. 208ff. As examples of such scholarly studies, see Walter F. Weiker, Modernization of Turkey. Ataturk to the Present (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1981); and Frank Tachau, Turkey: Authority, Democracy and Development (New York: Praeger, 1984). Dankwart A. Rustow, 'Transitions to democracy: toward a dynamic model', Comparative Politics, 2 (1970): pp. 337-63. O'Donnell and Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies, pp. 40-68. Metin Heper, 'Transitions to democracy reconsidered: a historical perspective', in Dankwart A. \ Rustow and Kenneth P. Erickson (eds), Comparative Political Dynamics. Research

19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

26. 27.

28. 29. 30.

INTRODUCTION

9

Perspectives at the Turn of the Century, (New York: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1991). Juan Linz, The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Crisis, Breakdown and Re-equilibration (Baltimore, MD and London: Jolms Hopkins University Press, 1978), p. 50. Sartori, The Theory of Democracy Revisited, p. 165.

Political Parties in Turkey:

An Overview Dankwart A. Rustow Continuity and Change: Ottoman Empire to Turkish Republic For over a century, Turkish political parties have reflected both the profound changes and the underlying continuity in the country's political history. The promises of civic equality of the Tanzimat reform period (1839-76) prompted the fonnation of the New Ottoman Society in 1865, which became the lineal ancestor of the Society for Union and Progress of 1889, the Defence of Rights Society of 1919, the Republican People's Party' of 1923 and the Social Democratic Populist Party of 1983. 1 In Turkey, as in other countries, the more intense periods of political party activity came in anticipation or as a result of competitive elections. There were brief flurries of such partisanship in 1876 ori the adoption of the Ottoman Empire's first written constitution on a European model; in 1908-12, following the restoration of that constitution in the Young Turk revolution; and in 1918-19, after the final Ottoman defeat in the First World War. These episodes of electoral and party activity, however, were interrupted by periods of repression under Sultan Abdillhamid II's absolute rule (1876-1908) and the military dictatorship of the Committee of Union and Progress (1913-18).2 There were even more serious obstacles to Ottoman party development than this alternation between parliamentary constitutionalism and authoritarian rule. party activity implies agreement to disagree: , it requires" above all, fundamental consensus on the territorial boun; daries within which such partisanship is to be exercised and on the , population for whose support the parties are to compete. 3 No normal party life could have developed in an entity such as the Ottoman Empire

POLITICAL PARTIES IN TURKEY

11

in its final phase of decay - pressured as it was by European imperialism from outside and minority nationalism from within. Even among those

who remained loyal to the Ottoman state in its shrinking borders, there was profound disagreement on the key question of 'How can this state be saved?' (Bu devlet nastl Kurtarzlabilir?) and on the group identity on which citizenship was to be based. This confusion found eloquent expression in the rival ideological slogans of the Young Turk period: Ottomanism, Islamism and Turkism. 4 The problem of borders and identity was resolved through the force majeure of the .1918 defeat, which left Ottoman forces in control mostly in Muslim - and Turkish-populated areas; .and, above all, through the energy and foresight of Mustafa Kemal, the later Atatiirk, who led the successful national resistance to further invasion and partition of this Turkish rump area in 1919-22. The central slogan of that struggle "Came to be 'Independence or Death'. Unlike later wars of national independence, it was a war not to shake off foreign subjugation but to prevent it; and the result was that Turkey, along with Japan, China and Thailand, never succumbed to European colonial rule. 5 Mustafa Kemal Pasha had been one of the few victorious commanders to emerge from the Ottoman military debacle of 1914-18, having led the successful defence against the British invasion of the Gallipoli peninsula in 1915 and the orderly retreat from Syria in 1918. When the resistance movement under his leadership adopted the programme known as the National Pact in the spring of 1919, military realism prompted the organization to define its immediate task as the defence of the territories within the armistice lines of 1918. Here another element of continuity in Turkish political development becomes apparent. .In contrast to the post-colonial states of Asia and Africa, the Turkish Republic did not have to build up its political leadership in a vacuum, but could draw on the ample personnel resources of the late Ottoman political establislunent. In the spring of 1919, Mustafa Kemal Pasha himself had transferred his, sphere of activity from Istanbul to Anatolia, while on an assignment from the Sultan's military authorities he himself had engineered; and the cadres he assembled in his nationalist resistance movement consisted of miljtary, and later civilian, leaders who joined his move from Istanbul to Anatolia. 6

Atatiirk as Founder of the Turkish Republic: Dynamic Gradualism The more continuous evolution of Turkish political party life thus goes back to the early Kemalist period, specifically to the Erzurwn

12

POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

and Sivas congresses of 1919 and~the :Ankara National Assembly of 1920. The gradualism of Atatilrk's own approach was apparent from the beginning, in both party organization and nomenclature. the Society for the Defence of Rights, which was formed in 1919 to coordinate the resistance against foreign invasion· and partition, was in large part based on the local organization left behind by the Union and Progress .Society. For the sake of the overarching goal of national independence, all other political issues, such as Ottomanism vs. Turkism. monarchy vs. republic and religion vs. secularism, were deliberately set aside. When the Istanbul Grand Mufti issued a fetva (religious decree) outlawing the nationalist movement, the reply was a counter1etva by the Ankara Mufti indicating that the Sultan's Govenunent had become the captive of unbelievers. When a bitter quarrel broke out in the Ankara Assembly between a Turkish and a· Circassian member, Mustafa Kemal settled the incident by pointing out that 'we are all Ottomans, we are all Muslims'. 7 Even the name of the independence movement's parliament, convened in Ankara iri April 1920, was originally Grand· National Assembly, the specification 'of Turkey' being added only later. Similarly, the movement's National Pact of 1919 did not specify the name of the nation to be defended. The central tenet of the movement became R~ Mustafa Kemal (Atatiirk) firmly embraced this principle in the programmatic speech he gave in December 1919 upon first arriving in Ankara which, because of its central strategic location in Anatolia, had been selected as the nationalist headquarters: Within our organization. . . the national will is paramount . . . every individual must become personally concerned with his destiny. A structure that in this way rises from below to the top, from the foundation to the roof, will surely be sturdy.... I have been gratified to observe that our national organization. . . has reached down to its true point of origin, to the individual, and that from there the real structuring upward has also begun. 8 The People's Party was adopted as the official name of the Kemalist movement after victory in the War of Independence, to which the qualifier Republican was added after the abolition of the sultanate. Even after victory in the War of Independence, Mustafa Kemal emphatically refused to .identify this movement with any other ideological slogans, such as democracy or socialism, waving aside possible objections that this would leave the nature of the new political regime inappropriately vague. 'They will say that we don't resemble anything. Let them say so; for, gentlemen, we resemble ourselves (biz bize benzeriz).' Characteristiqilly, the Six Arrows, or ideological tenets, of Atattirk's RepublicaIil People's Party (RPP)

POLITICAL PARTIES IN TURKEY

13

(republicanism, nationalism, populism, secularism, revolutionism and etatism) represented not ar programme for the future, but a post facto swnming-up of achievements. They were written into the party yrogramme as late as 1935 and into the Republic's constitution in 1937. And, of course, the very arrangement of these white arrows radiating outward from the lower corner of the Republican People's Party's official flag and emblem powerfully symbolized the process of onward and upward motion. In the crucial period of cultural, legal and social refonn, 1923 to 1935, the absence of any detailed political programme proclaimed in advance helped Atatiirk maximize the element of .surprise and hence minimize the possibility of organized opposition to the far-reaching changes he decreed. But a mere listing of these refonns indicates how well thought out and consistent those reforms were: 1924: Abolition of the caliphate, closing of Islamic schools ('unification of instruction') and adoption of a new constitution based on quadrennial election with universal male suffrage. 1925: Replacement of the fez and turban with the European-style hat as male headgear and of the Islamic with the Gregorian calendar. 1926: Adoption of the Swiss Civil and Italian Criminal Codes. 1928: Deletion of constitutional provision on Islam as state religion, adoption of Latin alphabet, and decree proclaiming Kemal Head Teacher of the School of the Nation with every Turkish citizen woman or man - a pupil. 1930: Founding and closing, with Mustafa Kemal's encouragement, of an opposition party (August-November). 1931/2: Founding by Mustafa Kemal of the Turkish History and Turkish Language Societies. 1934: Laws requiring the adoption of family names and conferring upon Mustafa Kemal the family name Atatiirk (Father Turk) and extension of suffrage to women. 1935: The fifth Grand National Assembly includes thirteen members independent of the RPP including Greeks, Armenians and Jews; and adoption by the RPP of its Six Arrows or principles: republicanism, nationalism, populism, secularism, revolutionism and etatism. 1936: The same six principles are written into the constitution. 9

Populism - From Above Downwards In emphasizing the themes of national sovereignty and national organization from the bottom up, Mustafa Kemal also conceded that 'there is need at the beginning of any undertaking, to go not from below upwards but from above downwards. 10 And indeed a broadening of the social base can be observed throughout the century of development of

14·' POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY political party organizations in Turkey. The New Ottoman Society as well as the Union and Progress Committee (1865, 1889, respectively), which fanned in opposition to Ottoman autocracy, consisted mainly of dissident military and bureaucratic leaders from Istanbul; but the principle of ro tation 'of personnel between the capital and ~e provinces, which had prevailed throughout Ottoman history, helped spread the movement to the major cities of the empire - as dramatically evidenced by the start of the 1908 revolution in Salonica. During the Second Constitutional period (190~18), the Comtnittee for Union and Progress movement extended this provincial network throughout the Turkish-speaking areas of the empire, and these urban cells in 1919 provided the nucleus of the Itemalist independence movement. In the 1920s and 1930s, that same network was pushed through the efforts of the RepUblican People's Party (RPP) , and through government development of agriculture and education, from the provincial centres into the small towns. This earlier gradualism of party organization from above downwards· was accelerated considerably in the 1950s, following the historic decision taken in 1945 by Atattirk's successor, ismet inonii, -:- to allow opposition parties, contested elections, and freedom of the press during the period 1945-48. Typically, the leading patrician families of the provinces maintained their allegiance to inonii's RPP; but the other elites in small towns felt drawn to the opposition Democratic Party (DP); and, generally, politics was now spreading from the cities and towns to the villages. By the 1980s three decades of intennittent political campaigning, widespread internal migration and the popularity of television brought partisan debate to the remotest comers of the country and helped consolidate the Turkish people's commitment to democracy.. Although the troubles of the multinational Ottoman Empire had been resolved through the KemaIist victory in the War of Independence, the sixty-five years since the proclamation of the Turkish Republic have brought to party life a different sort of dialectic between continuity and change. As inonii pointed out. in his crucial speech of 19 May 1945, his decision to open Turkish political life to party competition was the logical culrnir!ation of Atatiirk's own commitment to populism. Yet both Atatiirk and Inonii felt a certain ambivalence in this respect. The first opposition group, fanned in 1924 by Atatiirk's own associates under the name Progressive Republican Party, quickly became a rallying point for opponents to his ambitious refonn programme including monarchists, . separatists and Islamic conservatives and was dissolved in the backlash against the Kurdish rebellion of 1925. Another opposition group, the Free Party of 1930, fonned with Atatiirk's specific encouragement by his close friend Fethi Okyar, was dissolved within a few months ~

POLITICAL PARTIES IN TURKEY

15

having soon become too popular for Atatiirk's liking and, once again, encouraged more fundamental religious - conservative opposition. In 1939 tsmet inonii initiated a new experiment in controlled opposition with the formation of an independent group within the Republican People's Party's parliamentary delegation - although, because of the political pressures of the Second World War, the 'independence' of this group was never fully tested. Some of the same ambivalence that Atatiirk showed in first encouraging and then abolishing the Free Party of 1930 was felt by President inonii in the late 1940s. In part his decision to allow organized opposition had been intended as a safety-valve for the accumulated frustrations experienced by the population of neutral Turkey during the six years of high mobilization and siege economy during the Second World War. In part, the orderly transition to democracy was intended to establish Turkey's' claim to membership in the United Nations and to facilitate the rapprochement between Turkey and the Western democracies against the manifest threat of aggression from Soviet Russia. (Little did President inonii or his advisers anticipate how intimate US relations in subsequent decades would become with dictators such as Synghman Rhee of South Korea, Augusto Pinochet of Chile or Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines!) Yet the established bureaucracy 'of inonii' s own RPP did not welcome the prospect of free political competition. An election was called in 1946, more than a year ahead of schedule, and irregularities in its conduct guaranteed the defeat of the newly-founded Democratic Party, of Celal Bayar and Adnan Menderes. The resulting political tensions were relaxed when President inonii made an extensive tour of' the COWltry in 1949 to spread the message of mutual respect between'the government and opposition parties. 11 By contrast, the 1950 elections were conducted with scrupulous honesty. Even though inonii himself was taken by surprise by the overwhelming Democratic victory, 12 he firmly resisted 'suggestions from military quarters to set aside the election results, and instead resigned his presidency to assume the new task of leader of the opposition in a democratic parliament'.13 Whereas in 1930 Atatiirk had changed his mind 'about the desirability of an opposition in only three months, inonii thus faithfully completed the crucial first steps in guiding Turkey towards democracy. The democracy implicit in Atatiirk's populism and inonii's decision to implement it in full assured basic continuity for political life in Turkey but also posed problems of later disruption. In the West full democracy has been the outcome of prolonged internal struggles, including revolution or civil war (e.g; Britain 1640-1832, France 1789-1871, United States 1829-ti4, Swit2;erland 1847-1918, Sweden 1866-1909). Thanks to Atatiirk's benevolent one-party regime and

16

POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

lnonG's voluntary commitment to democracy, Turkey was spared these upheavals. Yet it paid the heavy price of a number of setbacks: majority tyranny in the late 1950s; deadlocks among minority parties in parliament and rampant terrorism in the 1960s and 1970s; and repeated intervals of military rule after the coups of 1960 and 1980 and the 'coup by memorandum' of 1971.

Democracy: The Response From Below The 1950 election victory of the opposition party, and inonti's decision to respect the outcome by resigning the presidency, mark the beginning of 'the real structuring upwards' of which Atatiirk first spoke in 1919. As competing parties vied for the votes of the country's peasant majority, _§ocial and economic issues moved to the forefront: agricultural development, an improvement of the rural road network, hydroelectric and irrigation dams, an expansion of the education system.Social differences within Turkey's population also began to express themselves. Since the RPP, in its period of single-party dominance, had typically recruited the leading provincial families into its local organizations, the DP had a strong appeal to rivalloca1 groups. Thus in the Silifke region, on Turkey's Central Mediterranean coast, the RPP continued in the 1950s to command the allegiance of the indigenous residents, whereas the Circassian population, inunigrants from Tsarist Russia in the 1860s, typically espoused the DP.14 The strongholds of the Bekta§i order in the Krr§ehir region sided first with the Democrats and then with the Nation Party (1954-60); whereas Turkey's Shiites, the Alevis, typically supported the RPP under ismet inoml and Billent Ecevit, in whose commitment to secularism they saw a guarantee agalnst possible Sunni oppression. Many Turkish and foreign observers in the 1950s were apprehensive that democracy, by enfranchising the devout and illiterate peasantry, would lead to a wholesale turning away from Atatiirk's secularism and Westernization. It would seem, quite on the contrary, that this process of Westernization began among the Istanbul elite with the refonns of the late Ottoman era; spread to the urban population in the Atatiirk, single-party period; and is being accelerated and completed by the country's dynamic economic and social development since the 1950s - specifically by the mass migration of Anatolian peasants first to the cities and then as 'guest workers' to West Germany Some minor concessions to religious sentiment were made by both major parties once the electoral contest became serious in the late 1940s. Thus the inonU government set a precedent by allowing the allocation of foreign exchange fCfr the Mecca pilgrimage,

POLITICAL PARTIES IN TURKEY

17

establishing Faculties of Divinity at the universities and going into its 1950 election campaign under the leadership of the prime minister, Semseddin Giinaltay, a medrese graduate and specialist in Islamic history. Following that landmark election, the victorious DP, as one of its first legislative measures, restored the call to prayer. from the minaret from Atatiirk's 'pure Turkish' to its authentic Arabic. None the less, when faced with an episode of smashing of public statues of Atatiirk by Muslim fanatics. the Menderes government did not hesitate to strengthen the relevant penal sanctions against such behaviour. ls The overall result may be described as an atmosphere of religious tolerance. with Islamic beliefs and practices generally in inverse correlation to social and economic statuS. 16 Although various constitutional and criminal provisions against overt religious propaganda in politics remain in force. Islamic conservative parties in aU but name have in fact run in most Turkish elections since 1950, their vote typically ranging from 5 to 11 per cent of the total. 17 . Perhaps it was no coincidence that the first opposition group to fonn against inonii's .RPP called themselves the Democratic Party (DP). Turkish voters since the late 1940s have tended to divide their support between two major parties, one advocating more government management of the economy and soliciting the support of organized labour and various disadvantaged groups, and the other supported by various busi~ ness groups and committed to a greater role for private enterprise: The resulting line~up has . . . closely resembled that of Republicans versus Democrats in the United States, Conservatives versus Labour in Britain, or Christian Democrats versus Social Democrats in West Gennany. . . . Turkish election campaigns also have offered many features familiar from . . . other democracies - attention to the personalities of leaders. . . charges of corruption. . . and promises of redress of grievances. 18 It is noteworthy that Turkish voting participation has been higher than in many European countries, and far higher than in the United States, reaching 89 per cent in 1950 and averaging 76 per cent for the 195~0 period. (This disregards the elections since 1983, when voting became compulsory and fines were imposed on non-voters.) Military Interventions and the Deepening Roots of Democracy Despite all these positive indicators, Turkish political life has undergone a series of profound crises, marked by the political intervention of the military at roughly ten-year intervals. These interventions, moreover, grew progressively longer - 1960-61, 1971-73, 1980-83; yet each \

18

POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

time the military justified their intervention by the need to restore democracy or to remedy its defects, arid each time they did keep their word by returning power to elected civilian governments. What prompted the military interventions was a recurrent pattern of economic crisis and political tensions. Thus in the late 1950s Menderes' DP, following its victories of 1950, 1954 and 1957, used its govenunent powers to instigate rioting at opposition political rallies and then called in the police or even the military to suppress those same meetings. Unwilling to let themselves be used as a political tool, the military at length deposed Menderes, and for a year and a half administered the country through a military , junta known as the National Unity Conunittee. In this period, a special tribunal condemned Adnan Menderes and his two associates to death by hanging, imprisonment or loss of political rights; a civilian constituent assembly drafted a new constitution and an election law based on a bicameral parliament and a system of proportional representation; and a dissident group of right-wing extremists in the junta who did not wish to return power to a civilian democratic process were consigned to diplomatic exile as military attaches in such capitals as Reykjavik and Katmandu. With the DP banned, the first elections under the new constitution resulted in a four-party split, the strongest being inonii's RPP and the newly-formed Justice Party OP), whose very name implied a loud protest against the injustice of the execution of Adnan Menderes and the harsh penalties meted out to his colleagues. In 1965 and 1969, the JP, led by Siileyman Demirel, won the only parliamentary absolute majorities under the Second Republic (1961-80). Early in 1971 a series of violent demonstrations of extreme left- and right-wing groups, which the police were unable to control, prompted another military intervention. A non-partisan Cabinet was imposed on parliament, martial law was proclaimed and, in the process, law and order restored. By 1973 a caretaker Cabinet was agreed upon to supervise the regular quadrennial election, which in tum restored full civilian parliamentary government. During the two years of quasi-military government in 1971-73, the ageing ismet inonii was replaced by Biilent Ecevit as leader of the RPP, which adopted a more left-wing programme of democratic socialism. Although Ecevit's RPP and Demirel's JP remained the largest parliamentary groups, none of the elections of the 1970s produced an absolute parliamentary majority. Instead, the next seven years saw an alternation of weak governments. Some of these were unlikely coalitions in which the small extremist parties (the religious-conservative National Salvation Party of Necmettin Erbakan and/or the ultra-rightist Nationalist ActioniParty of A1parslan Tiirk~§)

POLITICAL PARTIES IN TURKEY

19

provided the crucial parliamentary votes. Others were minority cabinets, which failed to obtain parliamentary votes of confidence, or bureaucratic caretaker governments. 19 The prolonged political vacuum at the centre of government was filled by mounting waves of violence and terrorism of Right and Left that dwarfed the outbreaks of the early 1970s and, by mid-1980, claimed as many as 20 to 30 lives every day. Once again, the anned forces intervened and in three years of military rule (September 1980 -November 1983) restored law and order. They sponsored the adoption of a new constitution, which .modified the earlier system of parliamentary supremacy with extensive presidential powers; and a . new election law, which was to forestall the excessive party splintering of the 1970s. Temporary provisions of the 1982 Constitution banned all political participation by the party leaders of the preceding period. The junta also carefully supervised the emergence of new political parties, specifically encouraging the formation of the National Democracy and Populist Parties under a former military officer and a former 'bureaucrat, respectively, as leaders - the first being envisaged by them as the future government party and the other as the official opposition. These carefully laid plans, however, were thoroughly upset by the landslide victory of the Motherland Party (MP) which had been reluctantly admitted to the 1983 election at the last minute and benefited from Turgut OzaI's brilliant television campaign but, above all, from the rush of a vast plurality of voters towards the only party known not to be beholden to the outgoing military regime. (Of course the same electorate had overwhelmingly voted to approve the 1982 Constitution - a matter on which it had not been offered any alternative. ) In the following years, the continuing restrictions on the political parties and leaders of the pre-1980 regime were steadily eroded. In the local elections of 1984 and subsequent national by-elections, the old parties re-emerged under new names (Social Democratic Populist instead of the RPP and True Path instead of the JP) and changed leadership. In 1985, Ecevit's wife Rah§an formed yet another opposition party, whereas Demirel toured the COWltry drawing huge audiences for his 'non-political' speeches attacking the remaining restrictions. Meanwhile, in parliament, the artificially created parties of 1983. slowly vanished, most of their members joining the more authentic Social Democratic Populist and True Path parties. By 1987, a referendum restored full political participation to Demirel, Ecevit and other former leaders, and the subsequent elections turned into a three-way contest between Ozal's Motherland Party, Erdal inonu's Social Democratic Populist Party and Demirel's True Path Party.

20

-POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

Prospects for Parties and Democracy The political events of the 1980s have been reviewed in some detail, since no full scholarly consensus on their interpretation has yet emerged. 2o This author's judgement is that the Tur~sh military have, on the whole, remained true to their proclaimed role as guardians and restorers of democracy - the key indicators being the expulsion of Tiirke§ and other right-wing authoritarians from the 1960--61 joota, the impartial enforcement of law-and-order provisions against Right and Left in the early 1980s, and the return after each intervention to civilian government on the previously set schedule and this turned out to be the same in 1983, too, despite the evident shock and surprise the military felt at Turgut OZal's victory and the collapse of their plans for some kind of ·controlled transition' via their own chosen parties. Where the military erred severely was in blaming the preceding political crises primarily on the personalities of the outgoing leadership - imposing the oojustifiably severe and vindictive execution on Menderes in 1961, and the less severe but still unjustified sanction of deprivation of political rights on Demirel, Ecevit and others after 1980. This not only caused considerable ill-will against the military themselves; but also, by barring previous political leaders from the scene, burdened the subsequent regimes with inexperienced leadership. (Indeed, there is an elementary contradiction in decreeing that government shall be by those elected by the people - except for those whom the people have in fact been known to elect!) One factor in the crises of the 195~O period which is often underestimated is the electoral system that hrought those leaders to office and shaped the parliamentary environment in which govenunents had to be formed and to act. The elections of the 1950s were conducted under a system inherited from the Kemalist single-party period, which was a mUltiple-member plurality system, closely resembling that used for the electoral college in the United States. The effect was that the DP's leaders, winning a bare majority or even plurality of 'the popular vote, fOood themselves in command of 70-92 per cent of the parliamentary seats - a circumstance that fully accooots for the arbitrary authoritarian tendencies of the late Menderes regime. The election system of the 1960s, and even more that of the 1970s, erred on the opposite side of proportional representation - a system that has been producing repeated deadlocks in Israel and earlier substantially contributed to the pennanent crisis and downfall of Gennany's Weimar RepUblic. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Turkish voters showed their political commitments by casting more than 80 per cent of their ~te for moderate parties

POLITICAL PARTIES IN TURKEY

21

of the centre-right and centre-left. But by the 1970s, the election system gave a parliamentary stranglehold to extremist groups such as the National Salvation and Nationalist Action parties, which could make and unmake Cabinets, and hence exact an arbitrary price. A low point in this regard was reached when Demirel had to assign the Ministry of Customs to a member of the right-wing Nationalist Action Party - which at the time was suspected of financing its terrorist activities through international drug smuggling. Among Turkey's frequently changing election systems, that of 1983 most closely resembled the Anglo-American single-member plurality system, and it produced results th~t somewhat enlarged the representation of the leading party, giving Ozal's Motherland Party a 53 per cent majority in parliament on the basis of a 45 per cent popular vote. That system once again was changed in 1987 to one that gave that same party as much as 65 per cent of the seats on the basis of only 36 per cent of the vote. Still, the most important lesson of the 1980s has been that Turkey's citizens, regardless of the vagaries or occasional poor judgement of their leaders, are deeply committed to democracy; that the press has been relentless in securing wider freedom of expression; and that political leaders, including President Kenan Evren and Prime Minister Turgut Ozal, have found it politically advantageous to lead the country towards full political freedom. The August 1987 referendum, readmitting the politicians of the 1970s, may thus be considered the crucial landmark in Turkey's drive towards democracy. And the Ozal government's decision earlier that year to apply for full Turkish membership in the European Conununity further reinforces this already irresistible trend to full democracy and civil rights.

Netes 1.

2.

This listing disregards various name changes, some of them mentioned below. For a detailed documentation and analysis of Turkish political parties from the New Ottomans to the 1950s, see the pioneering work of Tank Z. Tunaya, Turkiye'de S£yasi Partiler, 1859-1952 (Istanbul: Dogan Karde§, 1952). The ups and downs of Turkish politics are reflected in the precise number of parties founded during successive periods: 1865--78: 3; 1878-1908: 13; 1908-13: 22; 1918-23: 55; 1923-45: 5; 1945--52: 30: see Dankwart A. Rustow, 'The development of politicaJ parties in Turkey', in Joseph LaPalombara and Myron Weiner (eds), Political Parties and Political Development, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1966), pp. 107-33, at 113.

22 3.

4.

5.

6.

7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

12.

POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY This proposition was elaborated in .Dankwart A. Rustow's articles, 'Transitions to democracy: toward a dynamic model'. Comparative Politics. 2 (1970): 337-63; and 'Transitions to democracy: Turkey's experience in comparative and historical perspective', in Metin Heper and Alunet Evin. (eds) State Democracy and the Military: Turkey in the 1980s, (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1988). The arwnent was succinctly summarized in Ak<;uraoglu Yusufs essay Uf Tarz-t Siyaset (,Three Modes of Polity') of 1904. Bernard Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, 2nd edn (London: Oxford University· Press, 1968), pp. 326ff. It is important in this context to recall that the designation of 'Turk', although long used by Europeans to describe the Ottomans, remained controversial until the early KemaIist days. One of its first serious uses was the 1897 poem by Mehmed Emin (Yurdakul), beginning with the ringing proclamation: 'Ben bir Tiirkiim, dinim, cinsim uludur . . .' (I am a Turk, my faith, my race are sublime ... ). On the Turkish-Japanese parallels, d. Robert E. Ward and Dankwart A. Rustow (eds), Political Modernization in Japan and Turkey (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1964; Thai translation, Bangkok 1982). For a more detailed comparison of the background of the late Ottoman and early Kemalist leadership, see Dankwart A. Rustow, 'The army and the founding of the Turkish Republic', World Politics, 11 (1959): 513-52, at 527; on subsequent changes, see the broad and thorough statistical analysis in Frederick W. Frey, The Turkish Political Elite (Cambridge, . MA: MIT Press, 1965). See his speech in the Grand National Assembly, of 1 May 1920. Quoted in Dankwart A. Rustow article, 'Atatiirk as founder of a state', in D.A. Rustow (ed.), Philosophers and Kings: Studies in Leadership (New York: Braziller, 1970), p. 222. The list is quoted from Dankwart A. Rustow, 'Kemalism', in Klaus-Detlev Grothusen (ed.), Turkei. Sudosteuropa-Handbuch IV (G6ttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1985), pp. 239ft. This sentence follows immediately after the passage quoted above at note 8. Thus in Zonguldak on 27 April 1949, he alluded to the Soviet threat to Turkey and assured his audience that 'The politiGal parties no longer consider each other as enemies. In view of the danger threatening our country, we work closely together. ' 'I never expected to see so much ingratitude'(,Bu kadarnankjjr~ luk gorecegimi hif beklemezdim')/ he told me in a personal

POLITICAL PARTIES IN TURKEY

23

interview in 1954. See Dankwart A. Rustow, Turkey: America's Forgotten Ally (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1987), 13. 14. 15. 16.

17.

18. 19. 20.

p.130. Ibid., pp. 62ff. See Joseph Szyliowicz, Political Change in Rural Turkey: Erdemli (The Hague: Mouton, 1966). Dankwart A. Rustow, 'Politics and Islam in Turkey', in Richard N. Frye (ed.), Islam and the West (The Hague: Mouton, 1957), pp.69-107. Thus survey research in the early 1970s established that the proportion of religious marriages (with or without civil maniage) ranged from 46 per cent in the three largest cities, to 59-60 per cent in smaller cities and towns, and to 64 per cent in villages. See Serim Timur, Turk£ye'de Aile Yapzst (Ankara: Hacettepe Universitesi Yaymlan, 1972), p. 92, as quoted in Binnaz Toprak, Islam and Political Development in Turkey (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1981), p. 55. See also Rustow, Turkey: America's Forgotten Ally, pp.26--36. The generalization applies to the elections of 1954, 1957, 1965, 1969, 1977 and 1987. The exceptions were those of 1950, when the Nation Party started out with only 3.1 per cent; 1961, when the RepUblican Peasants' Nation Party - in effect a merger of various religious and ultra-nationalist groups - obtained 14 per cent; 1973, when the National Salvation Party exceptionally obtained as much as 11. 8 per cent; and 1983, when no religious party contested the election. Rustow, Turkey: America's Forgotten Ally, p. 74. For a complete list, see ibid., p. 71. On the events of the late 1970s, d. Udo Steinbach, Kranke Wiichter am Bosporus (Wiirzburg: Ploetz, 1979); on those of 1980/83, C.H. Dodd, The Crisis of Turkish Democracy (Walkington: Eothen Press, 1983), Kenneth Mackenzie, Turkey in Transt'tion (London: Institute for European Defence and Strategic Studies, 1984); and George S. Harris, Turkey: Coping with Crisis (Boulder, Col.: Westview Press, 198.5).

3 Atatiirk and Political Parties c. H. Dodd Before asking what Atatiirk's views on political parties were, it is necessary to define a political party. The first section of this chapter is therefore devoted to an attempt at elucidation, which will also help to detennine the concept of a political party which Atatiirk had in· mind. The second section of the chapter turns to a consideration of Atattirk's own views, as contained in his speeches, but also as indicated by his actions. The question then arises why he held the view he did. Were they part of a·general coherent political philosophy, or we~e they essentially an ill-assorted bunch of concepts? And did his views change? Finally, there has to be some consideration of the extent to which Atatiirk's beliefs may be said to be democratic, since the question of political parties is central to democracy. This raises the further question of what type of democracy should be our measure. We would fail to appreciate the nature of Atatiirk's conception of democracy if he were to be judged only in the light of the amoralistic approach currently adopted by many political scientists.

Problems of Definition To begin with definitional matters, a political party is traditionally distinguished from a faction. The distinction was first made clear in English writing on politics by Edmund Burke in the eighteenth century. For him a faction struggled for place or monetary gain. In modem parlance an interest group would be a faction, perhaps, though a faction would not necessarily be promoting the cause of one material interest. Against factions Burke urged, in: a celebrated definition, that 'Party is a body of men united for promoting by their joint endeavours the national interest upon some particular on which they are all agreed.'1 To us this might seem rather narrow; we expect political parties to have a wide range of 'particular' matt~rs on which its members are agreed, expecting the party to be advocating a broad policy. Burke's

ATATURK AND POLITICAL PARTIES

25

definition is most notable, however, for its highmindedness. Not only does a party promote the national interest, it leans on principle. The contrast with 'faction' could not be more apparent. Modem definitions of party strive to be more 'realistic'. Take, for instance, Schumpeter's non-nonnative definition. Schum peter denied the nonnative view that a party was a group acting in the national interest in accordance with some agreed formula on what constituted the national interest. He claimed, simply, that a political party was 'a group whose members propose to act in concert in the compe.titive struggle for political power'. 2 However, this seemingly realistic definition implies at least one other party if there is to be a struggle, and some understanding that the struggle shall go on after the party in question has gained power (which implies that there are some norms). During its rise to power the Nazi Party in the early 1930s was a party engaged in a struggle for power, but after gaining power it devoted much less energy to fighting other parties; on a strictly Schumpeterian view it would cease to be a political party, though it would still be a group of persons acting in the (supposed) national interest. For Burke, it would be a party, but Burke was not faced with the conditions imposed by a mass electorate; the element of competition was not very important. So there was little need for a party to keep a weather eye on the electorate and constantly to adjust policies accordingly. Not being particularlY responsive, Burke's party could devote more time to considering the long-term national interest. It could be composed not of delegates but of representatives, who considered themselves as having a right to manage affairs as they thought appropriate in the interests of the country. This Burkean approach to definition may help in understanding Atatiirk's attitudes to political parties. Moreover, this normative approach has not disappeared into oblivion. In the contemporary world political parties do not necessarily fit modern definitions of the Schumpeterian sort; they still often to some ·degree reflect the older ideas. In particular, in Third World countries struggling for liberation, idealism has been much emphasized. In the Thii:'d World the single party, united around a narrow national theme, has been commonplace, and single-party governments have often been idealistic, even if sometimes they have degenerated into plain authoritarian or even tyrannical regimes deprived both of idealism and competition. The distinguishing characteristics of political parties in the modern world of competitive politics are the struggle for power and for the right to exert positive leadership by virtue of their representativeness. This does not mean, incidentally, that political parties do not have other functions. They do help in the recruitment of political elites, in

26

POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

providing experience in politics. in acting as transmission belts for the movement of demands and ideas to and from the centre. Some writers see these functions as defining characteristics, but they are perhaps best regarded as secondary since they are often perfonned by other agencies, like the bureaucracy and interest groups. The struggle for power and leadership is usually envisaged as operating best in a system of competing political parties. In European Community discussions of democracy, a competitive political party system invariably emerges as one of the vital factors in detennining whether a country is truly democratic. Paradoxically, this is not to say that political parties are wllversally admired. For instance, there is a deeply-rooted suspicion of strong political parties in the United States. The divided US Constitution was successfully devised to prevent the emergence of parties united aroWld some shared interest which might then dominate the political scene. As for the promotion of a common, or public, interest, that was always seen as best secured by promoting a diversity of private or group interests. This leads to the view of parties as instruments simply for the articulation and aggregation of inputs from the envirorunent, and perhaps from governmental and quasi-governmental agencies too. Even in the more controlled British tradition there is a certain unease about political parties. Their close links with business or union groups, the roles played by party activists and the power a party may obtain through the operation of a thoroughly Wlproportional system of representation are all criticized. In the French tradition, to which the Turkish stood closest in Atatiirk's time, parties have often been suspect as being little more than factions, seeking private advantage and status, mere 'conspiracies against the nation' - the same basic instinct that has manifested itself, if less. vehemently, in Britain and the United States. The French revolutionaries were too intellectual and too radical to tolerate a muddled British approach of necessary compromises, however; It was they who asserted that all parties undermined the sovereignty of the people, taking inspiration from Rousseau's stress on the need to give expression to what the people. would really want if they were free enough to realize what they wanted - namely, the general interest. The only worthwhile party was one that liberated the people. It would naturally dissolve once its task was over. On this logic a properly convened national assembly representing the sovereignty of a free people would be the stage after the party_ The -party had no value in itself once its task was completed of carrying the revolution to the people, in whom all virtue lay. Often in practice, however, the convening of a national assembly has preceded the fonnation of a partr or parties. as in the case of Turkey after tht? War of Independence. The idea of a party representing the ideal natioftal interest has always been

ATATURKAND POLITICAL PARTIES

27

seductive, however. Elected assemblies have often been seen to have a predilection for representing actual and particular interests.

Atatiirk's Views On Political Parties The galaxy of ideas about the purposes and functions of political parties have had an impact upon the Turkish political scene from at least Young Turk times. There was a colossal task to be perfonned of making enough sense out of this often confused and confusing Western experience in order to modernize the Turkish state while pointing it in democratic directions, which had long been the dual aim of important sections of the Turkish elite. This plethora of ideas about political parties was available in Atatiirk's time. Like others around him, he tried to make sense of it all instinctively, rather than in a scholarly, academic way. He had to try at the same time to absorb the new ideas into the natural Turkish background, finding, again instinctively, whatever accommodation he could. In the first place it should be said that Atatiirk, being an inspired leader rather than an academic, hardly committed anything to paper on the subject of political parties. Consequently, an attempt has to be made to piece together his thoughts, which were expressed at different times and in different contexts in what must be an inadequate attempt to construct a coherent philosophy. Nor does it help that Atatiirk asserted that it was not right to proceed in politics by reference to theoretical principles, but, rather, that principles had to be taken from life. This is a salutary warning by him against the dangers of trying to live out of an ideology, In Atatiirk's case, as ever, empiricism as thus expressed does not preclude an approach that was more value-laden than was admitted or· even realized,· So despite his own alleged empiricism, we can expect some more or less clear expression of values, if not an ideology, in his views on political parties. 1bey are here taken under three heacijqgs. These are, first, his views~n political parties in generalksecond?the philosophy of the People's Party he created; and thir~'rthe nature of the opposition between political parties, as envisaged Ideally by Atatiirk. 3

Views on Political Parties in General Atatiirk's views on political parties in general clearly owed much to his evaluation of the political parties of the Young Turk era. He was asked about the fonner political parties during a discussion with Istanbul journalists in Izmit in 1923-24. Significantly, he refused to recognize that they had played any role as political parties, seeing them instead as mere factions. 4 In a speech directed to the people at Izmit he

28

POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

claimed that for a long time the country had suffered great damage from political parties - from their ambitions and from their conflicts. Serving this and that interest, they brought about the neglect of the COtUltry'S interests. 'In truth', he claimed, 'a political party damages the nation and the country when it takes one, or two, or three of the various classes in society and occupies itself with assuring only their advancement at the expense of others.'5 He went on to assert that what Turkey needed was to gather up the fruits of working together. In 1925 he made the point that the People's Party 'would feel disgusted to make lying promises to the nation, as ordinary politicians did'. 6 'The People's Party', he declared on another occasion, 'was not a party which engaged in everyday street politics, as was the case in other countries.' The job of the People's Party was 'enlightenment' (tenvir) and 'guidance' (delalet).7 In 1922, however, he had expressed the view that· the existence of political parties enWlciating particular political viewpoints could be advantageous for promoting a clash of ideas, though they should not be like the parties of old. For parties fonned by persons around progranunes that were just theatrical, or emotional, or personal, would not be welcomed by the nation. They would resemble the former (Young Turk) parties, which did not draw strength and inspiration from the nation, and did not relate to national interests. Atatiirk counted as most important the long-term interests of the nation. 8 Mer the Progressive Republican Party was formed (in 1924) as an opposition party, Atatiirk did not, however, regard it as fulfilling his requirements for a political party. In a reply to The Times' Istanbul correspondent in an interview that year, he agreed that it was natural in Turkey, as elsewhere, for political parties to emerge. But questioned about' the Progressive Republican Party, he found that in that party's programme 'there appears no idea or fundamental principle not already to be found among the present [People's] party's- principles and worthy to form a subject for discussion'. 9 Against insinuations of despotism on the part of the People's Party government, Atattirk insisted on the mission of the party and of .its leaders utterly t~ destroy every sort of despotism and to bring about complete ~eedom. for the nation. What the correspondent had in mind was, actually,. individual freedom, whereas Atatiirk interpreted freedom as freedom for the nation from Ottoman authoritarianism, which he represefited·-·as· despotic:- One wonders, however, if he did not really have in mind the restrictions on his own and his friends' freedom which the Ottoman authorities had imposed. The People's Party and its Aims~ his references, specifically the People's Party and its objectives, Atatiirk stressed (in 1922)

to

ATATURK AND POLITICAL PARTIES

29

the need after the military victory to strengthen the country in every way. For this to be achieved it was essential that there should be a suitable programme to guide endeavour and particularly to prevent enterprise in this direction from becoming personal and arbitrary. This programme, if it was to be effective, must, however, reflect the aspirations towards refonn held by the great mass of the citizens. 10 It was also intended, as explained to Istanbul journalists in 1923, that the party's programme was to be jdevoted to assuring the whole nation's prosperity and happiness'. 11 And he went on to say that the party had to inspire all those who worked in all the country's institutions. 'Otherwise, if we leave the people to themselves, there will be no longer any steps forward'. 12 The party would create a feeling for the need for political education and political morality. 'In this regard such a party would be a school for the nation. '13 On the same occasion Atatiirk stressed that the party had to mean something. If things were done without real meaning then, in reality; nothing was done. 'We must' show that we are doing something when we push this country in this direction. Moreover, always to be respectea, and to be taken into account, is the majority [of the pd,ople]. If the majority of this nation is with us, you have to say it is a party, It is possible to go forward. If the majority is not with us, you qui it a group, or a committee, and to rely on this in a revolution me~s that success cannot be achieved. '14 AtatOrk might be seen urgilig two contradictory lines here. One is that the party must lead, siqte the people are not to be trusted. The other is that the party must It:.espond to the people. What he probably has in mind is a distinction, hot a!ways clearly made, between the people in their raw state, so to speak, before they have been liberated by the revolution; and the people, really citizens, as they will have become after the revolution. These latter are ,the patriotic citizens, those whose aspirations for reform are in line with ,those of the party, not just the masses. is But the masses are not despised, since in them lies the virtue which the revolution is releasing. The People's Party is to be a guide, not a heavy-handed teacher. Another function of the People's Party was elaborated in the Eski§ehir speech in 1923: 'Political party certainly involves the notion of struggle. In my conception, it is not for consolidating the advantages of this or that class of the nation. '16 Indeed, party struggle was not class struggle. For Atatfirk then went on to explain at some length that, while it was true that there were classes in Turkey from peasants and workers to rich landowners - their future lay in working together. Moreover, these class divisions were not strong. There was no great mass of landowners in Turkey, he pointed out, to subjugate the peasants. And rather than make those considered rich poor, he urged, let us make the poor rich. We have a people in

30

POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

our country, he said, embracing every social group. The object of the People's Party did not have to be to unite a divided society - there was no evidence to show, he said, that group or class divisions were a major problem. The emphasis in creating the People's Party was to provide a means of energizing society to develop economically and socially. This insistence on social unity would seem to reflect some concern with the possibility of future divisions ansing from the course of economic and social development, though this anxiety could be exaggerated. AtatOrk, as we shall see, seemed generally to believe that economic and social development would promote. not disrupt, unity. In his stirring speech in Izmit in 1923, Atatiirk expressed his desire to see many millionaires in Turkey, and at the same time promised protection to the workers. He also made a ringing appeal for help from all patriots in forming the programme of the party, saying, God preserve me that I am not of a mind to force society along in the wake of a set of ideas and emotions that I myself have conjured up. . . . H it were possible, I would have gathered together all those I consider patriots in a large and comprehensive congress, where I would have collected and collated every point of view. Then, with the help of expert, lrnowledgeable, and cultured minds, I would have worked to establish the fundamental programme this country needs. 17 In default of such an opportunity he called for those present to provide suggestions for the programme. It is not recorded whether they did so. With a touching, and perhaps rather naive, confidence Atatiirk set .the goal of a Turkey prosperous for all classes and groups, and above all hannonious. It was essential to dwell on continuing social harmony, because the chief element in the Party's programme for Atatiirk was clearly the economic development of the country. In a passage in the Izrnit speech referred to above (1923) he says: Gentlemen, you know that political organizations, that is to say parties, form themselves around economic aims. For the fonnation of a party there is no other motive. Parties which are formed with other aims are not true parties. They are parties of avarice, profit, and pillage. So we are fashioning such a party that may serve to provide for the undivided advantage, and the means of security and prosperity, of all the nation. 18

Opposition Between Parties IT the People's Party were to repre~ent

and lead the whole people, and were to be dedicated to the doctrine of populism to maintain social hannony, as its programme

ATATURK AND POLITICAL PARTIES

31

explained, was it conceivable that there could be other political parties? Atatiirk was not ambivalent on this question, though whether his attitudes are in the end realistic is open to doubt. Heper qtlotes Atatiirk as saying, in 1930, that the system he had always favoured since his youth was one that provided for free discussion of national affairs and the search for the best policies for the COlUltry in the light of the views of individuals and parties. Conflict was essentially viewed as a process of discussion. 19 And this discussion had .to.be, resglved by an arbitrator. It seems that Atatiirk saw himself as a father figure, adjudicating in 1930 between the claims of his two 'sons', Fethi and ismet, when, with Atatiirk's encouragement, an opposition party was formed by Fethi Okyar. 20 But, as Heper argues, Atatiirk would not accept that the criteria influencing an arbitrator might be personal and arbitrary. There had to be some principles to guide arbitration. These were essentially contained in the six principles of the People's Party discussed in the important party congresses of 1927, 1931 and; especially, 1935. In 1937 they were embodied in the Constitution of the Republic. 21 Before this process had time to reach completion, it seems that Atatiirk identified himself with the collective ideal, or what would be tIle natural inclination of the people when they were acting as patriotic citizens. In practice, what this amounted to was that Ataturk welcomed debate on national problems provided it was kept within bounds. In principle he accepted party competition, but not if it went too far. It could go too far if it resulted in personal or group conflict - if it led to personal or group interest at-the expense of the public interest. More particularly, criticism and debate were not accepted if they struck at the principles on which he sought to establish the new 1)gk~y, which for him established what constituted the public interest. It is hard to find any complimentary references by Atatilrk to the Second Group or to the Progressive Republican Party, which provided examples of party opposition that would normally be regarded as legitimate in a liberal democracy. In his 1923 Izmit speech he referred to the Second Group in the Assembly as a body composed in part of reactionaries and self-seekers who looked only to their own interests. 22 It could be argued) however, that the Second Group's opposition was not altogether devoid of principle, and was concerned, in particular, with avoiding a breach with the Ottoman tradition of government. The Second Group also opposed the limitations on Assembly government which AtatUrk managed to impose by obtaining the power to nominate ministers for the goveriunent. 23 Atatiirk's reactions to the formation of the Progressive RepUblican Party were also not generous. In his eyes, to judge from frank comments made in the speech, he did not value highly the character of the opposition presented by the Progressive

32

POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

Republican Party. 24 That party, however, did possess some principles, including the refonn of the Fundamental Law of Organization (the 1921 Constitution) only with authority from the nation, respect for religious sentiment and the limitation of state authority. 25 Unfortunately for the party, these principles were opposed to those held dear by Atatiirk. It says a good deal for his sense and moderation, however, that the Progressive Republican Party was only abolished as a result of conditions arising from the Kurdish rebellion of 1925. It is clear that Atatilrk would have had little sympathy with the notion that a political party was a group essentially organized simply to obtain power. Both the Second Group and the Progressive Republican Party fulfilled the ~onnal criteria for a political party. It would be going too far to describe them as factions (particularly the latter), since they were not ostensibly bent solely on seeking personal or partial advantage. The Progressive Republican Party had quite a developed programme, albeit that it was mostly devoted to matters of govenunental organization. Atatiirk shared Burke's view of factions and regarded these parties as such.. Like Burke, he called for publicspirited men and women in politics. He looked with favour on men like Fethi Okyart the leader of the experimental Free Party. He believed that Okyar and inonu could become colleagues despite leading opposed parties. For the government' and opposition leaders to go out of the Assembly arm in ann was to be civilized. ' It was in fact the expression of an ideal of democratic politics, where political actors play out roles that do not necessarily affect personal relations. This idealized version of political party behavi.our would have been asking a lot of any society, no matter how.. finn its liberal and democratic foundations. The appeal Atatiirk made to the political elite was to their sense of responsibility towards what was virtually a new democratic state in the making and to their dedication to the revolution. It was not an appeal which gained universal support from that elite, however, because, although it proceeded step by step, it made no concessions on principle. It was not a limited refonn of existing structures, but a total one. Atatiirk seemed to believe that, without this, the necessary conditions for a modem democratic state could not be created. It is to be presumed that Atatiirk would have tolerated the existence of opposition parties if there had been no threat of backsliding. The danger was that any appeal to traditional forces in society by an opposition political party, like the Progressive Republican Party, would almost certainly have led to the overthrow of the revolution. Atatiirk believed in high-minded political debate among the elite, like Burke, but not only did he suspect the backsliding of the opposition politicians, he had to be wary of the people. This placed him in a difficult po~ition,

ATATURK AND POLITICAL PARTIES

33

and one not faced by Burke. The War of Independence had been won with the support of the people, and the Assembly represented their sovereignty, but an electorate could not be certain to support the revolution, once they realized what it was doing tq.Jraditional Islamic institutions. The opposition party which Atatilrk asked the liberal and· trusted Fethi Okyar to found in 1930 did not last more than three months. This was for three main reasons. First, the new party proved to be a focus for all sorts of opposition to the Atatiirkist regime, including the traditional, and occasioned a good deal of violence. Secondly, the new party undoubtedly suffered, wheri participating in local elections, from the malpractices of government officials determined to save the government from itself. Thirdly, relations in the Assembly with the dominant People's Party became deeply embittered. As a result Atatiirk became extremely depressed, reasserted his belief in the People's Party and left Fethi Okyar with little option but to close down the new party. The failure of this experiment with an opposition party indicated that competitive politics had to be shelved Wltil the people were fit to participate. The need for a tutelary regime of a truly educative and liberating sort was all too apparent. The people now had to be educated into becomjng a nation of participating citizens. The measures to achieve this included the reform of law, language and history, the establishment of People's Houses, and so on. And the elite had to be inspired to serve the new institutions out of the conviction that they were r~presenting the true interests of the people. Atatfirk was always prepared to listen to the ideas of ordinary people, but he realized that those he consulted had to be patriotic citizens
Underlying Consistencies A question to be asked is whether Atatfirk's attitudes to political opposition and to the role of the People's Party changed over time. As has been shown, in his early years Atatiirk regarded the opposition parties he encountered with distaste for two not unconnected reasons. First, they harboured members who were of Young Turk mentality, and secondly, they sought to modify the secularist and cultural revolution he was determined to achieve. But his general statements on political parties, coloured though they were by his purely Turkish experience, suggested that he had little sympathy with political parties which simply sought to satisfy public demands in order to get into power. This did not change. His attitudes to political opposition at the time of the 1930 experiment were not different from those expressed earlier.

34

POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

What is remarkable is that he did not lose faith in the value of political opposition after 1930, as others might have done, and especially in a European climate" which was encouraging not just authoritarianism, but totalitarianism. lIe" tried after 1930 to keep the People's Party as open as possible. A small number of independent deputies was recruited into the Grand National Assembly in every Assembly between 1931 and 1946, although, significantly, after Atatiirk's death in 1938, their role was much reduced. In 1931, when addressing the electoral college of second stage electors, he called for the 'the need to let ourselv~s be criticized'.26 In 1936, when under Recep Peker, the People's Party became less liberal and more collective, Atatfuk intervened to force Peker to resign. If anything, Atatiirk became rather more liberal in his attitudes, especially in economic matters - as evidenced by the rather more liberal statement of populism advanced in 1935;" But in his early speeches he had always pointed to the importance of the contribution of the individual citizen. He never sought to mobilize the masses behind a rigid ideology, or behind himself. Despite the creation of People's Houses and Rooms as instruments of mobilization, this was essentially for educational and cultural, not political purposes. 27 The tutelary People's Party was always to be governed by the ideal - a favourite word - of awakening the people to a sense of their individual, not collective, responsibilities to the state and nation:- On the related questions of the role of political opposition and the role of the Party, Atatiirk's attitudes did not change. This was one of his great strengths. He could make tactical changes in order to achieve his long-term objectives. But the objectives, and the ideas that determined them, did not change.

Atatiirk and Democracy At this point we might ask whether the views expressed by Atatfuk on other issues of political structure bear out, or raise any doubts about, this interpretation of his ideas with regard to political parties. 28 In the first place, Atatfuk's vision of the future reflected his interpretation of the past, in particular of the Ottoman political past. He did not recognize the latter-day Ottoman state as a state at all; it was a despotism which allowed Turkish identity to be captured by foreigners. He saw the Turks in the Ottoman state as slaves. Hence there was little sympathy for any party which represented any of the past and threatened to restore it. For him such a party would be abandoning the national interest. Also, the very heavy emphasis on the people, which we have noted, is interesting because nothing of any great note was done for the people subsequently. A system of direct e1ecti<:~m of deputies was not introduced, and there was no substantial

ATATURK AND POLITICAL PARTIES

35

land refonn; the influence of landlords was not diminished, and indeed they often :became members of the People's Party. Labour legislation gave little industrial freedom to the workers. Yet Atatiirk declared: 'The new Turkish state is a people's state, the state of the people. '29 And he always made efforts to get into contact with-the people, asking them for their views on governmental policies in infonnal ways. It is the interests of all the people that are paramount in Atatiirk's thinking. This ties in closely with his belief that sovereignty lay completely and without reservation in the nation, which potentially, if not actually,comprised all the people. This assertion that sovereignty lay in the nation bristled with all sorts of difficulties, however. In the first place, Atatiirk modified this notion in an important way, imparting a dynamic or developmental dimension, when he said, 'The strength of society's moral bonds was elevated and reinforced with the growth of civilization. National will and national sovereignty were founded ill this strength. '30 Presumably, only when this process reaches a certain stage is national sovereignty truly achieved. -This sovereignty could only be represented, in Atatiirk's view, by the Grand National Assembly. In early debates in 1920 and 1921 he was adamant on this score, attacking at length those who wanted some division of p()wers. There was always the danger, of course, that a separate executive would come to be occupied by the Sultan, or after the abolition of tha~ office, by the Caliph. The declaration of a RepUblic in 1923, with Atatiirk elected President, removed this danger. But the move to a republic was also inspired by the difficulties encountered in managing the Assembly, with the Progressive Republican Party constituting a lively element in the opposition. In the debates on the 1924 Constitution he tried to make the presidency still stronger, but failed in this attempt in the Assembly, which was very jealous of its own power. If anything, this episode shows that Atatiirk's enthusiasm for the Assembly had become somewhat muted. In fact, more important to him than the Assembly as the repository of the nation's sovereignty was the need to achieve the revolution. At the time of the declaration of the RepUblic it was unconvincingly argued, with Atatiirk's obvious approval, by a deputy, Mahmut Esat, that the people's sovereignty was not diminished if the executive power was partly transferred from the Assembly to a president not under the direct control of the Assembly.31 Prominent in the the move to stop power being transferred from the Assembly to the presidency was Rauf Bey, the leader of the Progressive Republican Party. The opposition was .in the long run successful in preventing Atatiirk from" making the presidency the fountainhead of the revolution, if he had a mind to do that. Atatiirk did not thereafter try. to restrict assembly power fonnally, but it soon came to be dominated by the People's Party. -

36

POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

The attempted change of the fonn of the state to a more presidential one was only partly successful and reflected Atatiirk's distrust of the Assembly. That body up to this point had been regarded as leading the revolution and fonning the core of the new republican state. 32 As Heper points out, Atatiirk did not regard his role in the Assembly as that of a political activist aggregating different views. Rather, he sought to promote the national ideal. When the Assembly began to break up into what to Atatiirk were political factions, he presumably saw that it was necessary to try to limit the Assembly's power by reorganizing the system of govenunent. In doing this he showed no intention to set up a dictatorship for the sake of personal aggrandizement. Nor did he want a state dominated by a bureaucracy of the heavy-handed Ottoman type to emerge. He had for the most part to look to a new intelligentsia fashioned by, and fashioning, the People's Party, for it was the party that had to lead the revolution. He did not seek to set up a totalitarian party, however. Nowhere is there any sign that ~ party-dominated state was to dominate all aspects of life. Individuals were not made to feel that they should sacrifice every shred of their individuality for the sake of an organic state which would totally fulfil them. The tone was altogether more moderate and rational. Certainly there was an ideology, but within that rather loose framework Atatiirk, who loved debate, seemed to accept a modem view of the shifting nature of knowledge, the 4true guide'. The Republic he identified with moral excellence: 'Its government produced virtuous and honourable persons. '33 4It was the teachers', he declared, 4who transform a social body into a true nation. '34 Clearly, the Republic had a major part to play in encouraging the growth of public interest among a people who would haye to be educated, not indoctrinated, to develop it among themselves from their own cultural roots. In the later years of Atatiirk's life, there was a greater emphasis on economic development, through etatism, which led to the rise of Celal Bayar to replace ismet inonti in 1937 as prime minister. This development was not surprising, given, as we have seen, Atatiirk's emphasis on economic development. Another and rather contrary development, in the late 1930s, was the emergence of the Kadro movement as a leading .·influence in the Party. Its views marked a significant move away from Atatiirk's liberal ideas. The Kadro movement - taking its name from the journal Kadro, and led by the powerful Recep Peker - believed in a more collective approach and on much more forcible change. This was quite different from Atattirk's bold, but still cautious attitude. After 1931 'Mustafa Kemal's own initial method of gradual change, preparing national opinion, as he described it, "step by step towards the desired goal" had given way to Recep Peker's philosophy of forceful change.'3s For the Kadroists

ATATURK AND POLITICAL PARTIES

37

social unity and the strong state were vital, and in a totalitarian drift, a political party was defined as 4an assembly of individuals who hold similar views as to the administration of the state'. 36 Burke might have gone along thus far, but he would not have understood what was meant by the assertion that the party's leader represented the will and creative power of the party. Nor could he have grasped that individual freedom was best protected by and in the group (i.e. the party), not by the assertion of individualism. This was a long way, too, from Atattirk's views. Revolutionism for him was· an important principle, perhaps the most important one. 37 But revolution entailed an awakening for' and by the Turkish people from a past which (Atatfuk did not flinch from telling them) was their ovro. responsibility. To bridge this gap, and reach the point of self-supported uplift, they had to organize and mobilize themselves for an entirely new battle for existence. This was their responsibility alone. The supreme significance of a successful struggle for national independence was in the opportunities that men were afforded to organize and mobilize the political, educational, religious, and economic resources to create adequate symbols of allegiance, cultivate the sense of responsibility, and tackle those problems having the highest national priorities. 38 This was an unusual philosophy for a revolutionary leader. Atatiirk was a man of vision, without being a visionary. He admitted to having been influenced by Rousseau, but he suspected that Rousseau was mad, 39 and he certainly did not take off in a totalitarian direction as a result. Nor was he greatly influenced by the teaching of Ziya Gokalp,' the mentor of the Young Turks, who anyway died in 1924. But he did put into effect some ideas articulated by G6kalp, including the basic idea of awakening the people to a realization of their own culture and the opportunities it presented. In doing so he also seemed to accept the distinction between culture and civilization made by Gokalp, and something of the role to be played by the intelligentsia. Gokalp's attempts to reconcile the modern state with Islam would not have been welcome, however, to a committed secularist like Atatiirk.40 Nor did Atatiirk's People's Party preach the social solidarism of Gokalp in such strong terms as he did, save during the brief period of influence of the Kadroists. As has been briefly noted, Atattirk believed that with the increasing division of labour, and with developing cornnumications, the people would become more interdependent and live in greater harmony. In this he has not, as yet, been proved altogether correct. There has not been much class conflict and the votes. of some 80 per cent of

38

POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

the electorate have always gone to moderate political parties. But economic development and its attendant social disruption have helped provide opportunities for discordant minority elements to disrupt the political scene. Atatiirk was faced with a common enough dilemma. He was inclined to those practices consonant with a Western and democratic state, albeit one guided by moral principle - an attitude that, it should be said, was not altogether uncommon among Ottoman reformers. 41 Yet he realized that the economic and social conditions for its introduction had first to be created. Atatlirk's legacy to modem Turkey is, therefore, a cwiously mixed one. Believing in the value of debate, he insisted on a dignified mode of discussion and responsible conduct. The ideal is constantly reiterated today in the Turkish press whenever deputies allow their emotions to rule their reason. Atatiirk's insistence that politicians are there to serve the people, not just their party, is also remembered by commentators on Turkish politics. Moreover, it is never forgotten that, in the Atatiirkist formulation, politicians should serve the people by helping them to become true citizens, not just by pandering to their needs for the sake of votes. More important, perhaps, though, than setting the moral tone of politics was Atatiirk's use of the party as the prime instrument of the Atatiirkist revolution. While Atatiirk did not damage the formal democratic structure, it was the dynamic People's Party which really mattered. This surely laid the foundations for the tradition of a party~dominated polity which has subsequently characterized Turkish politics.. The People's Party dominated the republican state and fostered the development of the Democratic Party from within. Continuing-in the tradition, that party also sought to dominate the state, but in conditions and in ways that proved dangerous and destabilizing. Political parties formed subsequently have not doubted their own importance, but have acted more like competing political parties in other democratic systems; Like them they have striven to maximize support, but in the process they have somewhat neglected on occasions Atatiirk's legacy to Turkish political culture. Influential still in some areas of Turkish public life, this legacy looks for politica1leadership to demonstrate its pursuit of dynamic policies in the public interest.

Notes 1.

Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770), Works, Vol. 1, p. 372, quoted in G.H. Sabine, A History ofPolitical Theory (London: Harrap, 1951), p. 514.

ATATURK AND POLITICAL PARTIES

2. 3.

4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18. 19. 20.

21.

22. 23.

39

Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (New York: Mentor, 1942), p. 283 The sources used for this enquiry are as follows: Nimet Arsan (ed.), Atalurk'un Siiylev ve Demefleri, Vols I-IV (Ankara: Turk in.kllap Tarihi Enstittisu, 1961), and VoL V (1972), subsequently referred to as SD in these notes; Ari inan (ed.), Gazi Mustafa Kemal Ataturk'un 1923 Eski§ehir-izmit KonU§malan (Ank¥a: TUrk Tarih Kurumu, 1982), subsequently referred to as ElK; An inan (ed.), Dii§iinceleriyle Atatiirk (Ankara: TUrk Tarih Ktirumu, 1983); A Speech Delivered by Ghazi Mustapha Kemal, President of the Turkish Republic (Leipzig: Koehler, 1929), subsequently referred to as SPeech. EiK, p. 83. Ibid., p. 119. Ibid., V, p. 209. Ibid., 11, p. 224. This is a precis of a speech in 1922 quoted by Metin Heper, 'Atatiirk'te devlet dU§Uncesi', in Ali Gevgilili (ed.), Cagda§ Dil.§uncenin I §zginda Ataturk (Istanbul: Dr Nejat Eczactba§i Vakfr, 1983), p. 228. SD, 111, pp. 77-8, Atatiirk also made the point that, since becoming President of the Republic, he would not personally occupy the chairmansahlp of the People's Party, but would do so at the end of his period of office. SD, 111, pp. 46-7. EiK, p. 80. Ibid. Ibid., p. 81. Ibid., p. 82. For discussion of this point see Heper, 'Atatiirk'te devlet dii§Uncesi', p. 229. EjK, p. 36. Ibid., p. 119. Ibid. Heper, 'Atattirk'te de vIet dti§iincesi', p. 228 Ibid., p. 229, quoting as source Asnn Us, Gorduklerim, Duyduklanm, Duygularzm (Istanbul: Vakit Matbaasl, 1964) p. 132; and Utkan Kocatiirk (ed.), Ataturk'iinSohbetleri (Ankara: Edebiyat Yaymevi, 1971), p. 27. See Suna Kill, Kemalizm (Istanbul: Robert College Publications, 1969), Chapter IV, for an account of these discussions. EiK, p. 59. See SPeech, especially pp. 533-4 and pp. 557-8, for an indication of the questions at issue.

40

POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

24.

See ibid.~ . pp. 644-57~ where the· events surrOWlding the declaration of the Republic are described. Terakkiperver Cumhuriyet FtrkaszProgramz, in Tank Z. Tunaya, Turkiyede Siyasi Partiter (Istanbul: Dogan Karde§, 1952), pp.616-17. . Walter F. Weiker, Political Tutelage in Turkey. The Free Party and its A/termath, (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1973), p. 159. The quotation is from SD, III, p. 548, Atatiirk declared that the selection of independent candidates was as important as choosing deputies from the party. See Weiker for an illuminating account of how the system worked in practice. It is significant that after the death of Atatiirk in 1938 the position of Independents was much less secure and influential. See Ergun Ozbudun, 'The nature of the Kemalist political regime', in Ataturk, Founder of a Modem State, Ergun Ozbudun and Ali Kazanclgil (eds) (London: C, Hurst, 1981). Heper's fAtatiirk'te devlet di.i§Uncesi' is a study of Atatiirk's views over a wide range of political concepts. Political parties form only one part of this very useful study. While my consideration of political parties is rather fuller than Heper's, the discussion that now follows of Atatiirk's views on other aspects of politics partly derives from Heper's work. Quoted in Heper, 'Atatiirk'te devlet di.i§Uncesi', p. 220. SD, pp. 211-12. This is from the important speech made in the Assembly, 1 December 1921, on the discussion of draft legislation on the duties and authority of the Council of Ministers. A brief account of these debates is in Tank .Z. Tunaya, 'tkinci me§rutiyet rejimi ve Atatiirk', istanbul Universitesi ldareHukuku veilimleriDergisi, 2 (1981): 85-121. See Heper, 'Atatiirk'te devlet dii§uncesi', pp. 236ff, where this point is discussed. SD, 11, p. 231. He was addressing the lzmir Women Teachers' College (14 October 1928). Ibid., p. 232. Kemal H. Karpat, Turkey's Politics. The Transition to a MultiParty System (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1959), p.72. Ibid.• p. 73. As shown in the perceptive article by Niyazi Berkes, 'The two facets of the Kemalist Revolution', Muslim World~ 64 (1974): 292-306. Ibid., p. 305. Atatiirk made the comment in the course of a debate in the

25. 26.

27. 28.

29.

30.

31. 32.

33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

ATATORK AND POLITICAL PARTIES

40. 41.

~ 41

Assembly, when he wrongly attributed the theory of the separation of powers to Rousseau. SD, I, p. 216. This is noted in Mete Tuncay, 'Atatiirk'e nasll bakmak?', Toplum ve Bilim, 4 (KI§ 1977): 91. See Niyazi Berkes, 'Ziya Gokalp: his contribution to Turkish nationalism', The Middle East Journal, 8 (1954): 375-89. Serif Mardin, 'Freedom in an Ottoman perspective', in Metin Heper and Ahmet Evin (eds), State, Democracy and the Military: Turkey in the 1980s (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1988). See especiatly pp. 34-5; Atatiirk had 'a faith which is truly unique . . . which cannot be explained without bringing in the Ottoman background' .

4 The Republican People's Party,

1923-1945 Kemal H. Karpat

Introduction

The Republican People's Party (RPP) was the dominant, ruling political organization of Turkey from 1923 to 1945. It may be regarded in some ways as the epitome, as well as the reflection, of the currents of thought, the conflicts, the aspirations and the resentments accompanying the movement of political change and reform in Turkey in that period. This is largely because. change was proposed and imposed by the party, which changed itself in the process; This same sort of pattern had been seen during the reign of Sultans Selim III (1789-1807) and Mahmud II (1808-39), when the government had imposed change from above 'and had found itself, along with the sustaining social basis created to implement and support the reforms, far more transformed than the society it sought to change. At the beginning the RPP attempted to break this pattern and, ,at the same time, to shed the closed Ottoman imperial mode of thought and world-view. First, it sought to build a large popular basis for its reformist programme; second, it opted fully for what it considered to be a Western mode of thought and organisation, a move that attracted only certain groups. The RPP's initial goal was to create political and civic institutions that would perpetually generate change within society. The party also tried to impose, via its control of the government and the educational system, a certain materialistic outlook on life, as well as a relativist view of society. Thus, on the one hand, the RPP maintained a certain loyalty to the old elites' historical concept of leadership while, on the other hand, it attempted to create a new political mechanism, that is, the modem party organisation, and to imbue it with popUlist vision and democratic ideals while, at the same time, keeping it confined within the

THE REPUBLICAN PEOPLE'S PARTY, 1923-1945

43

framework of the old elitist philosophy. The obvious conflict between elitism and democracy was solved ultimately in favour of the latter. The pattern of political thinking of the RPP followed naturally from its more basic goal: namely, the establishment of a national-territorial Turkish state. Seen in long perspective, the RPP appears as a political organisation created at a turning-point in Turkish history in order to carry out a special mission. In other words, the party did not emerge from a collective consensus or from any political evolutionary process or from a popular movement with deep roots in the social body and its culture (although it made claims designed to link it with such a movement; and, while it embodied a certain degree of continuity as far as the elites were concerned, it lacked real historical and cultural continuity, although it made efforts to create the impression of continuity). In fact, the main link between the RPP and its predecessor, the Society for the Defence of Rights, was Mustafa Kemal himself. The creation of a territorial Turkish nation-state was the chief task entrusted to the RPP. It should be noted that the basic difference between the sultanate and the republic lay in the new political allegiances and loyalties entailed in national statehood, of which the republican regime was the consequence rather than the cause. What clearly differentiates the monarchy from the republic is not really the fact that the former was ruled by a sultan and the latter by a president and an assembly. Rather, the difference lies in the premises on which the two entities were based. The emphasis in the republic was on territory and nationhood rather than on the regime and religion. It was perfectly feasible ·that the Turkish nation-state could be ruled by a Sultan as long as he was the ruler of Turks only; but as long as the Sultan retained his title as Caliph - that is, the head of the universal Muslim cominunity - he could not claim to be a ruler of Turks alone. A solution was found, Mustafa Kemal thought, when the sultanate and the caliphate were separated in 1922 and the fonner was abolished, without however declaring the regime to be a republic. In 1922, after the split, the situation was as follows. The ruler of the Turkish nation-state was the popularly elected Grand National Assembly, while the ruler of the universal Muslim community, of which the Turks were a part, was the Caliph. The source of authority was secular in the first case and religious in the second, although the subject of the authority was the same Turkish entity, regardless of whether one viewed it as a nation or as a community. Eventually, the emergent product was a combination of both - an entity that can be perceived as a communal nation. The RPP was created primarily in order to solve the dilemma created by the differing claims of authority over the same body of people. The q~estion was whether Turkey could be both a national territorial state

44

POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

and a Muslim conununity, equally tied to. its Ottoman past and the umma, or 'community of Muslims', In the period 1918-22, both the conservatives and the modernists who were gathered around the Society for the Defence of Rights regarded national statehood as the best organizational device for assuring the Turks' survival and continuity as an ethno-linguistic cultural group, although their definitions of the 'nation' differed greatly. The two groups began to separate early in 1921 (as will be discussed later) because of disagreement as to the place of traditional institutions in the newly emerging regime and over the procedures to be followed in decision-making: that is, whether deliberation and consultation should replace the imposition of decisions from above by one man or group. Both conservatives and modernists initially agreed that the emerging Turkish national state should be economically strong and endowed with the science and technology of the contemporary world, but the group later to be represented by the RPP believed that the new state could become strong and prosperous only by adopting a totally different regime and institutions and policies suitable to the purpose; it wished to eschew ties to the past, since tmderdevelopment was regarded as the consequence of stifling attadunent to tradition and historic legacies. The other group believed in a more balanced approach that combined tradition with the changes designed to meet the new requirements. The RPP owed its existence to this difference in the views concerning the method of change: it was established to pursue a path of modernization according to a predetermined model, which in this case was that of the Western type of the national state. Initially, tmtil the late 1920s, the RPP was ideologically eclectic, following a course that it hoped would somehow reconcile its philosophy with the views of the conservatives, most of whom were bona fide supporters of the republic and of progress, provided that the society's basic identity and sense of historical continuity 'were preserved. The RPP finally abandoned this eclecticism in 1930, primarily because the earlier so-called ideological differences came to be embodied in a status difference between those whose superior economic and political position had been secured in good measure through party membership and jobs in the bureaucracy and those who wished to destroy the privilege of this group_ In a matter of a few years the RPP established for itself a constituency whose party affiliation derived as much from ideological commitment as from self-interest and loyalty to the leadership, but this sittiRtion created another political dilemma. As noted above, the fact remains that the RPP was established in order to carry out change in accordance with a predetennined model and directed towards the establishment and consolidation of a national state. This basic mission was accomplished more or less by 1935, not

THE REPUBLICAN PEOPLE'S PARTY, 1923--1945

45

so much through the ingenuity and forcefulness of the party as due to Mustafa Kemal's personal charisma and the fact that certain historical conditions had prepared society for territorial statehood. Mer this goal had been achieved, theRPP could justify its hold on power only through the claim that it was the guardian of the new regime and its reforms. Thus from 1931 onwards the RPPincreasingiy justified its hold on power by pointing to threats, some real, most imaginary, to the regime. It failed to present itself to the voters - even after it permitted the establishment of an opposition in 1945/46 - with a practical platfonn. When it finally produced a platform in 1965, it espoused a left-of-centre, statist programme, abandoning the basic idea of the Kemalism-nationalism that was its core ideology, and thus alienated its bureaucratic support. The RPP failed to accept the bitter truth that it was created in order to guide Turkeis transition through a critical and crucial historical phase and that, having achieved that transition - although in a manner different from the projected one - it had achieved its raison d' etre. Nevertheless, the RPP succeeded in providing a framework for modern politics and at the same time becoming an anachronistic organisation without a true socio-political identity - or, rather, with a constantly changing one, as it searched for a following (this will be discussed later).

Birth and Organizational Evolution The RPP is often described as the natural heir - in fact, the continuation - of the Society for the Defence of Rights, but actually, the relationship between them is very tenuous indeed. The latter consisted of a number of local and regional organizations established throughout the country in the years 1918--19 by local elites, such as teachers, demobilized officers, landlords, religious leaders and businessmen, with the purpose of maintaining national sovereignty in those territories that constitute the geographical basis of modem Turkey. The groups comprising the Society were essentially grassroots political organizations, which were unified under Mustafa Kemal's leadership at the Congress of Sivas in September 1919. (An earlier Congress in Erzurum, which signalled the beginning of the War of Independence, was also initiated by such a group in Trabzon, and was presided over by Mustafa Kemal.) The major political decisions in the period from 1919 to 1922, which cuhninated in the establishment of the republic in 1923, were taken by the Society fo~:t=he Defence of Rights. Thus, the elections and the convening of the first National Assembly in 1920, the adoption of the Constitution of 1921, the war against the Greeks, the drafting of the populist progranune which was a key ideological document for the period, the abolition of the sultanate in 1922 - all

46

POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

were carried out under the auspices of the Society. Mustafa Kemal (in 1934 he was given the surname Atatiirk) took a leading role as the head of the Grand National Assembly and the government (later, the two functions were separated), but all his activities were under the jurisdiction of the Assembly, the popular basis of which was the Society. At its initial stage the Society encompassed a variety of ideologies, ranging from Islamism through populism and nationalism to socialism. The idea uniting the various groups was the desire to overcome foreign occupation and establish sovereignty over the territory outlined in the National Pact (Misak-t Millt) as accepted at the Congress of Erzurum. 1 The principle that sovereignty belonged Wlconditionally to the nation was accepted by the Assembly and incorporated into the Constitution of 1921, and this remained the key principle of the Republic. Eventually, however, the Assembly split into two groups, as differences of opinion erupted. The First Group, composed of Westernists and refonnists and headed by Mustafa Kemal, decided to call itself the Society for the Defence of Rights (Mudafaa-i Hukuk Grubu), thus staking its claim to represent the mainstream thought of the Assembly. The Second Group consisted of four of five smaller groups and represented more faithfully the political opinions prevailing in the Assembly. It had actually emerged earlier than the First Group. It supported the position that all issues involving the country's future should be debated and decided in the Assembly, and Article 13 of its by-laws stated that 'national unity and independence can be secured only through a progressive refonn in our government and economy'. When the Second Group was accused of being opposed to change, it responded by openly condemning extreme conservatism and used its by-laws to censure 'imitations which are being labelled as innovations but carmot be reconciled with the national spirit'. It also demanded respect for Islam and stated that religion was not opposed to progress and science. Eventually, in 1927, Mustafa Kemal came to describe the differences between the two groups as irreconcilable. He stated that, as President of the National Assembly, he had failed to reconcile the differing views of various groups. Finally, he declared, '1 decided to establish a group, entitled the Society for Defence of Rights; with two purposes in mind: first, to marshal the nation's moral and physical strength to consolidate national independence (through an international treaty); second, ·to reorganize the state and the nation within the framework of the Constitutional Act'. 2 His key words were ·to reorganize the state and nation', since the basic difference between the First and Second Groups was the manner in which the reorganization would take place. On 16 March 1923, well after the invading Greek forces were expelled from the COWltry, Mustafa Kemal delivered a speech that

THE REPUBLICAN PEOPLE'S PARTY, 1923-1945

47

was designed as a preparation for his next moves. He declared that there was now a new Turkish state different from the old one, that the government was populist, that 'the destiny of the people was etemally in its own hands', and that the government's two chief purposes were the 'preservation of national existence and the securing of national welfare'. In his view, good government was the one that accomplished these two goals. What was lacking was a political instrument to do the job. 3 Subsequently, he issued a proclamation, consisting of nine articles, which was, in fact, a sort of election platform. The introduction to the proclamation declared that in order to 'secure economic development and to complete and supplement every kind of organization and thus achieve welfare for the country and the nation a People's Party (Balk Ftrkasz) will be established (te§ekkiU edecektirY. 4 The proclamation also declared somewhat vaguely that the existing organization in the Assembly would be transferred (intikal edecektir) to the People's Party. The by-laws of the new body, consisting actually of a declaration by Mustafa Kemal, were soon adopted, following national elections (9 September 1923). The elections eliminated from the Assembly most of the deputies associated with the Second Group. As expected, Mustafa Kemal was elected party chainnan, while Recep Peker became secretary general. A formal submission was made to the Ministry of the Interior on 23 October 1923 requesting official permission to legalize that party. On 29 October, the new Assembly, controlled by RPP stalwarts, expressly adopted the republican form of regime. One year later, on 10 November 1924, the term Cumhuriyet (Republic) was added to the party's title. Later the Arabic tenn ftrka was replaced by its French equivalent, parti. Thus the RPP was established as a new political organisation largely through the decision of Mustafa Kemal, rather than coming into being as a reorganized version of the Society for Defence of Rights, as some think. One may, in fact, regard the Society as having been de facto dissolved, since the variety of conservative, religious, socialist and popUlist groups which were among the leading members of the original organization were left out of the one-chamber Assembly, in the 1923 elections. The RPP came to represent the ideas of the modernist group closely supporting Mustafa Kemal. Thus, by\ 1922-23 the Turkish revolution had contracted in size and scope from a broadly-based, popular movement with heterogeneous ideologies to a small group representing a narrower set of ideas concerned primarily with domestic problems of internal organization. In retrospect, the RPP appears to have been established after the Society proved unwilling or incapable of following the refonnist programme envisaged by Mustafa Kemal and his close followers.

48

POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

In fact, some deputies in the first Assembly regarded it as having completed its mission, as it was initially described in the proclamation of Mustafa Kemal, after it had delivered the country from foreign occupation and freed the Sultan-Caliph from virtual imprisonment by the British in Istanbul. It is true that it did not have a clearly spelled-out programme for future action, even though its populist declaration (put forth by the government as the 'Programme for Populism') could be interpreted as a document supporting the achievement of social and economic refonns. The modernists, on the other hand, clearly envisaged a radical transfonnation of the political and cultural system through intervention from above, relegating social and economic reform to second place in their plan. ' Yet, while the modernists had secured firm control over the government itself, they felt that their ties to the mass of the population were weak when compared to those of the Second Group, which was more attuned to the popular sentiment, although Mustafa Kemal himself enjoyed overwhelming acceptance and popularity. The newly established party was designed in principle to remedy the situation, to achieve a degree of identification with and support from the masses by making them partners in development - theoretically, at least. It was hoped that the material bettennent of the population would ultimately secure its support for the refonns, within an ideological framework drawn by the party but without any authentic participation by the population. The party described itself as the 'teacher of the people' and set out to train the population in the ways of modernity and, possibly, democracy (if the enumeration of extensive rights and freedoms contained in the Constitution of 1924 are to be interpreted as indicative of the party's future aspirations). 'Overshadowing all the discussions about future refonns was a fundamental problem, which proved intractable during Mustafa Kemal's life and thereafter. The problem lay in the political identity (or sources thereof) of the people living in the emerging Turkish territorial nationstate and the need to create new loyalties and allegiances for the republic if it were to survive. In the Ottoman Empire, Muslims owed allegiance to the ruler - the Sultan-Caliph - who personified both the state and the faith (dinudevlet). The ultimate repository of authority was God, and His commandments, ,set out in the Koran, were the source of all laws (even theoretically of the lay codes or kanunnames) enforced by the Sultan. The source of political identity was the umma. The first National Assembly gathered under the auspices of the Society for Defence of Rights had, despite that group's heterogeneous composition and its strong Islamic ideological conunitment, ,already departed from the ftmdamental ideologies of the Islamic-Ottoman government. It had declared that sovereignty belonged unconditionally

THE REPUBLICAN PEOPLE'S PARTY, 1923--1945

49

to the nation and that the National Assembly was the expression of national will and the source of all authority. Later, critics of the RPP cited this declaration claiming that the Society was actually revolutionary, since it accepted the national will as the source of law. However, the Society failed to see that the territorial state designated in the National Pact as the country of the Turks needed the specific loyalty, allegiance and the attachment of its inhabitants - the nationin order to survive, and that this nation called for the transfer of loyalty for people mostly brought up under the traditions of government and society inherited from the sultanate-caliphate to itself. The RPP, on the other hand, did see that the task was to, create a republican national identity and to foster loyalties revolving around the national territory and political culture, to achieve a political conversion that often seemed to take on a religious character. The initial growth of the RPP was slow and rather colourless, for the government faced a variety of internal problems, such as the opposition of the Progressive Republican Party (pRP), founded by Mustafa Kemal's close allies in 1924 and backed by members of the Second Group and $eyh Said's revolt in eastern Anatolia in 1925. The party's role at this stage was limited to supporting the government's decisions rather than formulating and debating new policies. One can, in fact, say that, until 1927, the RPP, along with the Assembly it controlled, was used as an office, formally to legitimize, on behalf of the nation, the actions of the government. The RPP dutifully endorsed the establishment of the republic on 29 October 1923 and elected Mustafa Kemal as President; in 1924, it voted to abolish the caliphate; it ratified the Lausanne Treaty, and the Turko-Soviet Friendship Treaty of 1925 and, in general, complied obediently with all government' deIllaIlds. This compliance was relatively easy, as the Grand National AsseIIlblr, in which the RPP had an overwhelming majority; faced noeffec~ve opposition. It is therefore understandable that until 1927 the lWPdid not feel the need to hold a convention to write up its programme or even produce a new set of by-laws. It functioned on the basis of the Qri-ginal declaration and directives issued by Mustafa KeIllal,' the head of the party and President of the repUblic. However," after pea.ce and security had been attained, in large part thanks to a law which gave absolute power to the government, Mustafa Kemal finally began'to prepare the party for its reformist task, .its original raison d'eire. The party held its first convention on 15 October 1927. It was at this convention that Mustafa Kemal delivered ,his six-day speech, which provided a lengthy and somewhat one-sided history of the War of Independence and events thereafter. The speech became the catechism of the RPP and the source of all official writings on the history of the republic. In fact, it provided the RPP with the official

50 -POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY historical aCcoWlt that allowed it to judge the Ottoman past from the perspective of the new regime. However,' until about 1930 neither the RPP as a body nor its members as individuals provided any extensive insight about the ideology of the party or political parties in general. Mustafa Kemal did express occasional thoughts on the issue, which, as expected, became the guidelines for thought and action by the party. According to him, the Ottoman state was the personal patrimony of a man, that is, the Sultan, while republican Turkey was a populist state or the state of the people C§ahts devleti versus halk devletz). Consequently,. a political party was a body that represented the interests not of a single social class or a few classes but of the nation as a whole, and therefore 'the party programme must strive to secure the welfare and happiness of the entire nation'. 5 Under this doctrine, the state was a territorial frame for the nation, which, like the universal community it took as a model, was monolithic. Thus, for the sake of unity, Mustafa Kemal defined the nation, at least, in accordance with the Islamic model. It was, however, a nation he wanted to reform and strengthen by using Western organisational devices. According to Mustafa Kemal, the party should 'convey to the people with whom we want to work together and who constitute the party' all the ideas concerning the future of the nation. But, 'if we leave the people on their own', he declared, 'we shall not advance even an iota. . . . We should awaken interest [in progress] among the people through a positive work programme . , . one which should serve and aim at the welfare of the nation as a whole', 6 The concept of an interestoriented political party was thus rejected from the start, but not the idea that a party could and should act as a check on the government. Mustafa KemaI regarded the political party also as a mediwn for creating consensus. He declared, in 1931, in a general statement issued to the party convention, that the party, as a medium for participation and, ultimately, consensus in supporting the principles of the republic, should aim at introducing a direct election system to 'make the democratic mentality and the principles of the contemporary civilisation the basis of the laws and of the judiciary in the republic'. 7 Until then, although the 1927 convention had stressed the idea of refonn and progress, no programme to achieve this end was produced. However, the situation changed drastically when the RPP held its next convention in 1931, after having been forced to deal with a real challenge from another political party. The Free Party (FP) was established in 1930 on the instigation of Mustafa Kemal himself, who. asked his close friend and associate, Fethi Okyar, to create an opposition party_ In large measure this occurred because Mustafa Kemal believed in a democratic pluralist politiC;al system, provided all of the plural elements were republican

THE REPUBLICAN PEOPLE'S PARTY, 1923-1945

51

and modernist-progressive. In part, he also wanted to use the FP as a check on the RPP, some of whose members had secured lucrative positions in state monopolies and other economic or semi-economic institutions controlled by the government. Then the unexpected happened: contrary to some expectations, the new party gathered enough support in four months to pose a direct challenge to the ruling RPP and, by implication, to its chainnan, although no criticism was levelled directly at Mustafa Kemal. 8 The hitherto docile RPP faced the challenge in a rather brave, not to say cunning, manner. It boldly reminded Mustafa Kemal that he could not abandon the very party he' had established and proclaim himself a neutral chief of state above party affiliation. 9 The party leadership eventually prevailed in its assertion that the FP actually posed a direct challenge to Mustafa Kemal personally and threatened to undo the reforms so far achieved (although these contentions are not supported by solid evidence). Therefore, the FP was disbanded. The incident is exceptionally important for the history of Turkish political parties. It provides proof of the well-known phenomenon that a successful political organization in time acquires sufficient autonomy and self-will to defend its interests audaciously, even against a powerful, charismatic leader. More important, by persuading the chairman, Atatiirk, that the future of Turkish modernization, the fate of the republic and his own place in history all depended on the party he had established and its implementing of reforms, RPP leaders scotched for the near future any idea that political neutrality was possible in Turkey.

Ideological Directions It is understandable that the events outlined above were subsequently reflected in the RPP's policies. Indeed, the 1931 convention was a turning-point in the history of both the party and the republic itself. Thereafter, the party engaged itself directly in the struggle for change and' reform, 'expanding its organisation throughout the country and recruiting large numbers of additional members to man new branches. T~us it sought to use the organization to mobilize and train the population to accept the reforms even as it was initiating new ones. The 1931 convention, presided over by ismet inonii, opened as usual with a proclamation by Mustafa Kemal in which he declared that the RPP was a republican and populist organization and that these characteristics reflected the basic tendency and capability 9f the nation as a whole. He expressed his firm belief that in order for Turkey to achieve the power and civilization of a contemporary state'

52

POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

it was necessary to establish a regime that was populist and nationalist - thus reaffinning these original principles of the republic; and, also, republican, secularist and reformist - thus indicating that three new principles had been incorporated into the party ideology. Later on, etatism became the sixth principle of the RPP, and six arrows became the emblem of the party. The six principles were fonnally incorporated into the party programme and into the constitution of the repUblic, and by 1936 they had come to be called Kemalism (not, however, by Mustafa Kemal himselO. It was at the 1931 convention, also,. that the idea of popularizing the refonns was debated at length and the notion that the party should actively seek to curtail the influence of old habits and traditions was set forth (the wording used to describe this effort was 'to safeguard the citizen from the ill effects of old traditions'). There was no discussion at this time of the means for achieving these ends, but the decision of the Turkish Hearths, which a year earlier had 'agreed' to disband' and turn over their property to the RPP was approved. The People's' Houses were established in the same year.1O These (in the villages, People's Rooms) were the medium through which the RPP planned to achieve cultural modernization within the framework of nationalism and populism as redefined by the RPP. The effects of the post-1931 ideological changes in the RPP doctrine were not only widely felt at the time, but even today their repercussions resound throughout the Turkish social body. The most severe and long-lasting effect emanated from the drastic alteration of the meaning of the two initial principles, nationalism and populism. Originally 'nationalism' encompassed mainly the aim of winning full independence for Turkey, which meant ridding the country of foreign occupation and of the burden of the capitulations, and securing, through an international treaty, world recognition of Turkish independence and of the new borders of the state. After the Lausanne Treaty had sanctioned these goals, the internal question of Turkish national identity was to become paramount. During the War of Independence, the internal dimension of nationalism was hardly discussed, since the main goal was to drive out the invading enemy and thus preserve the nation's identity and culture - presumably as they were, that is, as an amalgam of Islamic-Ottoman Turkish traditions, customs and ,values. Preparations for a change in the definition of nationalism began as early as 1929, and a first step involved arranging for the transfonnation of the Turkish Hearths into something more useful to the party. The Hearths were the intellectual cradle of Turkish nationalism. Established in 1911, they preached a nationalism that amounted to patriotism based on a sense of the historical Turkish identity and culture, with the Islamic roots of that identity maintained but diluted in a broad, ill-defined form of

THE REPUBLICAN PEOPLE'S PARTY, 1923-1945

53

modernism and perhaps secularism. The RPP felt the Hearths' concept of an historical, religious sense of nationhood to be contrary to its own secular idea of nationality. It decided to establish the People's Houses, instead, and to assign to them the task of raising a new Turkish sense of national consciousness and identity, based on the tangible and living realities of geographical Turkey and its people. The RPP's new version of the Turkish national identity and culture was a materialistic one. The inner-party circles, notably Recep Peker and a few European-trained intellectuals, believed that the country, and e~peci(l}l~jt.~yqgth,I1ee4ed a,new,galvanizing political creed which coUld" spur them into action on behalf of the new regime and guarantee its survival. It was also important to forestall the .effects of industrialization, which was creating overnight a group of industrial workers with special demands and political attitudes that might be exploited by the USSR. (The once friendly relations with the USSR deteriorated as Stalin consolidated his power.) Thus the party redefined nationalism as an enqeavour to march towards progress and development parallel to the modem (i. e. Western) nations, while preserving the special moral character and independent identity of the Turkish social body. The newly adopted principle of secularism began to playa role at this point. The party officially tenned secularism a matter of conscience, stating merely that religion should be separated from worldly and political matters. However, this relatively mild statement did not accurately describe the party's intention with regard to the doctrine of secularism. In reality, the belated 'adoption of the principle as a supplementary element in the party ideology was designed to aid in the redefinition of nationalism: to rid it of its Islamic-Ottoman historical content and help re-orient it towards new goals. The most basic goal of secularism - the separation of state and religion - had, in the main, been reached a13 early as the Young Turks period, and some of the major secularist reforms had already been carried out in the period 1921-22 by the National Assembly. Under the RPP, secularism was invoked in the defence of the regime whenever a real or imaginary threat arose. It became the justification for one-party rule and for the restrictions imposed upon the enemies of the regime - that is, any opposition (which was always conveniently defined to be religious, i. e .. Islamic in origin or intent). Under the secularist policy the state was made the arbiter of religious affairs despite official statements on the theme of separation of religion and state and secularism as a matter of personal conscience - since the main office overseeing the religious activities in Turkey,' the Directorate of Religious Affairs was placed under government authority and functioned at·its discretion. (That its definition of secularism distorted

54

POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

the true meaning of the doctrine and made the state the master of the national conscience was one of the basic criticisms levelled at the RPP.) The new definition of nationalism, developed in 1931, was maintained at the 1939 convention of the RPP, but in 1943 the term was once more redefined as the means to raise the Turkish nation to the highest level of existence. According to the 1943 definition, nationalism was not directed against any other nation but, rather, was respectful of others. It was a positive force for the development of Turkey. Throughout the discussions at the convention speakers placed the emphasis on the preservation of the character of the Turkish nation, on living in hannony with other nations, and on raising national consciousness. They talked about adopting modem civilization in order to develop the nation but did not try to define it in any real terms. The fact remained that the RPP had no real understanding of the ideas or the true feelings of the mass of the Turkish population. The second basic principle articulated for the republic was populism. It was probably the more important of the two original principles, was more dearly defined, initially, than nationalism and was subsequently more distorted in meaning by the RPP. The roots of populism in Turkey may be found in the nineteenthcentury Private Enterprise and Decentralization Society of Prince Sabaheddin and a variety of socio-economic events that cannot be discussed here. Basically, the doctrine of populism expressed a yearning for popular participation in the making of political decisions and the criticism of the ruling etatist order and its monopolist economic mentality. During the War of Independence, populism was understood to encompass the view that the government of Turkey should be by the people and for the people, in both the political and the economic spheres. This idea was enshrined in all the constitutions of the new state in the form of a statement to the effect that sovereignty belongs unconditionally to the nation. The social-economic dimension of populism emerged during the War of Independence and was discussed extensively in the Assembly and the press during the debate on a populist programme drafted by the government. Improvement of the living standard of the population, application of modem science and technology to the achievement of national progress and individual welfare without the sacrifice of the country's cultural identity - these were the predominant characteristics of the popt.Ilist doctrine formulated at the beginning of the republic. 11 The populists, who belonged to the Second Group in the Assembly, demanded insistently that Turkey give priority to reaching the level of the developed civilizations through science, technology and economic development with less government intederence in the economy. These were not extremists. The extremists - that is, those

THE REPUBLICAN PEOPLE'S PARTY, 1923-1945

55

who espoused communism or socialism - were eliminated from the Assembly. The populists actually were politically and socially progressive democrats, favouring free enterprise, while culturally they could be defined as traditionalists, some even as Islamists. They also proposed a series of internal administrative refonns as seen in the minority group report of the Erzurum Congress and the by-laws of the Second Group in the first Grand National Assembly. 12 Some of the populists (and Islamists) in the Second Group, who were left out in the elections of 1923, supported the PRP (established in 1924). Whatever their ideological tendencies, those populists provided a steady pool of recruits for the opposition to the RPP and were active in various opposition parties established after 1945. The RPP considered that to achieve the populist programme envisaged at the time of the War of Independence would lead either to the acceptance of a sort of Bolshevik regime, with eventual domination by the Soviet Union, or to the restoration of the sultanate and the caliphate. The warnings about social extremism came from a group of new party chiefs, who felt that a democratic, socially-minded government could threaten their positions and wealth. They represented a new class of people who had grown rich overnight in the countryside,· thanks in part to population exchanges that had made land and other real estate available to them. This newly rich class supported the aims of the RPP regime. Included in the group were many of the RPP's provincial representatives. As the ·RPP had decided to achieve modemization through cultural changes rather than through structural trans fonnation , it eventually pad to redefine populism. In its new fonn, the term came to mean a Classless society, which fitted in with the aims of the party to establish a unified society and nation. As for the social equality envisaged by the original populist ideal, this was modified to mean simply equality before the law. Thus the economic and social principles of the War of Independence were discarded, as the RPP altered their meanings to suit its new ideological orientation.

New Authoritarianism The 1931 decision to give the RPP and the republic a new ideological imprint also resulted in a tum towards authoritarianism, which was in contrast to the relatively free atmosphere of the 19205. The RPP increasingly became the centre of power in the country as its organizations expanded in number and the drive to enlist more young people under its banner and to indoctrinate them with the new ideology

56

POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

was intensified. It must be emphasized that neither Mustafa Kemal nor the party as a whole proposed to establish' a dictatorial regime. The increased govennnental authority was seen as justified by the need to carry out further reforms and to preserve those already in place. However, the tightening governmental grip on society, particularly after its initiation and financing of an industrialization programme, stifled political freedom and undermined private economic initiative. Glowing official reports notwithstanding, the living standard of the population declined steadily, especially after 1936, when new taxes were imposed, partly to offset increased military spending. In this author's view, the RPP always felt ill at ease with its decision to define out of existence the original nationalist and populist premises of the newly independent Turkish state. Thus it is understandable that after 1927 - and especially after 1931, when populism retreated before the doctrine of party expediency - the principles of secularism, refonnism and, finally, etatism were given increasingly greater coverage in RPP literature. In the end, etatism - the last to be made· part of official RPP doctrine - became the most important of the six and served as the doctrinal basis for the increases in government and party authority. Etatism as an ideology came into existence in the 19305, due in part to the world economic crisis. It represented a sharp departure from the liberal ideas expressed by Mustafa Kemal at the Izmir economic convention of 1923 and other similar gatherings. Etatism provided the RPP with a powerful instrument for the reinforcement of its policy of cultural reform as it gave the government extraordinary leverage over the economy. The chief spokesman for this new version of etatism was Recep Peker, the secretary general of RPP. Peker opened the party convention of 1935 with an ideological speech in which he eulogized the head of the state and proposed to strengthen further the authority of the party. One year later, there were efforts to merge party and state. The governors of the provinces were made chainnen of the local branches of the party while the secretary general (Peker) became the Interior Minister of Turkey. Thus, over the period 1931-36, Peker (who had been the secretary general since 1923) was the dominant figure of tbe RPP. In 1936, however, he was summarily dismissed, apparently because of his effort to increase further the authority of the party secretariat to the detriment of that of the party chairman - that is, Mustafa Kemal himself. Recep Peker was responsible to a large extent for giving the ideology of the party its anti-traditionalist, and materialistic character. He also produced a relatively coherent philosophy to justify the party's at:lthoritarianism, a philosophy that was wholeheartedly accepted and popularized by his supporters, whose number and influence were

THE REPUBLICAN PEOPLE'S PARTY, 1923-1945

57

considerable. Peker expressed his views in a series of nine lectures, which were eventually published in book form and used for a while as the text in compulsory university classes. 13 Peker's first four lectures dealt with reform in general and the Turkish ones in particular, which he described as unique and in need of appropriate measures to implement them: 'The number of the new reforms and the difficulty in rooting them is determined by the depth and age of the habits and traditions they are intended to tear and throw out.' (The term '§ey', or 'thing', we have translated as 'habits and traditions', for this is what Peker meant.) Force was necessary to achieve refonn, he contended, in Turkey more than elsewhere, because its traditions and old habits were very old and deeply entrenched. 14 The next four of Peker's nine lectures, (lectures 5--8), dealt with political parties. A political party was a union of people who trusted and relied on each other with regard to the substance and methods of carrying out government policies (he called them public service). This tIDion was the mediwn used by members to actualize their thoughts. People who shared conunon thoughts formed a political party on the basis of their beliefs and thereby concluded a contract which embodied the gist of their ideas. This contract, or party programme, was not simply a docwnent resulting from deliberation and debate: it was the concrete reflection of the political, social and economic conditions prevailing in society. Therefore, the contract programme should be oriented towards practical needs. The main element in party life, Peker stated, was the chief, who embodied in his person the main ideas, the will, the creative power and the honour of the party and provided illuminating, wanning guidance to his followers and the country.15 This benevolent, supreme patriarch was the head of the state apd, as described by Peker, resembled the Sultan rather than the President of the republic. In fact, Peker. . was defining not the exisQgg party. structure in Turkey, but rather the situation he"eiiVisaged upon fliffiIIiiig rus'···own arribitionof becorrifug eventually the leader of Turkey and establishing a hybrid regime with elements borrowed from Italian fascism and Soviet communism. 16 Peker's emergence in the mid-1930s as the main party leader (but always one step behind Mustafa Kemal) was in part a consequence of the deteriorating physical condition of the chainnan, a decline that began in the early 1930s. Mustafa Kemal had been engaged in military and political activity almost since the tum of the century and led an exhausting life that did not always conform to the best rules of health. By 1934. he was leaving much of the conduct of the daily affairs of the party and the government to his subalterns. As an insider, Peker saw as early as 1933 the symptoms of the ailment that ended the life of

58

POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

the chairman, and he sought to consolidate his positiol! in the party to such an extent that his superior and rival, Ismet Inona, would be neutralized. Although he failed to achieve his ambition at this time, being removed fonn his position by Mustafa Kemal in 1936, Peker retained his party membership and re-emerged as premier in 1946. Following the ousting of Peker, the moderates in the RPP reasserted themselves and Mustafa Kemal himself, once apprised of the real situation, decided to correct the authoritarian excesses of the party and the regime. A certain softening began. In 1937 he replaced inonil, a former general, with Celal Bayar, an economist. Politically, inonil was somewhat liberal-minded, but he had become committed to a bureaucratic pattern of government (which he had helped erect, in fact) and was, as well, the symbol of the unproductive etatist economic policies he iritroduced as prime minister. Bayarwas known to be in favour of private enterprise. Whatever the faults of Mustafa Kemal, one can never claim that he wanted to establish a dictatorial regime in Turkey. On the contrary, his aim was to found a pluralistic, democratic political and social system, although he believed that a period of strong rule was necessary to establish the necessary institutional foundations. 17 Mustafa Kemal died on 10 November 1938, leaving the RPP to its less able leaders, who· resumed the authoritarian policies with a vengeance. About a month after his death, the RPP held a convention, !he m~ pUfJ?ose of which was to elect a new party head, namely, Ismet Inonil. Inonii acquired the title of pennanent chairman, in part to forestall any challenge to his leadership and thus to avoid unrest within the party or the country. Soon another title, National Chief (Milli $e/), adorned his name. In matters of ideology, inonti remained deeply committed to the six principles of the party and supported a number of excessive and unpopular measures, such as an intensification of the secularist policy that came to border on irreligiosity (mosques were sometimes closed and used as storage rooms), language refonn, etc. However, he also initiated a series' of measures designed to liberalize the regime (or at least to ease the political pressure). This spirit of liberalization was evident at the fifth party convention, which met on 29 May 1939, when the provincial governors lost their positions as heads of the local party organizations. 18 An independent MUstakil Group was created in 1939 within the Assembly to serve as a sort of loyal opposition. In that same year inonii, in a presidential address, declared that he hoped that the people would be able to exercise their will more freely in the near future, implying that the electoral system might be further liberalized and the National Assembly subjected to real popular control. 19 (That

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59

hope was not fulfilled for another six years.) lnonii had, indeed, a deep sense .of state responsibility. The activities of the RPP during the testing war years were of limited importance, although the regular party convention was held in 1943. 20 The poverty of a peasantry subjected to onerous taxes, the corruption in the bureaucracy and the lack of direction in the government had brought matters to breaking point - in good measure due to the National Protection Law of 1940, which gave the government extensive authority over the economy and the citizens' freedoms and rights." In addition, the Martial Law, which applied to a large part of the country, remained in force from 20 December 1940 to 1 June 1945. During this period there was a good deal of shuffling around of party and government officials. Refik Saydam, a military doctor, was premier from 1939 until his death in 1942. $iikrii SaracogIu, the Foreign Minister, then assumed the premiership. Five days later, on 13 July 1942, inonii made Saracoglu deputy chainnan of the RPP and, a month later, Recep Peker became once more Minister of the Interior. Thus Peker, who had been left out of govenunent and party affairs since 1936, was rehabilitated. The secretary general of the party, Memduh ;;evket Esendal, a writer, was also handpicked by inanii during this period. Thus, in the early 1940s the selection of the government personnel and the conduct of business totally flouted the rules established by the constitution of 1924 and its parliamentary democratic procedures, in large measure because of the absence of any check on the party and government. By 1945, it was evident that the RPP's rule had reached its nadir and that the old, single-party system could not be continued indefinitely. To provide a safety-valve for the release of pent-up resentments against the government and counter the criticism of "the democracies that had won the Second World War, inonii. was forced to liberalize Turkey1s political system and allow the establishment of opposition parties. In 1945, he declared that Turkey was entering a new era of basic political change, and during the next five years (from 1945 to 1950) inonii, as chairman of the RPP and President of the repUblic, charted the course of Turkey's transition to the pluralist, multi-party democracy which is still functioning. This was the most enduring achievement and service to the Turkish people of inoniiand RPP.

Conclusion 1 have "presented in this chapter an organizational and ideological analysis of the RPP's history until 1945 from the viewpoint of one assessing its perfonnance in a conventional parliamentary democracy_ Stich a presentation naturally obscures the contribution of the RPP to

60

POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

the establishment of a responsible, though ·not responsive, political system in Turkey. The country inherited from the Ottoman past a number of political traditions and practices that were in many points compatible with the new republican order as well as in many others opposed to it. But the lack of a tradition of popular participation in governmental decision-making and of the mechanism necessary to achieve such participation were among the most glaring shortcomings inherited from the past. The individual willingness to fonnulate and express independent thoughts .about the established order was practically non-existent also. One of the key, but undefined, goals of the republican regime was to create a new civic order based on citizen participation, which was, in fact, regarded as the prerequisite condition for true modernization. Turkey was in dire need of new organizations, valU€s and aspirations, which could produce an awareness of Turkish identity and generate loyalty to the new republican nation-state. Thus, if the early history of the RPP is analysed from a perspective that takes due account of the particular situation in which it functioned, then the assessment of its role in Turkish political history must become more balanced. The desire for change and material progress within a national cultural framework was widespread among the Turkish masses, as evidenced by the literature issued during the War of Independence. The elites of society interpreted the desire for change among the masses in tenns of their own social and educational background, their elitist mentality and a romantic vision of the future. This view of modernization was reflected in the thinking of some younger leaders of the RPP and was embodied in the policies of the party, notably after 1931. But, unfortunate as they were, these policies stimulated a great deal of thought and debate in the opposition and helped broaden the intellectual horizon of the public. Thus a new tradition of intellectual activity was created revolving around issues of the organization and future of society _. a definite and permanent gain. In view of the fact that this development was neither intended nor foreseen by the RPP, perhaps no positive credit is due it; but they were actions taken by the party, deliberately and in full expectation that the results would be good for the new republic, for which it does deserve approbation. They are the following. First the old Ottoman political system drew its personnel from among active or former military officers and, in addition, Mustafa Kemal and many of his close associates w.~re themselves military officers. The decision to create a civilian political party and, eventually, to entrust the government to it, must be seen as one that was truly revolutionary and of the utmost importance to the new republic. Secondly, it wrote a constitution that embodied the ideals of a democratic society. It may be stated that the constitution of 1924

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61

was in large part symbolic; that the RPP regime itself sometimes acted in contravention of its own provisions. Yet, by its very existence, this document constrained the regime in many ways: it provided the yardstick against which the conduct of the party and the government could be measured by an increasingly involved electorate; it eventually became the legal platfonn upon which the opposition stood to challenge RPP actions and to demand that the democratic political order it defined be allowed to emerge. Despite some degree of arbitrariness in its actions and some tendency to act without reference to constitutional provisions when it was expedient, the RPP was governed by it to a great extent. The executive who carried out party policy was made by the constitution responsible to the Grand National Assembly, which in turn was controlled by its elected members; party debates on policy matters, therefore, revolved around practical government policies, and social, cultural and economic problems were all discussed with a view to solving them with concrete political· decisions implemented through the systematic procedure provided in the constitution - even if sometimes the procedure was short circuited. Thirdly, the RPP was the agency of mass mobilization and political training. Indeed, it became both the model for political organization and the school for the training of Turkey's future politicians, providing knowledge and field experience in ~e technique of political organization. Successful opposition party leaders, including Celal Bayar, who served as president in the period 1950-60, and all the three other founders of the .Democratic Party, which was established ·in 1946 and won the election in .1950, were fonner leading members of the RPP and received their political schooling in its ranks. The People's Houses, in particular, provided training in public relations, conlInittee and team work, social organization and a range of social, educational and cultural group activities totally unknown in the past. Many future political leaders received their initial grounding in the techniques· of politics in the People's Houses. Furthennore, this grounding was not an authoritarian one; wilike the stifling formality at the centre the atmosphere at meetings in the RPP's COWltry branches and People's Houses and Rooms was relatively relaxed and democratic. In the era of multi-party politics after 1945, the politicians of Turkey showed far more sophistication than one would have expected from the proteges of a single-party regime. The truth is that the RPP never turned the Turkish political system into a closed one; nor did it ever seek to do so. A great variety of political options (besides those openly pro~communist or pro-Islam) were available. ·Even the previously mentioned textbook containing Recep Peker's lectures upholding the virtue and necessity of the one~party system provided extensive information on world political and economic systems and historical events; although the presentation

62

POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

was superticial and the facts somewhat distorted to fit Peker's case, this book provided thousands of students with useful information on politics. The RPP was interested in seeing the electorate become more politically knowledgeable. Fourthly, in his proclamation announcing the formation of the RPP, Mustafa Kemal told the population that the party was being established for the purpose of carrying out changes deemed necessary to enhance their lives, thus offering an incentive for them to take an interest in the RPP's activities. Subsequently, at public meetings he would announce some proposed change and ask whether those present approved of it. Major economic and political matters were not brought before the public in this manner; rather, their support would be asked for westward-looking cultural changes, for example, the adoption of the Western-style hat for men or, more important, the substitution of the Latin alphabet for the Arabic one in writing Turkish. Fonnal and insignificant as these gestures towards direct democracy may seem, they did serve to give the population a sense of participation in the government and introduced them to the notion that they could affect political events by making a choice. Thus, when the multi-party era arrived, Turkish people understood quite well the nature of political choice. To sum up, it may be stated that the RPP did accomplish some things to the lasting benefit of Turkey when it held power in the era of one-party rule. Its policies were often misguided, but its actions were not entirely self-serving. It drew up a constitution which provided the means for achieving a democratic society (even though it sought to hold back the implementation of the provisions); it left a legacy of functional government, which was quite unlike that of the old Ottoman system: it drew large numbers of people to it and trained them as politicians; and it encouraged people .to think of the government as. something in which they could participate by making political choices (even though it limited the number of choices available). Thus it laid a firm grounding for the)ritJlti-party system that followed, and for this the RPP deserves credit, despite its failings.

Notes -1.

2. 3.

For the history of the period from 1919 to 1923, see Mustafa Gologlu, E rzurum Kongresi, Sivas Kongresi, Uruncil Me§rutiyet, Cumhuriyete Dogru, and Tilrkiye Cumhuriyeti (Ankara: Gologlu, 1968-72); see also Sabahattin Selek, Milli Mucadele (Istanbul: Bur<;ak, 1970) and Anadolu ihtitali (Istanbul: Burc;ak, 1965). Nutuk (Speech) (Istanbul, n.d.), pp. 595-97 and passim. Ibid., passim.

THE REPUBLICAN PEOPLE'S PARTY, 1923-1945 4.

5.

63

For the complete text see Tank Z. Tunaya, Turkiye'de Siyasi Partiler (Istanbul: Dogan Karde§t 1952), pp. 580-2. Siiylev ve Deme~lert Vol. 2 (Ankara: TUrk inkllap Tarihi Enstitiisii, 1959), p. 121.

6.

7. 8.

9. 10.

11.

12. 13.

14. 15. 16.

Ibid., pp. 52-3. ismailArar, Atalurk'unjzmz'tBaszn Toplantzsz (Istanbul: BurC;ak, 1969), pp. 52-7. -Ismail Hakkt Baltacloglu, a well-known educator and head of the Istanbul branch of the Free Party wrote: 'The Mustafa Kemal we worship is not Mustafa Kemal, the General Chainnan of the People's Party. We worship Mustafa Kemal who embodies the Turkish nation's will to live and is its eternal guide'. Reproduced in Fahir Giritlioglu, Turk Siyasi Tarihinde CHP'nin Mevkii, Vol. 1 (Ankara: Ayytldlz Matbaasl, 1965), p. 81. See Atatiirk's letter in Cumhuriyet, 9 September 1930. On the People's Houses, see Kemal H. Karpat, 'The People's Houses in Turkey: establishment and growth', The Middle East Journal, 17 (1963): 55--6. By 1944, a total of 407 Houses and by 1945, 2,338 Rooms were established. The meaning of populism at the time of the War of Liberation is discussed at length in Mete Tuncay, Turkiye Cumhuriyetinde Tek Parti Yonetimi'nin Kurulmast (1923-31) (Ankara: Yurt, 1981); this book somewhat ignores the cultural dimension of populism, but it has an excellent bibliography on the RPP during the period under study. The by-laws are reproduced in Tuncay, Turkiye Cumhuriyetinde Tek Parti Yonetiminin Kurulmasz, pp. 351-3. inkllap Tarihi (Ankara: Vius Baslmevi, 1935). These courses are still compulsory in all Turkish universities. Nowadays their main -aim is to create loyalty and attachment to the Republic. New textbooks are now available, with the emphasis on attachment to the reforms and person of Mustafa Kemal Atatiirk. A new edition of Peker's lectures under the title inktlap Dersleri, was published by ileti§im, a Marxist-oriented publishing house in Istanbul in 1984; Toplum ve Bilt'm, a scholarly, leftleaning journal, also published the lectures in 1983. See also CHP Genel Sekreteri R. Peker'in SOylevleri (Ankara: Dlus Basunevi, 1935). inkzlap Dersleri (lletisim ed.), pp. 18-19. Ibid., pp. 63-4. Peker had a strong following both inside and outside the party. In 1946 he became prime minister due largely to the pressure of a group in the party that saw the rise of the opposition parties and

64

17. 18.

19.

20.

POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY the liberalization of the political system after 1945 as a threat to reforms. He closed down several leftist parties, trade unions and newspapers, and made a number of arrests. inonii had to use all his political skill and influence withln and without the party to oust Peker in July 1947, after which the road to democratic-multi-party system was clear. For details, see Kemal H. Karpat, Turkey's Politics. The Transition to a Multi-Party System (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1959). For the state of research on Mustafa Kemal, see Kemal H. Karpat's review of some of the literature, tThe personality of Atatiirk', American Historical Review, 9 (1985): 893-9. ' The publication issued for the convention dealt not with party matters but with government policies, and its subtitle read as follows: 'Report on the sections of the party programme carried out by the government'; seeS. C.H.P. BiiyukKurultayz (Ankara: Ulus Basunevi, 1939). According to official statistics, RPP members in 1936 totalled 1,237,504, although eleven eastern provinces (Van, Bitlis, Mu§, Diyarbakrr, Elazlg, etc.) still did not have a party organization; see Cemil Ko<;ak, Turkiye'de Milli $ef Donemi, (1938-1945) (Ankara: Yurt, 1986), p. 403 (this book has a good bibliography for the period). The convention was opened by inonii who demanded party democracy. $iikIu Sara~oglu, the prime minister who was also the deputy chainnan of RPP, exerted considerable influence. A narrow-minded rightist-etatist, Sara~oglu enacted some draconian measures affecting the minorities. For an account of the activities of the gove-rnment see the publication of the secretariat -general of the party on the occasion of the 19th anniversary of the Republic, Yirmi Ytl j fin de Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (Ankara: Vlus Basunevi, 1943).

5 The Progressive Republican Party,

1924-1925 Feroz Ahmad

Introduction If we are to make sense of the short-lived Progressive Republican Party (PRP) we can only do so in the context of the political ethos of the second constitutional period which began in July 190a, and ended with the Izmir trials of 1926. The PRP was the last party which represented the political thought of this dying age. The People's Party, founded by Mustafa Kemal Pasha, also retained some baggage from the past, but it consciously attempted to transcend the legacy of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) which dominated politics after 1908. Thus the two parties clashed head on and the People's Party's initial response to this challenge, when the Republican Progressive Party was founded on 17 November 1924, wasJo add 'Republican' to its own name and become the Republican People's Party (RPP). Ifwe examine the progranunes of the two parties, there do not seem,," to be any fundamental or significant differences between them. From this, some historians have conclJ.lded that the PRP did not present ail alternative to the RPP and that the new party was merely an Instrument in the struggle for leadership in the Turkey of the mid1920s.1 There may be some truth to this line of thought, although the programme tells only part of the story. Mustafa Kemal Pasha saw the opposition's progranune as a deception, a 'plot', because it tried to portray the party in radical colours although it was in fact conservative in character. In the Great Speech of 1927 Kemal Pasha asked rhetorically: 'Could seriousness and sincerity be attributed to the deeds and attitudes of people who had [earlier] avoided pronouncing even the word Republic, and who had tried to strangle the Republic from its birth, even though they called the party Republican and even Republican Progressive?' He then went on to note: 'If the

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party founded by Rauf Bey and his friends had emerged under the title HConservative", perhaps it would have had some meaning. But their claim to be more republican and more progressive than we were was certainly not justified. '2 Bitter though his tone may have been, Mustafa Kemal's analysis of the differences between the parties was substantially correct; the PRP's vision of the Turkey to be created by the new regime was essentially conservative and totally different from that of the Kemalists. This became apparent from the political behaviour of the party's founders in the years after the abolition of the sultanate on 1 November 1922. During this brief period, opposition to Kemalist radicalism began to coalesce, later to emerge as the PRP emerged; and the Istanbul press which supported the opposition articulated its ideology. In his study of the Turkish Political Elite, Frederick W. Frey discusses the theory of the 'post-independence crisis' which afflicts societies that have just won their independence. He writes: Once independence is achieved, dissension sets in. Divergent views of the most desirable programme for the nationalist movement come to the fore and are contested. The conflicting opinions are either reconciled to some degree, dominated by a single vision, or else linger on the scene, unreconciled, to produce a debility that leads eventually to another upheaval. This stage of the inunediate, post-independence resolution of differences has proved to be crucial for the nationalist movements of many emerging nations. In Turkey [he concluded], the short and unhappy career of the Progressive Republican Party was the final phase of this stage of political development. It was the last truly dangerous traditional threat to Kemalist hegemony.3 It is impossible not to agree with Frey's conclusion; if by some chance the PRP had succeeded in gaining power, the outcome for Turkey would have been totally different. The kind of Turkey the PRP hoped to see created we shall discuss below. It is tempting to see the PRP in terms of the clash of personalities, the 'stubborn resistence to Kemal and ismet (inonU)', the hostility between Rauf Bey and ismet Pasha, or 'the edginess of several illustrious generals toward Mustafa Kemal's ascendency'. 4 It was perhaps some or all of these things. But it was also much more; it was a fundamental clash of world-views. The men who founded the new party opted for continuity in contrast to the iconoclastic approach of the Kemalists. In that respect, this was more than a contest between divergent views which Frey referred to. There was no room for compromise though in the two years between the abolition of the

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sultanate and the founding of the opposition party, Mustafa Kemal made a number of attempts to reconcile the differences.

Towards the Establishment of the PRP Until the People's Party was fonnally founded on 11 September 1923, the nationalists had been organized in a broad-based movement known as the Defence of Rights of Anatolia and Rumelia. Within this movement there were a number of political factions which operated in the assemblies of the period. Some were so opposed to Mustafa Kemal personally that they even proposed amending the electoral law so as to deprive him of his civil right to stand for Assembly elections. They proposed that only those who had resided within the borders of the new state were eligible· for election. That would have disqualified Mustafa Kemal who, on account of his military career, which kept him in different parts of the empire, was unable to fulfil this requirement. On 6 December, four days after the proposal which was rejected, Mustafa Kemal announced his intention to fonn a political party, named People's Party. This announcement became controversial, especially among the conservatives. They thought that the name carried the connotations of a party of the poor and the oppressed and even smacked of communism. The radicals in the People's Party, on the other hand, thought that the party was not going far enough and ought to work on behalf of the. fanners and artisarIs. But Kemal, sensing the opposition of the conservatives and having no desire to go beyond populism, made it clear that his party· did not believe in class struggle and would represent all classes in Turkish society except, by implication, members of the old regime. 5 In the Assembly there were still many members who, having reconciled themselves to the abolition of the sultanate, continued to believe that it was possible to keep the Caliph, Abdillmecit, as head of state in some foim. of constitutional monarchy. They began to carry out propaganda to this end on 15 January 1923, the day Mustafa Kemalleft for a tour of Western Anatolia. 6 This was contrary to the ideas Mustafa Kemal had for the Caliph, who was expected to play a purely religious role with no political aspirations. Faced with this campaign, he invited representatives of the Istanbul press to Izmit on 16 January to discuss a variety of issues. He began by asking them what they thought ought to be the future of the caliphate. After hearing their defence of that institution, he told them that he disagreed and that it ought to be abolished. 7 It was no accident that he had invited the most prominent journalists of the Istanbul press to meet him in Izmit. Virtually all the major Istanbul papers, although most had supported the struggle against Greece,

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were opposed to the creation of a radical regime, especially one that would not have its capital in their city. These papers represented the thinking of a cosmopolitan bourgeoisie and intelligentsia which preferred to maintain the country's international ties to the isolation which the Kemalists were offering. The city's papers argued for institutional continuity based on the caliphate, which would provide the regime with the legitimacy of tradition and enhance Turkey's position in the world, especially the Muslim world. They also opposed the fonnation of a political party illlder Mustafa Kemal's leadership because that would virtually rwe out opposition by any other group. Who after all, asked Aluned Emin Yahnan, one of the principal voices of the opposition, would want to oppose the saviour of the nation?8 The April 1923 elections for a new Assembly seemed a triumph of the government. Only three members of the opposing Second Group were re-elected, the rest being defeated along with the ex-leaders of the defunct Committee of Union and Progress. Mustafa Kemal's control over the legislature seemed total. But appearances were deceptive and this was not the case. Popular generals like Kazun Karabekir, Refet Bete, Ali Fuad Cebesoy, as well as prominent public figures, like Rauf Orbay and Adnan Acbvar, had also been re-elected to the new Assembly. In fact, Rauf Bey was the head of the Cabinet, and conservatives like Velid Ebuzziya described him as the leader of their movement. But this was hotly denied by other critics of the regime who did not perceive themselves as conservatives, and certainly did not want to be tarred with the brush of conservatism. They preferred to see themselves as liberal and as modernist as any Kemalist. Ahmed Agaoglu writing in Yalman' s Vatan was quick to point out that some of the most important changes had taken place while Orbay headed the Cabinet. The decisions to separate the caliphate from the sultanate, and to abolish the latter, had been taken by his govenunent, decisions which had changed the very character of the state. 9 It is worth noting that, while negotiations for a new peace treaty were being conducted at Lausanne during the spring and summer of 1923, Rauf Orbay as prime minister had taken a more uncompromising, but less realistic, position than ismet inonii in the defence of Turkey's rights. Such a position was popular in the Assembly and created conflict between the goverriment and the delegation led by inonii. Only Mustafa Kemal's active intervention had helped resolve the Orbay-in6nii differences and the treaty was finally signed on 23 July 1923. The prestige of the Kemalist faction rose sharply as a result. And when Orbay refused to meet inanii on his return from Lausanne, Mustafa Kemal had no qualms about asking for Orbay's resignation. The latter was replaced by Fethi Okyar as prime minister, who was

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acceptable to liberals and conservatives alike, and at the same time a confidant of Mustafa Kemal. The founding of the People's Party was finally announced in September. The opposition press again raised the alann by asking whether the new regime ought to be a republic and, whether Turkey was copying the Bolsheviks and opting for a people's republic of Turkey (Turkiye Halk Cumhuriyetz). The opposition openly began speaking of the possibility of a dictatorship if the president of the Assembly was also the leader of the ruling party and asked Mustafa Kemal to declare himself above party and become the nation's guide. 10 But Mustafa Kemal's position was far from being that of a dictator. Despite the elections earlier in the year, he was unable to impose his will over the chamber at all times. _The legislature was often in conflict with the executive; for example, it refused to sanction the government's decision to impose martial law in western Anatolia in order to curb banditry. The Assembly's decision to elect two opposition members showed how fickle that body could be. On 25 October 1923, Sabit, MP for Erzincan, was elected Minister of the Interior, a post of considerable significance, and Orbay was elected vice-president of the Assembly itself. Mustafa Kemal decided to act in order to resolve the conflict. He engineered- a Cabinet crisis by asking all his ministers to resign, convinced that the opposition in the Assembly would not be sufficiently unified to form an entire Cabinet. He was proved right. The opposition groups, while united against the People's Party, were too divided to be able to agree on the composition of the Cabinet, especially who should lead it. Despite the efforts of the Istanbul press, which actively campaigned on behalf of leaders like Orbay and Karabekir, there was no agreement. Finally, on 28 October, the People's Party proposed its list to the Assembly and that was accepted. The opposition had been routed and the Kemalists were in control. Next day, Mustafa Kemal seized the moment to make constitutional changes, proclaim the republic and have himself elected President. II The opposition had been caught off guard. Orbay, who, according to Mustafa Kemal, had been hoping as late as August 1923 to have the Assembly strengthen the position of the Caliph, described the decision to proclaim the republic as having been made without a broad debate and discussion in the Assembly, thereby questioning its very legality. Karabekir, who arrived in Istanbul on 10 November to assume the post of Inspector-General of the First Army Corps, was more blunt. He noted that while he supported a republic, he was opposed to personal rule C$ahsi saltanat) - an obvious reference to the regime taking shape under Mustafa Kemal. 12 The opposition's position was becoming more and more untenable;

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men who had made important contributions to the national struggle found themselves being politically marginalized. These were men who believed in the Unionist notion of collective or collegiate leadership in which they expected to playa role. Instead of that they saw the reins of power being gathered in the hands of an individual who brooked no rivals and they in turn refused to become his mere subordinates. For his part, Mustafa Kemal was totally opposed to collective leadership of the type that had prevailed under the Unionists, and he often criticized the CUP as a leaderless political body. 13 The pUblication of Agha Khan's letter in support of the caliphate in some Istanbul newspapers of 5 December 1923 led to the establishment of an Independence Tribunal in order to see if these journalists were engaged in subversion against the newly-created republic. The vote in the Assembly on 8 November to decide whether such a tribunal should be established revealed once again the existence of opposition. When the Assembly voted to give the tribunals extraordinary powers on 13 November, the opposition was more concerted. On this occasion 89 voted for while 63 voted against, and 6 ahstained. 14 Three journalists were brought to trial but found not guilty; the government was still trying hard to win over the opposition press of Istanbul. 15 The opposition, both in the Assembly and in Istanbul, seems to have considered the Caliph the only remaining obstacle to the establishment of a revolutionary regime in Turkey. Despite all the political changes that had been introduced since the abolition of the sultanate, the Caliph remained popular and continued to see himself as an autonomous centre of power in Istanbul. It was only natural that Muslims should continue to revere him for, despite its exclusiveness, the deposed Ottoman ruling class had not lived in total isolation from the rest of society, especially with regard to ideology, that is to say religion. During the long centuries of its rule, the Ottoman dynasty had created a vast network of institutions and loyalties, particularly religious loyalties, among virtually all social groups. Both the Kemalists and the opposition were aware of this and the PRP was detennined to use the religious card to undermine the position of the ruling party. It was perhaps the quickest and most efficient way to delegitimize the RPP. The Kemalists were quick to see the danger; just two days after the fonnation of the PRP was announced, Falih RrlkI Atay, an articulate spokesman for the Kemalists, issued the warning . that ·while it was possible to abolish the monarchy and the Caliphate by an act of the Assembly, it would be necessary to struggle for many years against the ideas and activities which gave them their strength in order to be completely safe from the threats of these institutions. '16

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The Caliph's very pretensions forced the Govenunent to act and abolish the institution on 3 March 1924. The political outcome was mixed. On the one hand, Mustafa Kemal's position as President was strengthened because the only remaining focus of opposition had been removed. As inonii noted in his Sivas speech in 1930, until that moment it was not certain which of the two - the Republic or the Ottoman family - would swallow up the other. So ,while the Ottomans had been eliminated as a political factor, the price that the regime paid both at home and abroad with regard to its legitimacy and moral standing proved t
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involving the people in their own affairs as the vital step towards democracy. But all this was disregarded by the ruling party. IS In response to the opposition's criticisms and overtures, Mustafa Kemal made his position quite plain in speeches and statements delivered around the country during the surruner of 1924. He made it clear that he could not be neutral when it came to protecting the republican regime or carrying out a revolution which involved changing the mentality of the people as well as the structure of society. Since these were the fundamental principles of the People's Party, he did not see any contradiction in being 'the president of the republic and of the party at the same time. 19 After statements such as these, the opposition realized that Mustafa Kemal was not going to compromise on the question of the radical transfonnation of Turkish society; he had opted for revolution rather than refonn. Therefore the group around Orbay, Cebesoy and Karabekir opened discussions about fonning a party to oppose the RPP. Early in October, there appeared in the Istanbul press rumours that an opposition party was indeed in the process of being fonned. By the end of the month, Karabekir and Cebesoy resigned from their posts as Inspectors-General in the army, stating that they could better serve their country as MPs. This was a clear signal that the opposition was fast coalescing to challenge the govenunent. 20 The challenge took the fOrID of an interpellation on the question of the resettlement of immigrants from Greece and the property of Greek emigrants. The debate was acrimonious. The govenunent was sharply criticized for mishandling the resettlement which led to thousands of deaths, and for devoting very little money for this purpose while spending large sums of money on railway construction. The opposition hoped to bring about the fall of the InonG Cabinet. But that was not to be, thanks to the support of Mustafa Kemal for his prime minister. When the vote of confidence was taken on 8 November 1923~ the government wona handsome majority. Party discipline held and only nineteen MPs voted against, with one abstaining. This was followed by the resignation of twenty-uine members from the People's Party, most of whom went on tof6rm the Progressive Republican Party whose founding was announced officially on 17 November 1924.21

PRP in Opposition Yalman, an active supporter of the new party ~ notes that the people who founded the PRP were men who played a role in the national struggle only second to that of Mustafa Kemal himself. They included Karabekir, who became party president and Ad.tvar and Orbay as

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deputy presidents; Cebesoy was appointed general secretary. The Central Administrative Committee was noteworthy for the number of prominent fonner Unionists in its ranks; it included ismail Canbulat, Halis Turgut, Ru§tii Pasha, Ahmet ~iikrii, Necati and Faik. It was supported in the Assembly by such prominent MPs as Feridun Fikri Dii§Unsel, ihsan Hamid Tigrel, General Cafer Tayyar Egilmez and General Refet Bele. 22 The make-up of the PRP was indeed impressive and apart from Mustafa Kemal there was no one in the RPP, except perhaps inonii who could match the prestige of Karabekir, Cebesoy or Bele, or the intellect of Adtvar. The new party, judging by the number of generals who supported it, seemed to enjoy considerable support in the anny. Then there was the Unionist factor which also favoured the new party. The Unionist organization in Anatolia would have been a great advantage, had the party become established and fought an election. With all these advantages, the founders of the PRP were sure that ·they would soon control the Assembly, and with the support of public opinion master the situation in the country at large. However, they did not predic~ the opposition of Mustafa Kemal who sensed the threat the new party posed through its contacts in the army and therefore forced them to abandon their military connections or give up political ambitions. 23 Reading the account of Cebesoy, one gets the impression that the party was founded in a rather perfunctory manner. And perhaps it was, for it seems as though the opposition, despite nunours in the press, was temporizing. As noted above, even on 5 November 1924, Yalman was proposing a compromise to the RPP's leaders. The opposition would have preferred to gain control of the ruling party from within rather than come out in open opposition. A vote against the government, the resignation of inonu and the formation of a Cabinet under a moderate RPP member might have forestalled the formation of an opposition party. However, the question of Mustafa Kemal's party leadership and presidency remained unresolved. Cebesoy returned to Ankara in early November and broached the subject of the new party to-some friends. He writes that they all agreed that such a body was needed. But they wanted to make sure that all those who were asked to join believed in democracy as well as in the refonns (inktlaplar). He writes that as a result of these decisions, they refused to enroll conservatives into the party; had they done so, the partY's strength in the Assembly would have increased dramatically to around 80. But they were not interested in power, only in being an effective opposition. 24 . There is a problem one confronts when reading memoirs written long after the events they discuss. In this case, Cebesoy is clearly

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forced into the position of having to justify - of almost apologizing for - his actions rather than explaining them. It is all the more difficult as these actions were taken against the person who later became a national icon whereas he was little more than first among equals at the time his power and authority were challenged. In· retrospect the challenge is made to seem like treason and indeed that is how Kemalist historiography tends to treat it to this day.25 There is also the problem of tenninoiogy. Terms like democracy and liberal are used as though they had the same meaning and COIUlotation in Turkey of the 1920s and of the 1950s, when such memoirs were published. That simply was not the case. Here is how Yusuf Ak<;uraogIu used it in an. article published in October 1925, some months after the folding of the PRP. Describing the modem state that he hoped to see created, he thought that it should enjoy the rule of law, be national, sovereign, liberal (for which he used the Turkish word hurriyetperver) and democratic, that is to say where the . people are sovereign. 26 At the time, democracy and populism were treated as virtually synonymous. The key words in the ideological struggle against the old regime had been 'people' (halk) and 'nation' (millet). They found expression in the National Pact of 17 August 1919. Mustafa Kemal often explained the significance of these concepts for the new ideology as it took shape. Hence his remarks: "the fundamental reality of our present day existence has demonstrated the general tendency of the nation, and that is populism and people's government. It means the passing of government into the hands of the people.' On another occasion he said: 40ur point of view, which is populism, means that power, authority, sovereignty, administration should be given directly to the people, and should be kept in the hands of the people.'27 People like Orbay and Cebesoy, because of their links with and respect for the old regime, were alienated by this emphasis on 'the people', although they must have soon seen that Mustafa Kemal did not intend to be literal in his populism; he too did not plan to go beyond representative government. But Cebesoy had a more conventional definition of democracy in mind. He and his friends visualized a regime which accepted the existence of elites (or classes) and the presence of open competition between them through a two-party system. However, competition was unacceptable to the Kemalists until the elites had arrived at a consensus on national goals; that was not the case in Turkey of the 1920s. The Kernalist elite believed that new Turkey's salvation lay only in a thoroughgoing transformation, often described as a revolution; their opponents were sure that only limited reform would do and revolution was anathema to them.

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Given the distance between these positions, there was no room for consensus. It is difficult to take seriously the claims of the new party's commitment to refonn (at least radical reform) and democracy. It is instructive to note that before the founders adopted the name Progressive Republican, they had rejected jstihlas Ftrkast (Deliverance, Redemption, Liberation or Restoration Party) and Cezri Cumhuriyet Fzrkasz (Radical Republican Party) as possible names. Even the adoption of Terakkiperver carried strong political connotations. Apart from meaning progressist or progressive, which most of the founders were not, few contemporaries' could have failed to make the connection with the defunct Ittihad ve Terakki Cemiyeti, or the Committee of Union and Progress, which had dominated politics until the defeat in the world war but was still a powerful force in Anatolia, thanks to its organization. Given the nwnber of exUnionists in the party's ranks, the connection would 'not have been misplaced. 28 The PRP was, as Mustafa Kemal described it, a conservative and pQssibly even a revisionist party, that is to say, one that may have attempted to restore the political fortunes of the Ottoman family in some way or other, had such an opportunity presented itself. Its promise. 'to respect religious beliefs and doctrines' was cynical and demagogic because of the implication that the Kemalists were not doing so. While they had beguri to secularize state and society, they had made no attempt to alter the views of the individual or carry out major reforms. The religion of the state of Turkey, according to the constitution, continued to be Islam and Mustafa Kemal was still seeking God's help in his speeches. Yet Article 6 of the PRP's programme suggested that the religious beliefs of the people were under threat and in need of protection. It is a matter of speculation as to the kind of Turkey the party favoured. Frey may be correct in suggesting that the opposition favoured 4a constitutional monarchy with a strong l~gislature'; 'a state in which religion maintained a position not, much different from that which it had possessed before the war'; and 'a society in which government granted- a relatively important role to the localities'.29 These points were left unstated and therefore the party's programme did not seem to differ very much from that of the PRP~ But Ergun Aybars, writing as a critic of the PRP, suggests that the party's emphasis on seeking a mandate from the nation before carrying out any reforms was a populist strategy designed to prevent any fundamental change from being introduced. Obviously, none of the major changes, such as the abolition of the sultanate or the caliphate, or the establishment of the republic could have taken place under such a

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stipulation. Moreover, the opposition party wanted to remove Mustafa Kemal from politics by insisting that anyone elected president of the republic must give up his mandate as MP. 30 The official organ of the People's Party, Hakimiyet~i Milliye, of 14 November, welcomed the new party with the words: The tension and the crisis in the Assembly has passed. The Republic of Turkey is a regime which rests on the sovereignty of the people. In this respect, no one can even consider not wanting more than one party in the Assembly or object to opposition and control. For us it is no object of anxiety to see a new party being formed which rests on certain principles, is attached to the principles revolution, and which will pursue the legal path of control . . .31 The question which was being surreptiously asked w~s whether the new party was in fact really 'attached to the prmciples of revolution'? The governing party gave the opposition the benefit of the doubt arid responded with a friendly gesture by having Okyar form a Cabinet of moderates following inonli's resignation on 21 November. The new party responded by giving the Cabinet a vote of confidence. Okyar in turn took a leaf out of the opposition's book and proposed the election of Istanbul's local officials by a popular vote. Recep Peker, who opposed this decision, resigned from the Cabinet in which he was the Minister of the Interior. For the moment, there was an apparent alliance between the Government and the opposition. In fact, there was no alliance and both parties were engaged in a political charade until the opportunity arose for one to, defeat the other. Mustafa Kemal rumself played the game by pennitting Hakimiyet~i Milliye, of 11 December, to publish an interview he had given to The. Times (London) on 21 November 1924. In the published interview he said that he found the existence of parties to be most natural in a country with a republican system based on the principle of national sovereignty. In Turkey, a new political party was bound by certain laws and the PRP had met these conditions. However, this account differed sharply from the one The Times correspondent gave the British Ambassador, who sent a report of it to the Foreign Office on 25 November, before its publication in Hakimiyet-i Milliye. Instead of being conciliatory, Mustafa Kemal had severely criticized the new party in tenns similar to those· he used in the Great Speech of 1927, quoted above. He questioned the sincerity of the founders as to whether they had created a real party. The ambassador's account of the interview, as reported to him by The Times correspondent, Macartney, is worth quoting at some length:

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If I have been wondering what the President will do next, here is an answer for me in this remarkable document. The Progressives are insincere in their republicanism, their programme is a fraud, and they are mere reactionaries. Everything reported implies that the President will have nothing to do with the new Opposition, and his language . . . indicated dearly that he meant war to the knife. The Ghazi worked himself into a periect frenzy; he turned red in the face as he ticked off each member , of the Opposition in turn, characterizing them as tUlgrateful to himself, to whom they owed all, and as traitors to their COWltry. The Deputy who acted at the interview half as introducer and half as interpreter interrupted more than once explaining: 'Be calm, Ghazi Pasha, do not be so indiscreet', btlt nothing could check the flood of indignation. 32

From this aCCOtUlt it becomes clear that the honeymoon between the parties was an artificial one and served the political tactics of ' both protagonists. The government's conciliatory attitude and the good relationship established benefited the ruling party because the resignations and defections from its ranks stopped. The momentum that the opposition had built up was· lost and when by-elections were held in December 1924, the PRP fared badly. This failure may be explained by the lack of provincial organizations, although it was expected to inherit the support of former Unionists. But even prominent ex-Unionists who stood as PRP candidates, men like Rahmi who had been the governor of wartime Izmir, and Halil Mente§e, a former Unionist minister, were both defeated in Izmir.33 When the party did begin to organize, it found support among Unionist leaders of the "second rank. 34 The outbreak of the Kurdish rebellion led by "$eyh Said, on 13 February 1925, brought the government face to face with a dangerous crisis: Mustafa Kemal seized the opportunity to have the PRP dissolve itself without a fuss. On 25 February, Prime Minister Okyar invited the principal leaders of the opposition, Karabekir, Orbay, Aruvar and told them: 'I have been given the duty to inform you to dissolve your party yourselves. If you do not dissolve it I see a very dark future. Blood will be spilled.' Karabekir replied: 'It is in our hands to found a party within the limits of the law. But it is not in our hands to dissolve it. You are the government. You have all the power and all the means. If you absolutely want to dissolve our party, it is in your power to do so. '35 Meanwhile, martial law had already been declared on 21 February and the passage of the Law for the Maintenance of Order on 4 March virtually froze further political developments. The PRP supported the t

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declaration of martial law but opposed the March law, especially the powers given to the Independence Tribunals, including the power to carry out death sentences without the Assembly's sanction. 36 One of the first consequences of the new law was the closure of opposition papers around the country. The papers in Istanbul which had supported the opposition were closed down, as was the left-wing press. 37 The government held the opposition party responsible for aiding and abetting the reactionary incidents around the country and the party came under pressure from the Independence Tribunals. Aybars, who has written what must be the definitive study of these Tribunals, found that the opposition party was indeed involved in some incidents and 'in Diyarbakrr . . . the influence of the Progressive Party in these incidents was proved in the trial'. 38 The pressure on the party was unrelenting. The party's branches were constantly searched for incriminating material; its main branch in Istanbul was searched on 12 April, prompting Hiiseyin Cahid Yalc;m to publish a banner headline in Tanin the next morning, describing" the martial law's action as a raid. That led to his arresf, trial and a sentence of exile to Corum. 39 Two days later, The Tz<mes, reflecting the very thoughts of the government, wrote that 'the mere existence of an opposition still constitutes a danger and affords a channel of intrigue'. It was a matter of time before the PRP was closed down. Various tribunals had already shut down branches in the provinces under their jurisdiction. The Istanbul branch held its congress on 14 May and the party was about to hold its first general congress when the government passed a decree on 3 June 1925 ordering its closure. The decree accused the party of provoking reaction by its very programme and pointed to the need to protect citizens from being led astray and deceived. 4o The decree also reminded people that religion and politics were two separate things.

Conclusion Given the short life of the PRP and the circwnstances in which "it was born, it is difficult to apply the criteria applicable to 'normal' parties. The PRP was not active for sufficient time to measure its discipline; nor is it clear what direction it would have taken, had it survived. Though it began its life as the party of some of the leading generals - Karabekir, Cebesoy and Bele - who fought in the War ,of Independence together with Mustafa Kemal, it also included a number of prominent former Unionists. This would have been an element of conflict and instability, had the party survived and been forced to define its position ideologically.

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The PRP began by adopting a broad, populist ideology which .emphasized the need for continuity rather than for drastic change. This reflected its ties to the Unionist ideology which had also seen the emerging Turkish state as a part of the world economy and the international system dominated by the West. In contrast, the Kemalists were willing. to cotu1tenance isolation in order to create a new Turkey and did so by forging relations with the Soviet Union. The difference between PRP populism and the Kemalist variety was that the former was to be used as an instrument of conservatism, while the latter .became the vehicle for radical transformation, in spite of the wishes of the people. Judging by the composition of the top leadership of PRP, the military element was far stronger than in the RPP. The Kemalists saw this as a threat and were quick to eliminate it; this was the reason for Kemal Pasha's decision to remove the army from politics to the extent that soldiers were not even pennitted to vote in elections. The PRP's approach to politics was initially pragmatic and the aim was to acquire the positions of power in the executive and the legislature. It tried to delegitirnize the position of the ruling party by putting itself forward as the party that would respect the religious sensibilities of the people. Behind this pragmatism was the longer-t~rm goal of conserving as much of the old order as was possible in the context of a post-war world. That is why it was impossible to arrive at a consensus either on nonns or procedures with the ruling party. As for the PRP's social base, it seems to have been strong in the modernist faction of the old regime, people who hoped to transfonn the old, autocratic, political structure into a modem, constitutional one. This was in keeping with Unionist practice which had tried to' open up the Ottoman dynasty by marrying prominent Unionists like Enver Pasha into it. The PRP also represented the interests of the,A.~:!V Istanbul bourgeoisie which had arisen during the war under Unionist' auspices. Such people found it difficult to comprehend the importance given to Ankara and Anatolia, and resented it bitterly.

Notes 1.

2.

See, for example, Omiir Sezgin and Gencay Saylan, 'Terakkiperver curnhuriyet firkasl', in Cumhur£yet D6nemi Turkiye Ansiklopedisi, no. 65 (1984), pp. 2043ff. Atatiirk, A SPeech Del£vered by Mustafa Kemal Atatilrk 1927 (hereafter SPeech, (Istanbul: Ministry of Education Print, 1963), pp. 733-4; and Gazi Mustafa Kemal, N utuk (Istanbul: Devlet Basnnevi, 1938), pp. 639-40.

80 3. 4. 5.

6. 7.

8. 9. 10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY Frederick W. Frey, The Turkish Political Elite (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1965), p. 327. Ibid., pp. 324ff. For a discussion of the Kemalist movement and its attitude towards classes, see Feroz Ahmad, 'The political economy of Kemalism' in Ali Kazanclgil and Ergun 6zb~dun (eds), Alaturk: Founder 0/a Modern State (London: c.J Hurst, 1981), pp. 155-9. Atatiirk, SPeech, 1963, pp. 587--8; Nutuk, 1938, pp. 505-6. Ahmed Emin Yalman, Yakm Tarihte Gorduklerim ve Gefirdiklerim. Vol 3: 1922-1924 (Istanbul: Rey Yaymlan, 1970), pp. 28ff; Mete Tuncay, Turkiye Cumhuriyetinck Tek-Parti Yonetimi'nin Kurulmasz (1923-1931) (Ankara: Yurt Yaymlan, 1981), p. 49. For Kemal Pasha's account, see Speech, 1963, p. 587; and Ataturk'un Sijylev ve Demefleri, vol. 2 (Ankara: Turk Tarih Kurumu, 1959), pp. 54-62. See Ahmet Emin Yahnan's article 'Bitarafhk ve hir tarafhk', Vatan, 19 September 1924 (Istanbul daily), cited in Yahnan, Yakm Tarihte Gorduklerim ve Gefirdiklerim, Vol. 3, pp. 131-2. Aluned Agaoglu's article in Vatan, cited in Yahnan, Yakm Tarihte Gorduklerim ve Ge~irdiklerim, Vol. 3, p. 74. See Yahnan's articles 'Bir tereddiit devresinden sonra', Vatan, 26 September 1923; 'Bazl esasb noktalar', Vatan, 21,September 1923; and 'Gazi Pa§a hazretlerine maruzat' , Vatan, 5 October 1923, all excerpted in Yalman, Yaktn Tarihte Gorduklerim ve Gefirdiklerim, Vol. 3, pp. 76-8, 81-5. For Mustafa Kemal's account, see Speech, 1963, pp. 664-73; and Nutuk, 1930, pp. 576-86; Yahnan, Yakm Tarihte Gorduklerim ve Ge~irdiklerim, Vol. 3, pp. 90ff. General Ali Fuat Cebesoy, Siyasi Hattra,lar, Vol. 2, Istanbul: Dogan Karde§., 1960, pp. 42-3. Rw~en E§ref Unaydm, quoted in Tuncay, Tek-Parti, p.72, n.9. Ibid., pp. 78-84. Yalman, Yakm Tarihte Gorduklerim ve Ge0-rdiklerim, Vol. 3, pp. 94-9, where he quotes from his Vatan article of 10 December 1923 entitled 'Dfinkii Tevkifler'. Fatih Rrlkt, 'Osmanhhk geri gelmez', Cumhuriyel, 19 November 1924. Ahmed Emin, 'Buyiik kabine', Vatan, 5 November 1924, quoted in Yalman, Yakm Tarihte Gorduklerim ve Ge~irdiklerim, Vol. 3, p.142. Yalman, 'Bitarafuk ve bir tarafhk', cited in ibid., p. 131 and passim. Ibid., pp. 132-4; and for a text of Kemal Pasha's speeches, see Alaturk'un SOylev ve Demefleri, Vol. 2, pp. 194-9.

THE PROGRESSIVE REPUBLICAN PARTY 1924-1925 20.

21. 22. 23. 24.

25. 26.

81

Ibid., p. 141, where the Istanbul press of 28 October 1924 is cited; for Mustafa Kemal's account see SPeech: 1963, 703-4; and Nutuk: 1930, pp. 613-14; and Cebesoy's account in Siyasi Hatzralar, Vol. 2, pp. 101-2. These resignations coincided with the heating up of the crisis over Mosul between Britain and Turkey. Ergun Aybars, j stiklat Mahkemeleri, 1920-1927 (Izmir: Dokuz Eylill Universitesi Yaymlan, 1988), pp. 257-8; Cebesoy, Siyasi Hatzralar, Vol. 2, pp. 108-9. Sezgin and ~aylan, 'Terakkiperver cumhuriyet firkasl', pp: 2044-7, Tank Zafer Tunaya" Turkiye'de Siyasi Partiler, 1859-1952 (Istanbul: Dogan Kardes, 1953), p. 606. Atatiirk, SPeech, 1963, pp. 707-10; Nutuk, 1930, pp. 616-19; Yahnan, Yakm Tarihte GiJrduklenm ve Ge9irdiklenm, Vol. 3, p.142. Cebesoy!. Siyasi Hatzralar, Vol. 2, pp. 110--11. Aybars, /st£kldl Mahkemelen, pp. 257-9, 358-66 and passim. Ak<;uraoglu Yusuf, 'Asri Tiirk devleti ve miinevverlere dii§en vazife', Turk Yurdu, 2 (1925), pp. 1-16. It should be noted, however, that the Progressive Party's programme uses the words with the same meaning as Yusuf Ak<;ura. But Cebesoy's usage in his memoirs, published in 1960, reflects the impact the post-war West. Ataturk'un Siiylev ve Deme91eri, Vol.l (Ankara: Tiirk Tarih Kurumu, 1945), p. 87; the translation is from Bernard Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, 2nd edn (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), pp. 97-8, 256. On the role of the CUP in the nationalist movement, see Erik Jan Zurcher, The Unionist Factor (Leiden: E.1. Brill, 1984). ' Frey, The Turkish Political Elite, pp. 325-6. Aybars, istikldl Mahkemelen, pp. 259-60. The article 'I§ Ba§U1a', quoted in Yahnan, Yakm Tarihte GiJrduklerim ve Ger;irdiklerim, Vol.3, pp. 149-50. Lindsay to Chamberlain, secret, FO 424/261, E.10619/32/44, is quoted by Erik Jan ZUrcher, '1924'teki Cok Partili Demokrasi', Tanh ve Toplum, 8 (1988): 16. Tunaya, Turkiye'de Siyasi Partiler, p. 609. Ibid., p. 613. . Cebesoy, Siyasi Hattralar, Vol. 2, p. 143. Tunaya, Turkiye'deSiyasiPartiler, p. 613; Yalman, Yakm Tarihte Gorduklerim ve Ger;irdiklenm, Vol. 3. p. 161. For a brief sllIIlIlfttry, see Mete Tuncay, 'Basm ve istikJaI mahkemeleri', Cumhuriyet D6nemi Turkiye Ansiklopedisi, no.

of

27.

28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

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POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

38. 39.

7 (1983): 212; for details see Aybars, 1stiklat Mahkemeleri, passim. . Aybars, j stikldl Mahkemeleri, pp. 36~ l. Ali Gevgilili, 'Tiirkiye basmt', Cumhuriyet Donemi Turkiye Ansiklopedisi, no.7 (1983): 214; and Yalman,. Yaktn Tarihte Gorduklerim ve Ge~irdiklerim, Vol. 3, pp. 164-5. Aybars, j stiklat Mahkemeleri, p. 364.

40.

6

The Free Party, 1930 Walter F. Weiker

Transition to democracy is a topic. receiving increasing attention in recent years from both political leaders and scholars, as more and more countries seem to be coming to the conclusion that political liberalization serves many important functions for both political elites and for nations as a whole. These functions may include the symbolic one of belonging to the community of democratic states, promoting national integration, releasing social tensions and increasing government accountability, mobilizing popular energy for national development and the consideration of new ideas for attacking social and economic problems. Transitions have often occurred only when politicaL~~tes have been more or less forced to them.l Attempted transition which was the Free Party episode of 1930 and its aftermath is distinct in that it was not forced, though Atatlirk saw that several of the above-named functions needed to and could be served through a transition. Thus it could be prepared deliberately and its course could presumably be controlled. That he could not control it in some important respects, but that he did not give up the goal of democratization and that thus the Free Party became an important factor predisposing Turkey to further political development (however imperfect) makes the present account of considerable practical and theoretical significance. A number of important conceptual questions have been asked about the Free Party. 2 This author's study of the Free Party and its aftermath started by citing a· question and a tentative answer of Maurice Duverger. 'Is it possible', he asked, jto generalize and to hold that the single party might serve as a temporary guardian, making it possible for the fragile plant of democracy to grow in soil that is not prepared for its reception?' Though careful not to generalize from a single case, he ventured the opinion that 'The example of Turkey. . . seems to demonstrate that the technique of the single party, applied With discernment, makes it possible gradually to build up a new ruling

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class and the independent political elite which alone make it possible to establish at some date an authentic democracy.'3 If these questions were worth asking then perhaps they are all the more so now, after one has viewed more than a half-century of Turkish political history. Among other things, it strikes this qbserver as at least a little Wlcanny that a major structural 'repair' operation has been mounted at almost exactly ten-yearly intervals since 1960. One should not try to address all of the questions which have been raised in the introductory chapter, some of which would bring us far into the area of speculation and are thus more appropriate to the discussion of later Turkish parti~s. I will try to address those which are applicable, however. One is where the Free Party fits into the sequence of cultural revolution/democratic revolutionlliberal revolution which is described a.§lne"'hasic sequences in Turkish political development. It fits into such a general scheme, although one has found no direct evidence as to whether so deliberate a design was conceived of by Atatiirk before, during or after the Free Party, ~s he undertook the spade work for Turkey's eventual democratization. To recall the basic facts, on 10 August 1930, Atatiirk startled the nation by announcing that one of his closest colleagues, Fethi Okyar" had requested and received pennission to found an opposition party. It won almost immediate popular acclaim and attracted large numbers of followers. The Free Party (FP) initially operated mainly in the Grand National Assembly, and as a by-product of its debates inonii and other RepUblican People's Party (RPP) leaders were soon defending the government's economic policies in public fora. The FP's activity quickly moved into broader arenas, though. It opened branches in numerous cities and towns, enrolled members rapidly and atUlounced that it would contest local elections scheduled for early October. The campaign was lively, but when the votes were cOWlted, the RPP registered an overwhelming victory. The relative importance of the reasons offered to explain that outcome were not fully clear. They included: insufficient time for the opposition to organize; that voters saw that the opposition was attracting 'reactionary· elements; that Atatiirk, instead of distancing himself from the RPP as he had said he intended to do, had later reneged on that promise; and finally election fraud by RPP officials. There were then some extremely contentious debates in the Assembly about who or what had been at fault. Whatever the causes, they were enough to indicate to both Atatiirk and Fethi that there was little use in continuing, and the FP dissolved itself after a life of 99 days. In concrete terms, of course, the party in its short life did not succeed in immediately remedying the weaknesses which Atatiirk sought to have it overcome, the increasingly lethargic atmosphere of Turkish politics and the failure to examine a wide enough range of

THE FREE PARTY, 1930

85

ideas to remedy problems such as the deep economic crisis. The FP's aftermath was perhaps at least as important, however, because the episode uncovered additional problems which Atati.irk then set about to address. During the years that followed, he inaugurated a number of new policies designed to tutor both leaders and followers to be more democratic and effective participants in public affairs. They included independent deputies in the Assembly; a network of People's Houses (Halkevlen) and, in smaller localities, People's Rooms (Halkodalan) to be community centres for the spread of Kemalist ideas and to give members experience ·in self-government; reorganization of the RPP to'make it more accountable; the fuller elaboration of Kemalist ideology; and vigorous development in spheres such as education and the economy. While it is an exaggeration to say that most of these policies can be given direct credit for the more permanent transition to multi~party politics after the Second World War, it is not going too far to say that the signals they sent out were that Atatiirk's intentions were indeed to transform Turkey into a competitive democracy, and ' that there were certain limits which would need to be adhered to. The Free Party Episode The reasons for taking the step at this particular time are instructive in terms of the possible functions set out above. One was internati()l}al opinion, as would be to some extent the case in 1946 as wetI"'Foreign observers·had sat in the galleries of the Grand National Assembly and had been impressed with its lethargy more than with anything else. They also expressed doubts about press freedom in Turkey, and it was true that the press was cowed after it had been strongly criticized for its support of the Progressive RepUblican Party. A second reason was that, internally, the time seemed ripe. It appears that Atattirk assumed that the cultural revolution (however vaguely defined) had been completed and accepted, even though there was little evidence - other than the understandable absence· of overt opposition to such things as secularization or to specific social or legal reforms - to determine whether this was in fact the case. A third reason may have been that reports of severely autocratic behaviour by the RPP were growing more frequent, bufonecan infer from general evidence that it was not until the public fesponsetothe FP that their serious and widespread nature became clear toAtatiirk~ On the basis of these factors, Atattirk decided on what at least initially seemed a carefully limited formula for the new departure. The decision certainly made sense.

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POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

Fo~ding The Free Party was not the first opposition party of the Republic and it was the experience of the Second Group and the Progressive Republican Party which set down some of the guidelines for what would be its limits. They would be manifested in several ways. One was in the selection of FP leaders. The choice of Fethi Okyar was made because, although he was a respected, well-known and and experienced leader, he would not be a challenger to Atatiirk himself; furthermore, under no circumstances could he be seen as more conservative in regard to Atatiirk's cultural revolution; and finally, he was considered to be knowledgeable in the area of the most pressing problem at that time - the economy. Others in the Assembly were also generally close to Atatiirk, capable speakers, had good reputations· and some degree of independent personal prestige. For example, Ali Haydar has been the first Republican governor of Istanbul and had handled the withdrawal of the last Caliph from that city in 1924. Nuri Conker was one of . Atatiirk's closest colleagues and a hero of the War of Independence. Dr Re§it Galip was a physician who had been personally recruited to public service by Atatiirk in 1923 and, among other things, had served with great distinction as Minister of Education. Mehmet EnUn (Yurdakul) was a widely-known poet of the Revolution; and Siireyya Pasha (ilmen) was a former general and deputy who was also one of Turkey's first large, private industrialists. Outside the Assembly the party was bolstered when Atatiirk made a 'gift' of his sister Makbule, as a further guarantee of his good faith. The only one who became controversial was. Alunet Agaoglu. An Azerbaijan-born professor of law and literature and a veteran politician and writer, he was closely associated with Ziya Gokalp and Pan-Turkism before joining the Kemalist mainstream. He was also known as one of the government's most outspoken critics. He was, however, highly respected in many circles. Not given to moderation, he also had the misfortune (in this situation) of a pronounced accent, which made him the butt of derisive remarks during the many occasions when he addressed the Assembly. Although the number of deputies who joined the Free Party reached only fifteen (there had been rumours that at least sixty-five had been expected), they represented the. new opposition in a vigorous and creditable way. , A second expression of the limits of the opposition, agreed to by all concerned, was the nature ·of· the FP's programme. It consisted of seven points: republicanism, secularism and liberalism; abolition of monopolies and tax reductions; direct elections; a free exchange of ideas; closer ties to the ~eague of Nations; closer relations with·.

The Premises of the Free Party's

THE FREE PARTY, 1930

87

Turkey's Balkan neighbours; and the importation of foreign capital into Turkey. Whether deliberately or because of lack of time or attention, these were never elaborated. The only points which might have been controversial were the abolition of monopolies and tax cuts, as well as the importation of foreign capital. Their significance in the later context of Turkish politics, however, was that they could be seen as opening a .door to the antagonism between the civil bureaucracy and the industriall commercial bourgeoisie and the centre/periphery cleavage, which have plagued.Turkey in recent decades. In this regard it is noteworthy who became FP adherents in individual cities and towns. Among their characteristics were that all had solid and respected local reputations and few had been involved in political activity. so that they could well be considered as part of an independent political elite, such as Duverger mentions. Important among them were industrialists and landowners such as Adnan Menderes (who was among those who showed leadership ability and were recruited by Atatiirk into the RPP during a nationwide tour which the President made immediately following the opposition's demise) and the businessman ~efik Avni in Samsun. Others who were picked to be province or city chairmen included professionals (Professor ismail Hakkt Baltacloglu in Istanbul, Drs Burhanettin Unat in Antalya and Ekrem Hayri Ustiindag in Izmir, the newspaper editor Ahmet ·Remzi Yiiregir in Adana). In this regard it is notable that one of the first actions during and after the the FP experience was to elaborate the doctrine of etatism. Furthennore, it is perhaps not wrong to infer that there was a recognition on the part of the civil bureaucracy that its position was being threatened by emerging entrepreneurial elements and that this as much as an evaluation of problems of economic development per se were among the motivations for that aspect of the new departures in economic ideology and policy of the early 1930s. There is no evidence that these matters were among the conscious reasons for Atatiirk's disbanding the FP, but one should observe here that if the dichotomy had been allowed to continue it might have raised serious doctrinal problems for Kemalism. To put it into a framework of party typologies, the RPP was to be what has been labelled a party of nation-building, but had the FP developed, it might have made both itself and the RPP into parties of class representation. Kemalism as later elaborated included the interpretation that Turkish society 'was composed not of social classes, but of individuals who belonged to various occupational groups'. The FP also received at least ostensible welcome in other circles. Taking its cue from Atatiirk, there was praise for the. idea, if not support for the opposi.tion itself, from much of the press. Even so

88

POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

partisan a journalist as YWlUS Nadi joined in Atatiirk's enthusiasm, and the activities of the new opposition had no lack of pUblicity. RPP leaders were more hesitant. Publicly they were cordial, but also confident that they would have no difficulty in retaining public approval, though privately they were sometimes resentful as well as sceptical that the entire idea was appropriate in the first ·place. The Steps in the Party's Demise With these positive qualities, why did the FP not last, and could the causes of its demise have been avoided? Whatever chances there were of controlled multi-party development by focusing on specific matters like the economy were quickly eclipsed by the FP's rapid slide into extra-parliamentary activity. Ex-post facto explanations of why this happened included Atatiirk's overenthusiasm; confidence that the cultural cleavages which the revolution had intended to overcome had been borne out by the facts; the inability to control the groimdswell which developed; and that the entire affair was a strategy by Atatiirk to see whether reactionary elements had actually been eliminated. There is no reliable basis for detennining which of these were actually pertinent or their relative importance, since all were probably to some degree applicable. Extra-parliamentary activity took various forms. Branches were opened in many cities and towns. Due largely to the opposition's almost instantaneous momentwn, local leaders were for the most part unable to carry out Fethi Okyar's promises that the acceptance of members into the Free Party would be carefully controlled. There is little doubt that the speed with which the FP grew in popularity startled both its supporters and its opponents. By one estimate, in the first two 'Yeeks after the announcement of the party's founding, some 13,000 applications for membership had been received. The exuberance went so far that whole towns were declared by some of the party organisers to have proclaimed themselves members, and although in many such cases RPP loyalists were quickly able to counter those claims, in others it was clear that overwhelming sentiment was indeed with the opposition. One of the- aspects which must surely have been disturbing to Atatiirk was that little, if any, of the enthusiasm could be said to have been on the basis of the Free Party's programme, so that if one of his goals was to have multi-party politics with some intellectual or programmatic content, the situation left much to be desired. One of the main reasons given for the decision to end the FP was that it had become the vehicle for counter-revolutionaries. There was some basis forthis contention, although it is hard to establish its degree or depth. Green flags of Islam did appear in pro-FP election crowds; there were accusations of communist agitation; Kurdish problems in eastern Turkey were seen to have worsened (although they had started before

THE FREE PARTY, 1930

89

the Free Party was created), and there were unconfinned reports that pictures of Atatlirk were tom down or defaced. The best-known specific incident which was attributed to the stimulus to more open expression of opposition was the mu.rder of a young officer by local dervishes at Menemen in December (after the FP had folded), for which the government meted out severe punishment. What should have been even more disconcerting; and in fact was treated so during the 1930s, was the revelation of great popular resentment of the RPP's behaviour, even more than of some of its poli~ies. It quickly became apparent that a great many Turks considered the RPP merely a political machine, and a good part of the enthusiasm for the FP came from the fact that the local elections provided an opportunity to dismiss numerous officials. It is, of course, difficult to say to what extent this was interconnected with anti-revolutionary sentiment, but there is no doubt that the conduct of party functionaries was a substantial factor in itself. In any event, the RPP's victory in the local elections was decisive. The opposition was successful in only about 30 of the 512 localities involved. There were widespread allegations of RPP-conducted election fraud, for many of which there was convincing evidence. It is noteworthy that resentment had lingered on and had been brought up as late as the 1946 elections. Was it a mistake to have allowed the FP to go so far? Probably only in terms of timing. It is possible with hindsight to say that these things were done too hastily and with too little control, but it may be that they were important for giving the new opposition a semblance of reality without which it might have been no more than a superficial sham. In that event none of the objectives of the endeavour, domestic or international, would have been realisable. It is only because it was in fact seen to be a serious venture that the episode revealed what it did. It is also likely that the problems that came to light would have been present later as well.

The Question of Atatiirk's Role Before moving on to discuss the FP's aftermath, one must take up one more matter which would have some relevance to installation of competitive politics in 1945. Despite Li.e fact that a good deal of the initiative for the Free Party idea came from AtatOrk, Okyar requested some assurances of support from the President. He obtained them in the fonn of Atatlirk's declaration that he would give such support by taking the position of a 4father' - a fonnula unc~er which he would remain not only finnly in control, but also the most visible figure. In a public letter, he told Okyar and RPP leaderlPrime Minister Inonu,

90 -POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY during my tenn of office I will perfonn my duties as President impartially vis-it-vis the party which is in power and the party which is in opposition, and be assured that secular, Republican political activity by your party will not be obstructed in any way.... I expect to see much struggle between- the two parties and their leaders, but I welcome it with great pleasure. It will strengthen the foundations of the Republic. And I say to you here that I will gather you together at my table, as I did in the days of the greatest tumult, and ask each of you 'What did you say and why did you say it?', 'What was your answer and how did you justify it?' This will be a great honour for me. 4

In less formal settings he was reported to have expressed himself even more strongly. A journalist who was witness to some meetings quoted the President as saying privately to the two prospective opponents together, 'Now I am a father, and you are my children. . . '5 That he was wlable or unwilling to maintain this posture probably marked the end of the Free Party's prospects. In a way Okyar brought this on himself by repeatedly pressing the issue, though it was not an tmreasonable request. Several formulas were suggested, including having Atatiirk run in the 1931 national election at the head of both parties, amending the Constitution to provide for direct election of the president and to not have his term coincide with that of the Assembly, or having him accept the presidency for life. For historical and emotional reasons AtatOrk could not bring himself to accept any of these. It can be suggested, however, that in terms of Atatilrk's longer-run position it was fortunate that when the RPP also began to press him on this matter, in mid-September 1931, there was enough evidence of anti-Kemalist infiltration of the FP so that his renewed declaration that he would be impartial, but that he would at the same time refuse ~o separate himself formally from the RPP, could be put in patriotic terms. It was not until his later years, that Atatiirk divorced himself to a greater degree from the day-to-day running of the government and the party and from many of the policy discussions among some of its factions. One of the consequences of the final resolution of this issue was that as soon as AtatOrk's ultimate decision became known,the RPP quickly emerged from a relatively restrained tone in the Assembly and the press, and began to attack the opposition in bitter and often personal terms. It was not difficult, though it was deeply disappointing, for Okyar to decline to continue, a decision which his friend Atatfuk had little choice but to accept. We will consider later some of the steps towards the installation of competitive politics in the 1940s. It is appropriate to say here,

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however, that in terms of the general political liberalization which Atatilrk sought to bring about during the 1930s, the fact that he was no longer physically on the scene in 1945 was an important component. Much of the thrust of the new policies which we will next discuss was that both leaders and followers had to become capable of making their own decisions within the framework of the Kemalist cultural revolution, and that they would not be indefinitely guided by him in matters of day-to-day policy and politics. One of his achievements during the 1930s was in fact to institutionalize Kemalism as a c01).cept which was both limited by placing certain extremes beyond the bounds of legitimacy, and flexible in terms of actual implementation of programmes. He was to be the pennanent symbol of this revolution of both modernization and democracy. It is to some of the efforts to make the next move more successful that we now turn. It is here that Duverger's question, cited at the beginning of this chapter, of whether the single party may in a not. so congenial context prepare the ground for a competitive politics becomes relevant.

The Aftermath As I have noted earlier, among the most important aspects of the FP episode was its aftermath, when Atattirk tried systematically to remedy the faults that the endeavour uncovered. Our assessment of the new policies must be on several levels. On the whole we can conclude that while, as individual policies, only a few can be given direct credit for the installation of democracy in 1945 - threats to the ruling party by the FP were real - as a group, the latter sent a set of danger signals. Let us review the efforts in question which I have earlier called 'tutelary'.

The Independent Deputies One of the 'faults' which were to be' remedied was the lethargy of the Assembly, not only in that the rank and file of members were strongly dominated by the party leadership, but also that there was little stimulus to consider alternative policies, particularly in regard to the economy. A remedy was to continue parliamentary opposition, but not on an organized scale. Atatiirk attempted to do this through reserving in the 1931 election thirty seats in parliament, for non-members of the RPP. (Despite Atattirk's exhortations only twenty of these seats were filled.) For the 1935 Assembly, the number of seats for independents (i.e., non-RPP members) was reduced to sixteen, but a liberalizing change was made by allowing them to form an Assembly Group which granted them more formal privileges in debates. In 1935, representatives of the religious minorities were also included among the independents. 6

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POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

Of the tutelary policies, this was perhaps the least successful per se, though it did at least counter some foreign criticism and was among the clearest of the signals that Atatiirk sent. Although the independents included some capable and experienced men (Halil Mente§e, president of the last Ottoman Parliament, SJIrl Bellioglu, earlier a minister of economics, Htisnii Kitap<';l, an Izmir lawyer-merchant, and in the 1935 Assembly retired generals and former Progressive Republican Party members Ali Fuat Cebesoy and Kazun Karabekir), the simple fact that they had no chance of forcing changes in government (i. e. RPP) policies other than through Atatiirk's personal intervention meant that nobody in the RPP had to take them seriously. In addition to encouraging the individual parliamentarians. to defend their own policies publicly, there was also the problem of new ideas, particularly regarding the economy. Most of the independents, capable as they were, had little expertise in economics, and so while they could question or criticize specific points and present to the Assembly new or additional information on particular subjects, they seldom went so far as to oppose government policies directly. The Assembly was hardly the place for more sophisticated discussion of alternative economic policies, anyway. That was left for another activity, the encouragement of the Kadro movement.

People's Houses and People's Rooms Another new policy was the organization of a network of People's Houses and in small localities, People's Rooms. These had a number of purposes. One was that of developing institutions which would offer educational programmes about the Atatiirk revolution, establishing libraries, organizing cultural and sports activities, offering practical education, setting up health services, and providing support for students, etc. Here too success was varied. The non-political activities became very popular, but the more directly indoctrinal programmes were a good deal less so, for at least two reasons. One was that not only did their quality often leave much to be desired (many were reported to have been little more than propaganda harangues), but also because they were attended mostly by groups such as teachers, so that they preached -to the converted. There was also only a small effect for an additional purpose - tutelage for self-govenunent. According to their statutes, the Houses were to be open to everyone, whether or not they were members of the RPP, to be administered by their members and to initiate discussion of different viewpoints. In fact, they became affiliates of the central RPP through controls over their budgets and support facilities, and thus few new people were given administrative experience, to say nothing of being recruited for leadership roles. 7

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Reorganization of the Republican Party During the 1930s, Atattirk tried a number of fonnulas to make the RPP more accountable. Primary responsibility was given to local and provincial officers (rather than national leaders and central inspectors) for carrying out directives sent from higher levels, and the fonner were required to report not only on their activities but also to 'communicate in writing to the next higher echelon their own thoughts about these directives and the party's aims'. Another formula was in direct response to specific complaints made during the FP period: RPP branches were ordered to cease interfering in the activities of private organizations, such as trade unions and professional associations, and, in fact, were forbidden to put up party slates for office of the latter organizations, unless the RPP's Central Council specifically ordered it. In this sphere, too, there was less than complete success. There is little evidence that domineering by party members was reduced until the party itself was threatened in 1946. 8 The Development of RepUblican Ideology If the results of the policies just described cannot be shown to have been directly connected to the installation of competitive politics in 1945, there are more positive things to be said about one of Atatiirk's major preoccupations during the 1930s - the elaboration of an ideology which came to be known as Kemalism. One cannot consider it coincidental that the process became faster and more intense only shortly after the demise of the Free Party. The two major aspects of Kemalism which were relevant to the topic of this chapter were that it was very much of the open variety in that on one hand it drew limits on permissible ideological dissent, but that on the other hand it also left many of .the details and the specifics general enough so that there could be discussion on appropriate ways of implementation. After 1930, there was often vigorous debate on the latter, and claims by the advocates of many specific policies that their views were consistent with Kemalism. The only real check on such claims was Atatiirk himself, and in 1946 the fact that those who founded the Democratic Party had been members in good standing of the RPP was an important component of their ideological legitimacy. The post-FP implantation of Kemalism took place inere.mentally. Between 1931 and 1937 it was elaborated under the rubric of the RPP~s programme, symbolised by its Six Arrows. In 1937, these were inserted into the Turkish Constitution~ so that in 1946 they could be said to have become the nonns that all political parties had to respect. Four of the six Kemalist principles were enunciated before the FP period: republicanism, nationalism, populism and secularism. To a large

94- POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY extent these were expressed in fonnal provisions, many of which were carried out. The two principles added in 1931 were. directly derivative of the lessons of the FP episode however: etatism and revolutionism. (Some people have preferred to translate this arrow as reformism.) These two principles were important in that they were addressed to specific problems for which policies had to be devised, and in that they were particularly well suited for interpretation through public debate. This was especially the case with etatism. Atariirk was the first to admit that he was no economist, and for this reason, among others, the sphere of economic policy was left freer than some others from the president's overshadowing role. Debate was thus vigorous during the 1930s and soon took on overtones of a concerted struggle between the bureaucracy and the private industrial/commercial sector, which was to become and remain a major sphere of controversy throughout the multi-party period. The idea that it would be necessary for the state to play a major role in economic development was not new, of course; in fact, even the tenn had been used earlier, when inonii declared, on 30 August 1930, as he opened a new railway facility in Sivas, that his government was 'moderate etatist' (mutedil devlelft). What he meant was that the Turkish economy had to be rescued from the clutches of foreign domination in matters like railways and utilities, as well as resq;ctions on customs' levies which, under the Lausanne Treaty, the Turkish Government had been required to maintain for a specified mnnber of years. On these points there was little controversy. On internal matters, though, not all minds met. It was Okyar who had drawn some lines for the initial debate. In answer to inonii's Sivas speech, he indicted the Government for 'having interfered in everything over a period of many years, so much so that there has been no room for the free development of individuals', and he described his definition of liberalism as not laissez-faire, but 'to seek to remove obstacles to private enterprise. and [to encourage] an attitude wherein the people grow not to look to government for everything. . . It is not merely coincidental that the development of Europe today is associated with the free and co-operative activity of capital and labour.' Much of the discussion during the early 1930s was spurred by the so-called Kadro movement. This was named after a radical left-wing journal, published between 1931 and 1934 by ~evket Siireyya Aydemir. The debate, if not necessarily the ideas espoused in Kadro, was strongly encouraged by Atatiirk, who frequently invited Kadro journalists to his 'dinner-table academy', at which there were almost nightly debates on numerous subjects of national importance, particularly economic ones. Kadro ceased publication because of

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pressure from the RPP, ostensibly for showing disrespect for party leaders by claiming to be an adherent of the RPP, while it was really the opposite. Atatlirk was reported to have been reluctant to see Kadro disappear, but was won over by long-standing demands by men like Recep Peker, that the party be the principal source of ideological development as well as of its dissemination. The principle of debate on etatism was established, however, and the advent of strong anti-private sector ideology within the admittedly necessary large-scale government development activity sharpened the multi-party controversy of post-1946. The' meaning of revolutionism can be described in similar terms, though the debate about the concept remained vaguer, necessarily on a nrunber of levels. Although some have interpreted it to mean a summation of Atatlirk's reforms, it is not likely that it would have required a new principle. What made it significant was the inference that what was necessary was profound patriotism in the sense of an, entire spirit, a mentality, a way of behaviour, a method of implementing the other principles and the refonns. One interpreter wrote that jthe Turkish Revolution is a total change of social values, and of legal, economic, political and moral .structure. Revolutionism (continuing revolution) is needed to establish and deepen it. '9 In the words of a high-ranking official: 'Turkish democracy is not a dogma or Koranic verse (ayet). It is a soul, a spirit, an essence (mana) ... '10. Atatiirk himself exhorted his countrymen that the duties we are compelled to perfonn for the Turkish nation and for the Turkish republican state are not finished, and will not be finished. Those who pass from this world and bid farewell to the Turkish nation must say to their children as their last words, 'My duties to the Turkish nation, the Turkish Republic, to the future of Turkism, have not been finished and it is your duty to complete them. And you must repeat these words of mine to those who come after you. . . . If every Turk repeats this as a great slogan to those who follow after him, it will show that the spirit of the Turkish nation will never die, but will be eternal.'ll

It was under this principle that indoctrination activities addressed to the entire population were undertaken, such as the People's Houses and People's Rooms. Much of its thrust was in the' great intensification of nationalism, and among actions towards that goal were the new concept of history as well as the second phase of the language refonn. 12

96 . POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

Conclusion The Free Party (and its aftennath): a success or failure? On at least two counts, it can be argued that the entire episode is a failure. The revelations and the ensuing new policies were at best negligible in that the real impetus which was central to the installation of competitive politics in 1945 came not from policies which were the products of the need to remedy defects as they were first brought out by the FP experience, but were by-products of general modernization: the expansion of education, economic development, the growth of communications and transportation, and other matters which integrated more and more people into the mainstream of national life. 13 It could be said that its role was even negative in that the FP experience in fact increased the intensity of domination by the RPP during the 1930s, emphasized through the nation-building role which Atatiirk gave it for purposes which were in themselves well-justified, and that this in turn was among the seeds which later sprouted into the intense partisanship which has plagued Turkish politics for much of the multi-party period. . However, in several important ways, the 1930s did lay the foundation for the subsequent transition to democracy. The FP's turbulent life revealed shortcomings in Turkey's political development far earlier and more vividly than might otherwise have been the case. Taken as a whole, the new policies which Atatiirk had the opportunity to inaugurate sent a clear signal that had he lived, he would indeed have tried the installation of democracy again. Among these policies was enlisting into the RPP some of those who had shown leadership ability in the FP, and that by keeping in it some rivals to what we might call the party's orthodox leadership (Adnan Menderes and Celal Bayar are, of course, the most important cases in point), it gave legitimacy to their 1946 defection from the RPP. This is so because both of them as individuals, as well as some of their interpretations of what was acceptable under the Kemalist umbrella (and which was congenial to the wishes of much of the general population who were intent on maintaining the revolution of modernization), had indeed been at least tacitly sanctioned when they were retained in important party and government posts. On balance, then, the experiment of the FP was a success. Furthennore, with reference to the questions raised by Duverger, in important respects a positive response is also warranted. The post-FP period did in fact begin to give scope to the growth of an independent political elite. In reference to his rumination about the single party serving as the 'temporary guardian, making it possible

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for the fragile plant of democracy to grow in soil that is not prepared for its reception', we are led to a more ironic conclusion for the result in Turkey is not quite what Duverger envisaged. While I do not wish to denigrate the patriotism or the sincerity of the leaders of the RPP, there is little doubt that they were unable to control their rank and file in the sense of being truly accountable, until they were forced to. Even Atatiirk succumbed to the attractions of power, adulation and a place in history, though it should also be said that his remaining as the pivotal charismatic figure has certainly had some very positive consequences. Still, I know of no other example of so sincere and earnest an attempt at democratization as the Free Party endeavour and a subsequent one which Atatiirk undoubtedly envisaged, even if it had meant, as Atatiirk surely sometimes realized, that he might well have been asking the RPP, perhaps, to preside over its own removal from power in the name of the greater revolution. That the trauma of preparing for the installation of competitive politics "were so great even for a leader of Atattirk's quality may be a sobering but important lesson for scholars and statesmen alike.

Notes See, for example. the case studies of several countries in southern Europe and Latin America in Guillenno O'Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter and Laurence Whitehead (eds), Transitions from Authoritarian Rule (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984-86). 2. See, inter alia, Walter F. Weiker, 'Serbest frrka - ba§an veya ba§anslZhk?' Forum, no. 167 (1961): 9-10, and no. 168 (1961): 12-13. 3.. Maurice Duverger, Political Parties (New York: 10lm Wiley, 1954), p. 280. All factual information in this paper is taken from Walter F. Weiker, Political Tutelage and Democracy in Turkey, The Free Party and its Aftermath (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1973), hereafter Tutelage. The footnotes below are intended mainly to identify speakers and quotations or to give additional sources. 4. Tutelage, p. 70, from Ataturk'un Saylev veDemefleri, 1906-1938 (Ankara: Turk Tarih Kurumu Baslmevi, 1959), pp. 257--8 (Editors' note: However, see C.H. Dodd's different interpretation of Mustafa Kemal's views on social classes in Turkey). 5. Tutelage, 70, n. 1. The journalist was Asun Us. 6. The Free Party's electoral slate in Istanbul had also included several candidates from the minorities.

1.

98 7.

8.

9. 10.

11. 12. 13.

POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY After 1946 there were attempts to separate better the cultural and political identities of the People's Houses, but the negotiations to detach them from direct RPP control had not been successfully concluded by 1950, and they were closed by the Democratic Party government. See Tutelage, ch. 12, and the bibliography there. I did not have access to whatever RPP archives for that period may still exist. Tutelage, p. 255. Sadri Etem. Tutelage, p. 255. $iikrii Kaya at the Fourth RPP Congress, 1935. Tutelage, p. 254, speech to the Faculty of Political Science (Mulkiye) students in Ankara. On these reforms see Tutelage, pp. 227-33. For a review of these social and e~onornic changes see Tutelage, ch.15.

7 The Republican People's Party,

1945-1980 Frank Tachau

Introduction The history of the Republican People's Party (RPP) from 1945 to 1980 encompasses a period of unprecedented change for the party and the party system. This period began with the inauguration of multi-party politics and the first electoral defeat of the RPP. In tenns of the framework adopted in this volume, the shift from one-party to multiparty politics opened the way for a concomitant shift from ideological cleavages to functional cleavages as the basis for party organization. Towards the end of the first phase of this period (1945-60), the RPP began recovering from its dismal electoral perfonnance and to show the potential for becoming a genuine challenge to the governing party. Indeed, it was generally assumed that this development prompted the" Menderes regime (1950-1960) to move in an authoritarian direction, which, in tum, triggered the military intervention of 1960~ During the second phase of the period (1961-73), following the restoration of a civilian regime, coalition politics emerged in the system. The RPP began this phase as the dominant partner in a series of unstable coalitions. It then entered a new stage of electoral defeat and once again assumed the role of opposition party. Like the first phase, the second phase came to an end as the RPP once again showed signs of electoral recovery. Also, like the first phase, the second phase ended with what amounted to a military coup, although this time the forms of a civilian regime were retained. There were, however, differences. In particular, during the transition to the third phase, the RPP undertook a clear transfonnation in several respects. First, the party's electoral base began to shift from the old coalition of elites at the centre and periphery to a predominantly class-based alignment, i. e. from a cultural to a functional basis. Second,

106 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY the party began to assume a more clearly defined ideological position. Finally, the party experienced the second major. transi~on of top leadership in its history, replacing the venerable Ismet Inonii with the more youthful and ideologically inclined Biilent Ecevit. In the third phase of our period (1973-80), the RPP. maintained a more viable electoral base, rising from 33 per cent at the outset to better than 40 per cent. Although coalition politics re~emerged, there was a clearer alternation between the two major parties in leading governments. A volatile and highly personal rivalry also emerged between the RPP leader and his counterpart in the Justice Party OP). Before elaborating on these points, it is appropriate to note that in the transition from one phase to another the RPP manif~sted aspects of a number of different, though related, party types. In its early years the RPP exemplified the comprehensive nationalist type of party. This type has been defined as 'a single party which is pluralistic in organization, pragmatic rather than rigidly ideological in outlook, and absorptive rather than ruthlessly destructive in its relationships to other groups. '1 Acomprehensive nationalist party typically emerges in the course of a struggle for national independence. This was certainly the case in Turkey, especially with the organizational predecessor of the RPP, namely, the Society for the Defence of Rights. As the regime matured, however, the party became more typical of the one-party authoritarian model, which Joseph LaPalombara and Myron Weiner describe as 'single, monolithic, ideologically-oriented but non-totalitarian'. 4The developmental aspirations and mission of the nation', they add, 'are (often] identified with a single party' and 'very often the party and nation are led by a single dominant figure . . . who is supposed to personify the goals of the nation.'2 During Atatiirkts tenure as President of the republic and head of the party, the RPP fitted this pattern well. In fact, during the period covered by this chapter, the RPP in essence presided over the fulfilment of the commitment to develop a truly democratic system. In the course of that development, the party drastically changed its character and role, for it lost both its comprehensiveness and its position of dominance, and certainly, by definition, ceased to be the sole legitimate party in the system. Another mode of characterizing political party developments during the period under review here is suggested by Dankwart A. Rustow. He points to a succession of cycles in Turkish party history, consisting of 'a rhythm of diastole and systole, of expansion and contraction'. 3 Rustow identifies five such cycles with breaking points in 1908, 1918, 1945 and 1961. In each of these cycles, he argues that there were two phases: in the first phase, 'there is a great deal of freedom of organization, at least in comparison with the preceding period; a large number of

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parties are formed, and in the acrimonious competition among these a single group wins out and at length establishes its dominance.' During the second phase, 'this victorious group proceeds to suppress its rivals and . . . to rule the country dictatorially; the latent opposition forces now consolidate in a single organis'ation which displaces the dictatorial, regime, revokes the repressive measures, and thus starts the first phase of the next cycle.'4 The parties referred to by Rustow were: the Union and Progress Party (1913-18); the RPP (1923-45); and the Democratic Party (DP) (during the 1950s). The period under review here encompasses the last two of Rustow's five cycles; by extrapolation, it also encompasses a sixth cycle, beginning in 1973 and ending with the end of our period in 1980. These latest cycles depart from Rustow's paradigm in that they have ended with military intervention rather than repression imposed 'by the dominant party. Nevertheless, the cyclical or rhytlunic character of Turkish party politics appears to have endured. 5

1 Towards a Two-party System The RPP is in effect the mother of all political parties in Turkey, at least since 1925. It was the spawning ground of the first opposition parties to emerge in the beginnings of the multi-party era, and particularly of the DP. Given the fact that the RPP was the only legal party for most of the Republican period prior to 1946, this may not be surprising. On the other hand, it is remarkable that no serious party emerged in opposition to the Kemalist reform programme of which the RPP was the champion. There are good reasons for this development. Nevertheless, considering the persistence of political cleavages in other societies, the relatively smooth transition from authoritarian one-party rule (or mono-party rule in Feroz Ahmad's words), 6 is noteworthy. Moreover, this transition saw the introduction of democracy in Turkey; it is thus crucial to the main point of inquiry of this volume. The outcome of the transition was not pre-ordained. In fact, the very notion of allowing political opposition parties to fonn freely triggered a serious conflict within the RPP between hardliners, who favoured the continuation of the single-party regime, and moderates, who supported liberalization. Significantly, both factions recognized the need for refonn in the aftermath of The Second World War. There was general recognition of the need to respond to the frustrations and pent-up demands which had accumulated during the prolonged period of unchallenged RPP rule and under the pressures of the war. In addition, the dictatorial regimes of Europe had suffered an ignominious defeat in the war, and it was evident that Turkey would encounter

102 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY difficulties in the post-war international arena unless it established a closer relationship with the victorious' democratic powers. The question was whether the RPP should respond to these demands and pressures by continuing the past pattern of imposing refonn measures from above) or whether the system should be opened up to competing ideas from outside the party. particularly by pennitting the organization of opposition parties. The latter option posed a severe psychological challenge to the RPP. The first two decades of the republic saw a dose integration of party and state. Essentially, the military officers and civil bureaucrats were the main props for both party and regime, with local notables serving as important supporting coalition partners. Frederick W. Frey has traced the evidence of this combination of interests, as revealed by the occupational backgrounds of members of the National Assembly. His study shows that lUltil1946, half or more of the members of each session had previously served in either the military or the civil service. 7 Thus, as Rustow puts it, during this period, Ithe laws that were to be administered by civil servants and upheld by army officers on active duty were drafted by an assembly in which former civil servants and officers held dominant positions.'8 ' The prospect of liberalization constituted an implicit threat to the power and influence of this heavily dominant elite, particularly in view of the development of a burgeoning new middle class of professionals and commercial elements during the preceding years of relative political calm and stability. Hardliners in the RPP, led by Recep Peker, gave the most direct expression to such fears of loss of power on the part of this elite. They argued that, just as Atatilrk's reform programme could not have been brought about in a democratic system in which special interest groups would have been free to oppose and obstruct, so it was now necessary to deal with the serious iniquities that remamed by strong direction from the top. 9 Ironically, it was the enactment of such a refonn measure in this fashion which aroused exactly the kind of opposition that the hardliners feared. The measure in question was a far-reaching Land Reform Bill enacted by the National Assembly in January 1945. The political implications of this law were clear: it drove a serious wedge between rural-based landowners and state-centred bureaucrats, two of the major elements supporting the republican regime up to that time. 10 Bernard Lewis has characterized the law as signifying 'a major revolution, [which, if implemented, would] transform. . . Turkey into a country of independent peasant ~mallholders.'l1 Significantly, one of the four founders of the DP, who' emerged as critics of the government at this time, was a major landowner, Adnan Mtmderes. 12 The strong opposition occasioned by the land refonn law may well

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have seriously weakened the hardliners in the RPP. At any rate, President inonii appeared to side with the moderates who favoured liberalization. He 'opened the Pandora's box of competitive multi-party politics in Turkey' in his presidential address of 1 November 1945, in the course of which he accepted the argument that the absence of opposition parties was a major defect of the system, and that such parties should be allowed to organize 'in keeping with the needs of the COWltry and in the proper functioning of the atmosphere of freedom and democracy'. 13 Two months later, four leading RPP dissidents fanned the Dp'r which was destined to become the choice of a majority of the electorate. The struggle between the authoritarian and liberal tendencies in the RPP continued for some years. Although relations between the ruling party and the fledgling opposition were initially not unfriendly, they later deteriorated to rather low levels. Thus, elections were moved ahead from 1947 to 1946 in order to force the Democrats into open electoral competition before they had tinie to organize adequately on a national scale. The RPP hardliners in tum were used as a foil by the opposition; the opposition accused them of threatening to restore authoritarian rule by outlawing their party. On occasion, inonii interceded in order to maintain a semblance of moderation and to sustain the momentwn of multi-partyism. Finally, in July 1947, he declared that the opposition 'must be permitted to operate under the same conditions as RPP', and that 'as President ... he would serve both parties impartially'.14 The . . . result I seek is establishment of the basic condition [for relations] between the two parties.... The opposition will work in . . . security without fearing [dissolution by] the party in 'power. The Administration will consider that the opposition demands only the rights legally conferred upon it, while the citizens at large will view with confidence and tranquility the possibility of having the government powers in the hands of one or the other party. IS This presidential declaration was followed by a fundamental change in the Government, marked by the resignation of the hardliner Recep Peker'and the appointment of a new Cabinet, which did not include a single advocate of the continuation of one-party rule. With the formation of opposition parties, the dynamics of multi~PartY politics began to assert themselves. Already in the 1946 election campaign, according to Kemal H. Karpat, RPP, candidates felt it necessary for the first\time to visit their constituencies and actively canvas votes. I6 By early 1949, the process had gone so far as to include considerable liberalization of government policie$, particularly on the

104 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY economic front. In January of that year, 5emsettin Giinaltay became prime minister. This appointment highlighted liberalization on another front, i. e. religion; Giinaltay has been described as 'a liberal theologian who thirty years earlier had been a literary associate of Mehmed Akifs'.17 Even before this turn to the right on a major symbolic issue, the government had enacted a number of liberalizing measures on religion, including the introduction of religious instruction into primary schools, opening of a series of preacher training programmes (imamhatip kurslan), and the establishment of the Faculty of Theology at Ankara University.1s :; One additional point merits attention. It could be argued that the imperatives pushing the inonii-led RPP in the direction of multi-party politics were clear enough, and that tnono.'s own commitment to the goal and his influence in preparing the path towards that objective were decisive. However, one major institution might have tilted the balance in the other direction, had it chosen to do so. That institution was the military. Apparently, however, the military was not inclined to' intervene in this fashion, probably because, like the civilian sector~ it suffered from divided loyalties itself.l9 One scholar goes so far as to suggest that it was precisely the uncertainty about the attitude of the military which persuaded the RPP leadership to opt for liberalization. 20 Try as it might, however, the RPP was unable to shake off its image as the representative of a haughty and oppressive reform-minded elite which was out of touch with the average Turk, particularly in the rural hinterland. The average Turkish villager had benefited from the republican reforms in that they brought a period of peace and stability. But, despite RPP rhetoric to the effect that the peasant was the master of the nation, rural villagers had yet to experience significant improvements in the material conditions of life or the structure of opportunities. As Sunar points out, 'the CHP [RPP] elite were revolutionary in culture and ideology but essentially conservative in economic and social policy. '21 Consequently, not only did peasants and townsmen fail to benefit materially from the RPP regime, but they were also irritated by the regime's policies of cultural Westernization and secularism. Peasants and small townsmen, therefore, had little difficulty identifying with and supporting the DP. As Sunar has put it, 'peasants and workers did not need to be forced into their support of the Democratic Party by their patrons; given their destitution and frustration, they were more than willing to support an 'alternative government promising new policies. '22 On the other hand, the Democrats could not realistically be a~cused of opposing or threatening to abandon the basic cultural reforms put in place by the RPP either. Thus, given the closing off of the option of continuing the one-party regime, the RPP had no choice but to try to

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compete with the DP in the advocacy of j~emocratic rights, religions freedom, and the liberalisation of political and economic policy. '23

The RPP in Opposition Given these developments, it is not surprising that the RPP was soundly defeated in the 1950 elections, and that it remained a minority party throughout the 1950s. 24 With the benefit of hindsight, what is remarkable is that this sharp reversal of political fortunes seems to have been entirely unexpected, particularly by the inonii regime. Naturally, RPP partisans sought to understand and to explain what had happened to them and their party. The explanation which found the greatest favour among them suggested that the RPP had become a minority party, because its strong advocacy of reform and secularism no longer appealed to the less educated peasant voters who had been successfully mobilized by the DP. According to this explanation, the Turkish electorate was divided into two mutually hostile camps, one enlightened, progressive, civic-minded and' altruistic, the other uneducated, parochial and led by an unscrupulous self-interested elite willing to cater to the most obscurantist and reactionary sentiments among the masses. Since the educated and enlightened group supportive of the RPP was obviously a minority in Turkish society, it followed that the party was probably doomed to prolonged exile in the political wilderness. This interpretation of political developments posed a deep dilemma. If the RPP represented the best hope for continued reform and progress, and if its political base was indeed a small and permanent minority, then it could not hope to regain power by democratic means. Therein lies perhaps the greatest paradox of recent Turkish political history: the party that introduced democracy was soundly rejected by the voters, its presumed beneficiaries. Moreover, once the commitment to democracy was made, there was no turning back. 25 There is good reason, however, to doubt the soundness of the RPP's own intei-pretation of the reasons for its defeat. If that interpretation were correct, the party should have been weakest in less developed constituencies dominated by masses of poor, parochial, unenlightened peasants, and strongest in more modernized provinces in which such elements were less important. Even if one assumed that peasant voters were subject to mobilized voting organized by their patrons, the result should have been the same. However, analysis of the distribution of votes across the country indicates that the actual patterns were precisely the opposite of what such an interpretation implies. 26 A likely explanation of this apparent anomaly is that traditional provincial elites continued to dominate the politics of less developed

106 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY areas; that these elites continued to support the RPP as they had since the fonnation of the Republic; and that in fact they controlled the votes of their clients, the peasants. By contrast, the society and politics of the more highly developed parts of the country were considerably more complex, including industrialists, smaller business interests, industrial labour and the professions, as well as such traditionally pro-RPP sectors as the bureaucracy and the intelligentsia. Moreover, rural peasants in these more modem parts of the country were more likely to enjoy greater autonomy and prosperity, and thus to support DP-sponsored departures from the state-centred policies traditionally favoured by the RPP. Finally, as the 1950s wore on and the DP became more solidly entrenched in power, control of governmental resources enhanced its ability to dispense favours and privileges to its partisan supporters, solidifying electoral support among those groups which favoured it from the beginning, and gaining support among such new groups as residents of the burgeoning urban squatter districts (gecekondus).27

Another factor which played a role here was the strongly emphasized republican principle of secularism and its antithesis, religious sensitivity. Sunar points out that part of the initial popular appeal of the DP rested on its portrayal of 'bureaucratic enforcement of secularism as a fonn of oppression'. This posture struck a responsive chord especially among peasant voters because for them religion was a surrogate for social discontent, something the RPP singularly failed to understand - or, if it did understand, was unable to overcome. 28 Despite a visible relaxation of its commitment to secularism during its last years in power, the RPP, and especially its leader, ismet inonii, continued to emphasize adherence to this principle throughout the years of opposition during the 1950s. Undoubtedly, this principled stance was a barrier to strengthening the party's support among the newly mobilized peasant voters. As the 1950s progressed, the DP showed increasing insecurity in power as well" as greater sensitivity to criticism and opposition. Both tended to escalate as the DP's policies of unbridled economic development led to serious economic problems. The result was a move towards greater authoritarianism on the part of the DP, ironically reflecting precisely the same kinds of tendencies as had been evident among RPP hardliners in the late 1940s. The RPP responded by ass~g a stfong (even strident) position in opposition to these tendencies. Ismet Inonii, the grand old man of both the RPP and Turkish politics generally, became a highly personal symbol of commitment to the maintenance of democratic principles. The details of these developments have been well documented and need not be recounted here. Suffice it to say that the resolution of the crisis came

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in 1960 with the military intervention, which brought an end to the decade of DP dominance. Ironically, the military takeover interrupted the RPP's effort to build on the growing opposition to the DP, and thus, seriously jeopardized its best hope of ultimately returning to power by means of free elections, as many observers expected.

Transformation of the RPP The RPP did return to power in the election of 1961, but the circumst,mces following the military interregnum led sceptics to &uggest that the only way the party could stage a comeback was with the help of the military, rather than through the free choice of the electorate. This scepticism was reiriforced by the fact that the RPP's perfonnance in 1961 actually declined from the level of 1957. Its hold on power was tenuous, and lasted only as long as it took the ex-DP voters to decide which of the newly organized parties was the true heir of the outlawed Democrats. By 1965, the RPP was again out of power; it emerged from that election with the worst electoral performance in its history. As if this were not enough, its performance four years later was even worse, prompting some observers to wonder whether the party could survive as a major factor in Turkish electoral politics. ismet inonii resigned from the prime ministership for the last time in FebruarY 1965. Not only was this the beginning of the end for the durable and historic leader, but it also brought to an end a tumultuous period marked by a.§~ries of weak coalition governments, something !IDprecedented in the Oistory of the republic. 29 It. is.
108 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY Workers Party (TWP) emerged to the left of the RPP, which thus needed to show new life, to discard the image of its own past. and to distinguish its position clearly from the conservative JP while competing with the TWP to its left. Accordingly, inonti set forth the maxim 'left of centre' to describe the party's position; but this slogan boomeranged with the JP's mocking slogan, 'Ortanzn soiu, Moskova yolu' (left of centre is the road to Moscow).31 It would be a mistake. however. to blame a mere slogan such as this for the disastrous performance of the party in the 1965 election. As Ahmad suggests, The RPP was unlikely to win the election in 1965. In spite of its political record, the supporters of the status quo· considered it too progressive; and the radicals were disillusioned with it for being progressive in words, conservative in action. The decision to introduce the slogan was regarded as an investment that would payoff. not in 1965, but in 1969 or even 1973. For the moment it was a question of defeating the conservatJves in the party and establishing a consensus around the new orientation. 32 The results of the 1973 election seemed to indicate that the investment had paid off, for it marked an upswing of the RPP vote, and made possible the party·s return to governmental power. In fact, the 1973 election saw the continuation of a trend that was already discernible in 1969. This trend consisted of a distinct shift in the composition of the RPP vote. This shift becomes readily apparent when we consider the distribution. of support for the RPP in various provinces. The. data clearly indicate that RPP support,. had shifted dramatically from the patterns that prevailed during the 1 1950s. The most highly developed provinces, in which the party hadf: been weakest, were now the areas of its greatest strength, while, '. conversely, its support in the least developed provinces, which had been its bastions during the 1950s, dropped sharply. This pattern continued in 1977, when, for example, the RPP garnered more than 50 per cent of the vote in three provinces - significantly, the three provinces which include the largest cities in the country (Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir). RPP strength in the least developed provinces, on the other hand, declined in confonnity with the national pattern up to 1965, but thereafter failed to rise, as did the RPP's fortunes elsewhere. In only one of these provinces did the party gain the support of more than half the voters (Tunceli). On the other hand, its share of the vote fell below 20 per cent in five provinces each in 1969 and 1973, and three provinces in 1977. The remarkable increase in RPP voting strength in Istanbul is particularly notable. In that most highly urbanized province, the RPP vote more than doubled between 1969 and 1973, from roughly 200,000

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109

to nearly 500,000, or almost 50 per cent of the votes cast. 33 In fact,in 1973, the RPP dominated the urban electorate. Not only did it ' capture half or more of the votes in the four largest cities, but it also captured the mayoral office in 32 of the country's 67 provincial capitals in the mtmicipal elections later that year (as against only 22 for the jP); notably some of these cities, including Istanbul, had strongly supported the JP in earlier elections. Moreover, it appears that the improved performance of the RPP in urban areas was due in large part to electoral shifts among the lower classes, and these shifts apparently involved direct switches from support of the JP to . the RPP.34 Interestingly, the RPP's performance did not improve in similar fashion in rural areas, either in more modernized or in less developed provinces. This tableau led Ergun Ozbudun and the present authQr to conclude that a significant realignment of Turkish parties had occurred between 1965 and 1973, moving from cultural towards class· divisions. 35 The new left-of-centre stance and the change in RPP leadership was both a response to social change and a spur to the expression of those changes through party realignment. 36 There may well have been a kind of synergistic dynamic at work here, in which the two developments fed on each other. At any rate, a new figure, Biilent Ecevit, became the head of the RPP, the first change in top leadership since the death of Atatiirk in 1938. He was young and dynamic, and determined to move the party away from its traditional image as the political arm of the etatist elite which, despite its populist rhetoric, was distrustful of the masses. With the resignation - at long last - of the octogenarian ismet inonii and the defection of his more conservative supporters, the party entered the 1973 campaign perhaps less divided than at any time since the advent of the multi-party regime. As the election campaign progressed, the expectation was that the I RPP would again perfonn badly, especially since there had not been sufficient time for the new leadership to get its feet on the ground. 37 But there were also signs of change, particularly during the election campaign. Ecevit drew large and enthusiastic crowds wherever he appeared. 38 The atmosphere he generated was optimistic, and emphasized his personal appeal and his commitment to democracy. ) This was reflected in campaign slogans and rhetoric as well. Chants of 'Populist Ecevit' (Halkfz E cevit) along with signs proclaiming 'Our Hope is Ecevit' (Umudumuz Ecevit) greeted the RPP leader at campaign rallies around the country. He was dubbed Karaoglan (a popular young folk hero), and his election manifesto, entitled 'Tow¥ds Bright.-Da¥s~ (Ak Gunlere), was sold in large quantities. 39 As 'erection day neared, an RPP victory began to appear within reach - at long last.

110 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY The RPP did score a victory, but it was hardly decisive. The very fact that the party gained the support of 33 per cent of the electorate and was the largest party in the new National Assembly constituted a major achievement, particularly since it was accomplished without the support of one of the traditional pillars of the party, the rural notables. Perhaps the most notable feature of this election was that in some important respects the RPP and its major opponent, the lP appeared to have switched positions with respect to the power centre of the state. Traditionally, the RPP had projected the image of an establishment party closely aligned with and supported by such state-centred elites as the civil bureaucracy and the military. Thus, with the inauguration of new regimes in 1950 and 1961, the profile of parliamentarians showed the RPP delegation as older, more politically experienced, and with somewhat higher proportions of former 'Officials than the major opposition party. In 1973, on the other hand, the RPP delegation was distinctly younger and much less politically experienced than the lP delegation, and more rooted in the free professions than officialdom. 40 This apparent transformation in the image and character of the RPP was deliberately engineered by Ecevit as an integral part of his electoral str.;1t.egy. It was clearly designed to providea'moaerate:. teft--alfemaiive for the masses of underprivileged voters, in both city and countryside. The obvious long-term hope was to amass a sufficient number of votes from these sources to gain a secure hold on govenunental power and to use that power to enact a true programme of refonn, such as the RPP had promised for dose to thirty years, but_ had never delivered.

The Turbulent 19708 The 1973 election confirmed the logic of Ecevit's strategy but presented him with a dilemma. The 185 seats won by his party -were more- than 40 short of a majority, although they exceeded the second party (the lP) by a respectable margin. The RPP was thus a prime candidate for leading a government, but its choice of potential coalition partners was such that its chances of advancing any of its political causes - or its longer-tenn chances of building its electoral strength - were jeopardized. Under the circumstances, the party might well have been better off to remain in opposition. That option was obviated by disarray and mutual hostility among the conservative parties, which effectively prevented them from forming a coalition without the RPP, or against it. In any case, .Demirel took an adamant position on behalf of the JP, insisting that the party's proper role was to -stay on as opposition. After prolonged bargaining amon~ the parties

I

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and several aborted attempts to form a government, Ecevit surprised his own followers and the country by announcing an agreement on principles for a coalition with the fledgling National Salvation Party (NSP), led by Necmettin Erbakan. At first sight, nothing seemed more far-fetched or beyond reason than such a coalition. The NSP, after all, based its appeal on l}ostility to the principle of secularism, one of the most cherished planks iiiRPP pta:tfotMs-"sinte· tlie· heady·· days of Atatiiurk. This appeal, moreover, symbolized its r~ection of the. Western. mog~J in cultural affairs and beyond -:- even eXtendli1g info"1fie-·-econoriUc sphere. The RPP, by contrast, historically stood for the adoption of Western principles and methods, and strongly emphasized the goal of acceptance of Turkey and Turks as equals by the West. The NSP's anti-Western stance was expressed in its condemnation of liberalism as a political ideology and in its critical stance towards capitalist economics. Contrary to the tendency of both the larger parties, the NSP opposed Turkish ties to the EEC and to NATO.~ How then can this unlikely coalition of the RPP with the NSP be explained? . Perhaps surprisingly, there were some common elements in the platforms of these two parties: BQth .f~ed .to believe in ademocr~fY that guaranteed the II fundarnentarfreenom-s:-a"" iriiXed· "e·conomy, economic and social l) development with social justice, and an economic policy WhiCh/I benefited society as a whole and not only some of its groups. Both were committed to the protection of tradesmen and artisans' and their small en.terprises which produced capital goods. Bothi sought working conditions that were humane and democratic,! as well as social security, and opposed the exploitation of the! people by 'big capital'. ~ I

Alunad concludes that both parties were responding to the pressUres of rapid modernization, the NSP invoking 'traditional Islamic values' as a shield to protect the victims of social ~d economic transfonnation, while the RPP prescribed 'an updated Ke.rnalist nationalism in which social welfare became a powenul ingred1ene~"43~-E"ach also had more immediate motives. The NSP sought legitimacy, particularly" since its political ancestor, the National Order Party, had been outlawed only about a year earlier. As Ahmad suggests, 'it was almost a question of survival that Erbakan find a role· for his party in any coalition government; a coalition With the secular and Kemalist RPP would automatically enhance the image of his party. '44 Ecevit also needed to establish the legitimacy of the RPP under his leadership, particularly since he had earlier taken a "~-Ong--stance..ag<.linst military intervention in politics. He assumed that the office of pnme-ffiiriisfer

·party

112 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY would give him an opportunity to prove his political responsibility and trustworthiness. . It is especially important in this cormection to note a basic shift in the image which the RPP projected, particularly after the accession to leadership of Billent Ecevit. This shift pertains to the relation between the RPP and the military. Historically, the party had been perceived as closely identified with the Kemalist state. In effect, the party was perceived as a guardian of the state. This perception was particularly important to the military, who viewed themselves and their role in a very similar light. After the onset of weak and unstable governments in the 1960s, followed by the retirement of ismet inonii (the last living link with Atattirk, and himself a professional military officer), the leftward shift of the RPP seemed to the military to move the party to an anti-statist stance. As Metin Heper and this author have said, As political polarization deepened during the 1970s and the labour movement suffered spasms of organized violence, the RPP seemed to move further from its traditional role as guardian of the state. This development, along with the . . . inability of the govenunent to maintain or impose its authority, must have been unsettling to the military. It opened an unprecedented breach between them and the RPP and reinforced the military's conception of themselves as the prime guardian of the Atatiirkist state. . . . The way was thus open for the coup which ultimately occurred [on 12 September 1980].45

It is not necessary to review in detail the developments which followed the fonnation of the first Ecevit government in 1974. It is enough to note that petty partisanship on the part of all the parties combined with social and economic pressures to deprive the RPP of yet another opportunity to build a sufficient base of electoral strength to give it a stable hold on power. Ecevit proved unable to capitalize even on his immense popularity in the wake of the Cyprus crisis of 1974. Three years later, the 1977 election once again made the party the largest in the Assembly, but still left it short of a majority. The right was thus able again to frustrate Ecevit's best hopes to fonn a stable and effective government. Nor were the rightist parties any more successful themselves. The 1979 partial election saw a sharp drop in the RPP vote and a rise in support for the 1P, the militant right-wing Nationalist Action Party and, significantly, the extreme left. The fact that the drop in voter turnout between 1977 and 1979 almost exactly matched the loss of RPP votes in the provinces involved in both elections, suggests that the major cause of this apparent turnabout was the

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'massive abstention of RPP voters to punish the poor perfonnance of the Ecevit government'. 46 If that is, in fact, what happened, the party realignment noted above was not reversed in 1979. It is also possible that voters were disillusioned by the inability of the RPP government to solve either the economic crisis gripping the country, or to put a stop to the rising tide of extremist terrorism. The fact that significant party realigrunent in 1973 and 1977 failed to produce stable and effective government in Turkey was a tragedy for Turkish democracy. The deadlock between the RPP and the ~ main opposition party paralyzed the government, and may thus haveunintentionally provided an opportunity for extremist groups to wreak .. havoc on the society. Ultimately, the challenges to Atatiirkist valuesand symbols became too glaring for the military to ignore. The coup of 12 September 1980 was the result, bringing about another hiatus in Turkish democracy and with it the demise of the RPP.

Conclusion The RPP itself manifests many of the ambiguities that plagued Turkish politics during the years under consideration here. _It was the party which, after aU, introduced democracy to Turkey. Yet, for all its democratic rhetoric, internally the party remained dependent _on personal fealty to the leader. This was true even after the transition from inonii to Ecevit, despite the fact that the latter was strongly committed to the idea of populism. 47 In one sense, this strong dependence on personal leadership reflected a' deep-seated attribute of Turkish political culture. Given the proper context, however, this attribute is not necessarily irreconcilable with a democratic party system. The crucial variable here is the party's attitude towards other parties. On this score, the RPP undoubtedly had more tolerant attitudes towards other parties than they (especially the'DP) showed towards it. Moreover, at certain critical points, the presence of a strong leader probably played a major role in assuring a smooth transition from one political phase to the next. Thus, as the account in this chapter indicates, there can be no doubt that the personal commitment of President ismet inonii to the transition from a one-party authoritarian regime to a multi-party democratic regime was crucial to the smooth passage through that transition in 1950. Similarly, Ahmad suggests that Inonii's position at the helm of the party in 1965 contributed greatly to the relatively smooth transition to a more ideological position at the left-of-centre. 'Had inonii left the party at this point', argues Ahmad, 'there would have been a bitter and uncontrolled struggle for power between the radical and the conservative factions, with victory in the

114 POLITICAL PARTIES AL'\J"D DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

balance. His presence assured a gradual evolution instead of a sudden shift in one direction or the other.'48 . The latter transition, as we have argued above and elsewhere, was in a sense as profound as the transition from one-party rule to the mUlti-party regime. This transition marked a clear ideological shift of the party to the left and a corresponding shift in electoral fortunes and the nature of electoral support. We have not focused on analyses of the electoral shifts because that would distract from the central concerns of this volwne. But it is important to note that these programmatic and tactical shifts combined to drive a wedge into yet another coalition f social groups which had traditionally supported RPP. Just as the I arty's advocacy of radical land reform in 1945 had alienated the local otables, so the new party st3rtce in the mid-1960s raised questions lin the minds of the military about the reliability of the party w~ch hag J'theretofore been identified in their minds as a partner in the s~~r€d task {of guardianship of the State. Evidently, these doubts overshadowed even the impressive tradition of the party as the bearer of the mantle of Atatiirk, for the military junta did not hesitate to include the RPP in its sweeping decree which outlawed all political parties in the inunediate aftermath of the 1980 coup. f The RPP's understanding of democ.racy on occasion showed evience of considerable SOPhiStica ... tio. n.. The major opposition parties ,(particularly the DP and the JP) emphasized their populist character by claiming to represent the popular will. In the case of the Democrats, , .s led.to a kind of Rousseavian arID:lIllent, which painted the opposition \ P in treasonouScoto{iis~'--and -pomted in a clearly authoritarian !direction. Perhaps it was this experience which helped solidify the RPP's commitment to democratic values and procedures.lsmet Inonii re~ed this commitment in an interesting manner in the mid-1960s, when he suggested that the system of proportional representation, and the coalition politics which it spawned, were just another· evolutionary phase in Turkey's development as a democracy. 49 We may conclude by conjecturing as to the curious paradox which ifound Turkish politics shifting from cultural to functional cleavages in l.the 1970s while, at the same time, parties became more and more Yfragmented and polarized. One possible explanation of this paradox is that the shift from one form of cleavage to the other was incomplete. Cultural cleavages, which may be more hospitable to fragmentation, thus may have been resilient enough to overcome the newer functional cleavages. The fact that functional cleavages were more evident on the left of the political spectrum - the left being electorally weaker than the right - lends· support to this interpretation. It is also possible that an electoral system less favourable to splinter parties of any kind might have enabled the functional cleavages to produce an absolute

~

~

i I

THE REPUBLICAN PEOPLE'S PARTY, 1945-1980

115

parliamentary majority for the leftist RPP, enabling it to consolidate its new position and avoid the paralysis and crisis which brought on the coup of 12 September 1980. We will never know what might have happened if that possibility had been realized. Nor will we know for some time whether any kind of durable left-of-centre government is possible in Turkey. .

NOTES 1.

2. 3.

4. 5.

6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

Jos~ph LaPalombara and Myron Weiner,

'The origin and development of political parties', in Joseph LaPalombara and Myron Weiner (eds), Political Partws and Political Development, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1966), pp. 38-9. Ibid., p. 38. Dankwart A. Rustow, 'The development of parties in Turkey', in Ibid., pp. 112-13. Ibid. For another view of the cyclical nature of Turkish politics, see Ersin Kalaycloglu, 'The by-~lections of 1986: a scrutiny of Turkish electoral politics', Current Turkish Thought, no. 56 (1986). Feroz Ahmad, The Turkish Experiment in Democracy; 1950-1975 (London: C. Hurst, 1977). Frederick W. Frey, The Turkish Political Elite (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1965), p. 18I. Rustow, 'The development of parties in TUrkey', p. 121. Ahmad, "The Turkish Experiment in Democracy, p. 10. Ergun Ozbudun, Social Change and Political Participation in Turkey (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), pp.45-6. Bernard Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, 2nd edition (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), pp. 474-5. ~iikrii Saracoglu, the prime minister under whose aegis this legislative proposal was SUbmitted, was also the author of the Varlzk Vergisi (Capital Levy), enacted less than three years earlier. That law met with strong opposition from commercial interests, who regarded it as a threat to the institution of private property. It was rescinded after only 16 months. See Kemal H. Karpat, Turkey's Politics: The Transition to a Multi-Parly System (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1959), pp. 114ff. For a detailed chronology of multi-party politics during the years 1945-71, see Feroz Ahmad and Bema Turgay Alunad, Tiirkiye'de 90k Partili PolitikantnA~klamalt Kronolojisi (1945-1971) (Ankara: Bilgi Yaymevi, 1976).

116 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19. 20.

21. 22. 23. 24.

25.

Alnnad, The Turkish Experiment in Democracy, p. 9. Ibid., p. 23. . Karpat, Turkey's Politics, p. 192. Ibid., p. 162. Dankwart A. Rustow, 'Politics and Islam in Turkey, 1920-1955', in Richard N. Frye (ed.), Islam and the West ('S-Gravenhage: Mouton, 1957), p. 95. Ibid., p. 94. George S. Harris, 'The role of the military in Turkish politics', The Middle EnstJournal, 19 (1965): 64. llkay Sunar, State and Society in the Politics o/Turkey's Development (Ankara: Artkara University Faculty of Political Science, 1974), p. 83. Sunar quotes Clement Henry Moore as suggesting that a different outcome of the Second World War could have thrown the balance in the direction of Recep Peker and made RPP 'the exclusive source of legitimacy justified by an explicit ideology'. Clement Henry Moore, 'The single party as a source· of legitimacy', in Samuel P. Huntington and Clement H. Moore (eds), Authoritarian Politics in Modern Society (New York: Basic Books, 1970), p. 50. Sunar, State and Society, p. 86. Ibid., p. 87. Ibid., p. 83. For a detailed account of the politics of the 1950s, see Alunad, The Turkish Experiment in Democracy, chs 2-5, pp. 35-146; chapter 4 (pp. 103-21) deals with the RPP. According to Alunad, the main problem of the RPP during this period was personified by the leadership of inonu: so long as he remained chainnan, the electorate seemed to regard the party as the unreformed authoritarian party of the past; on the other hand, he was viewed by members of the party as the only person who could hold the party together, and prevent its utter disintegration. Ahmad also argues that the fortunes of the two parties began to reverse themselves in 1955, due largely to the serious deterioration in economic conditions. Karpat argues that the Democrats were as amazed at the election results as the Republicans~ He attributes the outcome to the 'accumulated discontent' of twenty-seven years of one~party rule, and suggests that had the election been held two or .three. years earlier, the RPP would have garnered only half the votes it received in ~950. Thus, although the party's 'wise and liberal policy' of the late 1940s strengthened its electoral. support, it was nevertheless 'doomed to lose, as the symbol of the one-party system. Had it won the elections the

THE REPUBLICAN PEOPLE'S PARTY, 1945--1980

117

feeling would have subsisted that the one-party rule continued'. Turkey's Politics, ,Pp. 241-2. Rumour has it that certain military officers offered Inonii the option of cancelling the election and remaining in power, but that he rejected the offer on grounds that, having served as a general, foreign minister, prime minister, and president, it was appropriate for him to assume the new responsibility of leader of the opposition. Ibid., 26.

27. 28.

29. 30.

31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

39.

p.242n. Conversely, the pattern of DP support was the reverse of that shown by the RPP, i. e. its strongest support occurred in the most developed provinces, and vice versa. For, a fuller analysis, see Frank Tachau (with M.J.D. Good), 'The anatomy of political and social change: Turkish parties, parliaments and elections', Compgrative Politics, 4 (1973): 563-4. ;..", -,' ,,' , ' , See Ozbudtm, Social Change and PoliticarPartidP4tion\t'jt Turkey, passim, esp. p. 49. J,'."i ~''''" Sunar, State and Society, p. 84. During these years, there :were also two further, unsuccessful, attempts at military coups. Ahmad, The Turkish Experiment in Democracy, pp. 177-85. Ibid., p. 250. Ibid., p. 251. Ibid., p. 253. Ergun Ozbudun and Frank Tachau, 'Social change and electoral behaviour in Turkey: toward a "critical realignment"?', International Journal of Middle East Studies, 4 (1975): 467-8. Ibid., pp. 472-3. Frank Tachau, Turkey: The Politics ofAuthority, Democracy and DeveloP,'!Ylent (New York: Praeger, 1984), pp. 71 ff. .. Ergun Ozbudun, 'Turkey', in Myron Weiner and Ergun Ozbudun (eds), Competitive Elections in Developing Countries (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1987), p. 347. Ahmad, The Turkish Experiment in Democracy, p. 319. Each of the major parties scheduled massive rallies in Taksim Square in Istanbul at the climax of their campaigns. Ecevit's crowd overflowed beyond the square, and was so dense that his campaign bus had considerable difficulty making its exit after the formal end of the rally. A few days later, Demire1 drew a distinctly smaller and far less enthusiastic crowd. The same spirit of 'enthusiasm and hero worship was manifest in the smaller towns outside Istanbul as well. Personal observation. Indeed, the RPP raised significant amounts of money through such sales, as well as the sale of other artifacts identified with the party, including Ecevit's picture. This was virtually

118 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY unprecedented - at least on such a scale. Alunad, The Turkish

Experiment in Democracy, pp. 329-30. 40.

41. 42. 43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

48. 49.

Notably, the RPP had a significant proportion of teachers among its parliamentarians, reflecting the politicization of that profession. Frank Tachau, 'Social backgrounds of Turkish parliamentarians', in Commoners, Climbers and Notables: A Sampler oj Studies on Social Ranking in the Middle East (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1977), p. 307; ide~. t 'The anatomy of political and social change't.. p. 557. See also Usttin Ergiider, 'Changing patterns of electoral" behavior in Turkey'.,. Bogazifi University Journal (Istanbul), 8-9 (1980-81): 45-61; Ozbudun, 'Turkey', pp. 350-1. For a detailed account of the NSP, see Jacob M. Landau, 'The National Salvation Party in Turkey', Asian and African Studies, 2 (1976): 1-57. Alunad, The Turkish Experiment in Democracy, pp. 332-3. Ibid.· Ibid., p. 334. See also Frank Tachau, 'Turkish political parties: toward a reconciliation of modernity and tradition?', Paper presented at the International conference on the Next Fifty Years in Turkey, 1974-2024, Ankara, 1974. Frank Tachau and Metin Heper, 'The state, politics, and the ~tary in Turkey', Comparative Politics, 16 (1983): 31. Ozbudun, 'Turkey', pp. 348-9. This remains characteristic of Ecevit, in so far as the contemporary Democratic Left Party which he now heads is also strongly dominated by his personal leadership, while he continues ·to criticize the other major left-of-centre party as having been built 'from the top down'. Ahmad, The Turkish Experiment in Democracy, p. 253. 'Personal interview, 7 August 1964.

The Democratic Party, 1946-1960 Ali Ya§ar Sanbay

Introduction In the spring of 1945, President ismet inonii decided to 'allow the fonnation of opposition parties.~\ His aim was to transform the singleparty regime into a contested one.' Many (a~tors persuaded inonii to democratize the regime. One was the favourable change in the international environment following the victory of the democratic regimes in the Second World War. Another was the long tradition of Westernization, which also 'implied democratization. A third factor was the social unrest due to wartime shortages and profiteering. l Soon, Turkey qualified as a case of 'spontaneous' transition from monopoly to competition. 2 In 1945 and 1946 fifteen new parties were founded; however, it was the Democratic Party (DP) which emerged as the major opposition party., ,Th,eDp V'oI'as foun~ed 9n 7 January ,1946 by 'four prominent parliamentarians of the Republican People's' Party (RPP).' The founders of the DP were Celal Bayar, deputy for lzmir and fonner prime minister duriIlg the presidency of Atatiirk; Adnan Menderes, deputy for AydIn; Fuad Kopriilii, deputy for Kars and a renowned p,r,·~ssor 0,f history and literature; and Refik KoraItan, deputy for lc;el. jOn 14 May 1950, only four years after its establishment, the DP won power with an overwhehning electoral victory. After remaining in power for ten years, it was overthrown by the military, on 27 May 19£.0.\ VTiie day the DP came to power was undoubtedly a turning-point in Turkey, not only because political power changed hands for the first time since 1923 through free elections based on a 'secret ballot~pen count' principle, but also because the POlitiCali sis of the system began to shift from the 'statist'to the 'politicar elites And it was the first ~e in Turkish political development that the 'm: in the street' began to matter.

120 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

The DP on the Road to Power In order to understand better some of the factors behind the DP phenomenon it is necessary to take a brief look at the socio-economic and political conditions under RPP rule between 1945 and 1950. Following the Second World War social unrest became widespread due to economic difficultie~ The war economy carried out by' the RPP was characterized by blackrnarket dealings m essential items, ~affilrising prices. Throughout the war--lleople on fixed incomes ~or r w . e those engaged in trade and industry ]!few-n~ er. .... revenue ~upe state, 00 the o~ hand, remainecrstatic and inadequate to the new needs necessitate fiy the defence bUqge:fS. lff1n~_wg~~onsequently, the Government felt the neea to; increase taxation at theeipenseof ~eaIf.fiier social groups as ..theJandownet:s~.ansJ. eriterpr~ueur~_The Government levied a heavy ~_£.lPj!a.J,t.~_ . ~yarlzk Vertrisz), which aimed atplacmg Hie -Dtif~ii"Q~~ rofiteers . '" '"'''eiliari~s''' d"busmessmen' who had benefited most E;Qm the War eCQnomy.3 Since the tax was implemented in an ar Itrary and harsh manner it soon led to bitter complaints. Those most affected came to the conclusion that their security would only be assured by the r~cement of the government. 4 i~During the war years, the peasant masses had been economically 'deprived and found themselves unable to maintain their earlier levels 'of conswnption. The severe disparity between the we~thy on the one hand and the poor peasantry on the other induced the Government to attempt to gain the favour of the latter by placing a land refonn proposal before the Grand National Assembly (GNA) in 1945. If it had gone through. the refonn would have redistributed state-owned land to poor peasants. But despite President inonii's support for the Bill, the proposal was rejected. Opposition to land refonn was voiced, among others, by Adnan Menderes and Refik Koraltan; Menderes himself was alandown~ . Discontent with the single-party regime also became apparent during a debate in the Assembly on the United Nations Charter. Menderes expressed the view that, by signing the Charter, Turkey was committing itself to full democracy, as the Charter asked its signatories to make such a pledge. On 7 June 1945 Menderes, together with three other P de u ~.... I!J.adRopruIii, Celat Bayaram efik Koraltan, submitted to the ,Chairman of me RPP's Parli<m!.entary group 'Proposals for Chan.Be~ ~ tth~ PatfLB.Y-I,*s and in Some Laws'. It was requested that all an 1- emogatic laws as well as someartiCle-S" Q.f the party's by-=Ia\Vs-'-snoufcfbe amended oraItQie~~i__~!?!Qggl~JLitLoLd~r. JQ-..~tiiri~~The···

THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, 1946-1960

121

regime into a fully democratic one. Further, govemment should be to .P..QP!!lM. .!;Qntrol @d .emt.tiQD~:§l1otildberre-~:5 . u~ ,u_.. _. "" ---. me proposal came to-the"floor of the party's-'p:afiiamentarygroup on 12 June 1945 and was rejected by all its members, with the exception of the four signatories of the proposal. Upon this, Adnan Menderes and Fuad Koprillii started openly to oppose the Goverrunent; they wrote critical articles in Valan, an Istanbul daily. Soon afterwards, they were expelled from the RPP. Refik Koraltan argued· that this decision clearly violated the party's by-laws. He was then ousted from the party. In the face of his associates' resignation, Celal Bayar, too, decided to resign, first as deputy and .then from membership of the

~d

~ediatelY

......

after his resignation, Bayar explained that they had decided to establish a new party. that would make the regime more democratic. President lsmet inonii, who had reservations about this opposition group, nevertheless invited Bayar to discuss the establishment of the new party with him. Eventually, Bayar and his associates, by reaching an agreement with inonii that they would respect Atatiirk's principles, established the DP officiallJ;.t6 The agreement the founders reached with President lnonii led to some RPP propaganda that the DP was .the work of collusion. But Bayar defended his party to the press, saying it was wrongly thought of by some to be secretly cooperating with the ruling party. He asserted that, as a political body, the DP was independent. 7 Indeed, in the four years following its establishment, the DP proved to be very different from the RPP. First of all, as Feroz Ahmad points out, most party members sought power in order to carry out a substantial programme of refonn which required, at its very minumum, the replacement of the bureaucratic state identified with the Republicans with a democratic one. 8 For this reason, the Democrats took the heavy-handed bureaucratic state as the principafi>roblem. It was their view that the political reorganization brought about by democratization in Turkey contributed a great deal to the solving of the country's economic and social problems. 9 The' Democrats quickly gained popularity with the masses and successfully established their party branches throughout the country. The party contested the general election of 1946 and gained 61 seats (the RPP secured 396 and Independents 4), despite the irregularities it faced. In the 1950 general election, the DP won overwhelmingly. It received 53~3 per cent (4, 242, 833 votes) of the total votes (7, 953, 055), gaining 408 seats (83.5 per cent of the total seats) out of a total 487 as compared to 39.7 per cent of the vote and 69 seats (14.4 per cent of the total) for the RPP and 1 and· . 9-·seats for the Nation Party

122- POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY and the Independents, respectively. With this DP landslide Turkish political life entered a new phase. .

The DP and Social and Political Cleavages It is often assumed that a political party org~es itself on the basis of identification with a certain type of cleavage in terms of which the alignments of the electorate crystallize. Cleavages are the dimensions along which the members of a community or sub-community fonn themselves into groups. The relevant cleavages are those that divide people into groups with important political differences. 10 A political party is faced with the necessity of making strategic choices between older and newer cleavages. Also, it usually engages in attempts to politicize those who are most favourable to it and se:ek to depoliticize those who are not. 11 The political cleavages of the late Ottoman Empire were inherited in large part by republican Turkey. This was particularly reflected in tl).e social composition of the RPP. The RPP was born out of an alliance between the central military-bureaucratic-intellectual elites and the local notables. 12 . Three principal factors gave rise to that alliance. First, we may point to the circumstances of the Turkish War of Independence. The military-bureaucratic elites and the local notables were the only groups with an interest in maintaining an independent Turkish state and capable of mobilizing the peasant majority into a struggle for independence. 13 A second contributing factor was that the Turkish revolution was definitely not a social revolution aimed at realizing radical change in the existing social structure. l4 .Lastly, concomitant with the second, the immediate goal of the leaders of the Turkish revoh.ition was not to change the peasants' fate fundamentally or to grant them increased political power. On the contrary, as Frederick W. Frey has shown, the Turkish revolution exploited the divisions between the elite and the masses. 15 Thus, with the passage of time, it became clear that The RPP's military-bureaucratic leadership felt no need to change, their wartime allies. On the contrary, the support of local notables was essential to maintaining law and order in the central leadership to devote its energies to the program of Westernization. The notables, in their tum, had little reason to oppose such a program, since, by its nature, it did not pose a threat to tb.eir local pow~r. Furthennore, their cooperation with the goVernment, which increasingly penetrated into the countryside, seems to have enhancedc'their power, rather than

THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, 1946-1960·

123

decreasing it. Thus, an implicit trade-off materialized between the groupS.16 Regarding this alliance, it must be noted that the RPP made little effort to broaden its popular base and enlist the support of the peasant masses. 17 Their attitude towards the peasants can be attributed to its major concern: the state. The state, in the view of the RPP's leadership, was the unique regulating mechanism and source of legitimacy in society. IS The RPP's conception of the state constituted a continuum with that of the· Ottoman elite groups. In other. words, both for the Ottoman elites apd for their RepUblican brethren i Politics, power and most of national (as opposed to local) life revolved about the state. What restrained the political elites in their quest for power was more a common loyalty to the state, an awareness of their'mutuality of fortune, the power of competitive actors, and the limitations of their own resources, rather than notions of rights inhering in various parties or the illegitimacy of certain political means. 19 Thus in the 1950 elections, the DP attacked such principles of RPP as Westemism, refonnism, statism and especially secularism. Through competitive party politics, not only did religion become a political factor but the official interpretation of secularism became less strict. In fact, it can be said that the acquiescence of the Government towards religion, pennitting wider grounds for religious practice and education, was both a natural result of democracy and a necessary a~strnent to it. 20 \.During its first tenn in power, the DP did not exploit religion for its oWn gain. It successfully identified itself as the liberalizer of religion without compromising Atatiirk's refonns. 21 The Government 'was determined to be firm in the face of reactionary tendencies. In June 1951, for example, it launched an all-out effort to round up and detafu the Ticanis, a religious order that was vandalizing statues of Atatiirk and campaigning for a theocratic monaichy.22 All doubts about the Goverriment's intention should have disappeared With the passage of the 'Atatiirk Bill' (25 July 1951), which granted the Government greater powers to deal With those who contested Atatiirk's reforms. 23 Two years earlier, at the DP Congress of 1949, Cela! Bayar had reaffirmed his party's secularist position. There he declared that his party would not use religion for political ends and would oppose any movement pushing for religious reviv~4 Over time however, the DP became inclined not to handle reactionaries in the:.way it had done in the early 1950s. The Atatiirk

124- POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY.IN TURKEY Law, though still on the statute book, gradually became virtually a dead letter. The DP Government stuck its head in the sand as the reactionary press castigated the RPP as a party against religion. The DP itself in time became associated with the resurgence of Islam. In 1958, when Turkey experienced its worst year economically and people were most dissatisfied with the difficult .conditions, the DP leadership began openly to misuse Islam for political purposes. The Islamists exploited the situation, and increased their propaganda campaign agamst Atatiirk's refonns. To a great extent this trend was capitalized on by the Government in its 'Fatherland Front' (Vatan Cephesz) campaign, one which they made seem like a religious and national duty to join. 25 The more the DP became associated with the Islarnists, the more it was regarded as part of the peripheral religious movement opposed to the centralizing and secularizing bureaucracy. Interestingly this resulted in the peripheral Islamic opposition gaining a greater share of popuJ,ar loyalties than govenunent officials could ever dream of buildin.,e:; As Ozbudun observed: This provided an almost irresistible temptation for the factions of the national elite . . . to appeal to the sentiments of peripheral Islamic opposition. Thus, the political 'outs' found a rich source of support in the periphery, even though their own leadership differed little in its social background characteristics from that of the 'official' party.26 In this context the DP demonstrated its willihgness to politicize Islam when it accepted the support of Nurcus,27 one of the most,powerful religious groups in the country. It is noteworthy that by May 1958 the situation haa worsened to the point that opposition and government joined forces to crush the reactionary developments surfacing in the country - dangerous trends in their opinion which would lead· the country back into ignorance and fanaticism. 28 However, the DP's policy in regard to religion prompted tnonii to state that these practices (by which he meant Vatan Cephesz) would lead to other dangerous developments in the COWliry. The DP parliamentary group, on the other hand, stated that it was not by any means against religion. The end result was a series of charges, denials and counter-charges. In the process, the two political parties became hopelessly polarized. 29 Soon after (on 27 May 1960), the anny intervened. ~ By the end of the Second World War, the entrepreneurs had gained in importance. This new stratum was mainly composed of landowners, JBcai notable~: ~d big city merchants. 3o They objected to the predorillnant role of the RPP and the state in the economy, and became critical of etatist policies. In particular, large and medium-sized

THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, 1946-1960

125

landowners opposed the Land (reform) Law of 1945, a point made above. The law caused the first serious split in the ruling alliance of the single-party regime. While the bureaucratic-intellectual wing of the party s~ongly supported the measure, the representatives of landed interests strenuously challenged it. 31 The DP immediately came to the defence of landed interests, private enterprise and the commercial classes. The Kemalist regime had promoted a special type of controlled capitalist development in which RPP govenunents never allowed the 'nascent bourgeoisie a free hand. The ,RPP, however, declared itself squarely in league ",vith this bourgeoisie and promised to aid the birth of a similar class of opportunity of original accumulation for many a capitalist-to-be, which seems to be part of the popular appeal of the DP. 32 According to ilter Turan, the DP achieved the transfer of political, leadership from the bureaucratic-political elites to the economic one. 33 ill short, the DP had brought together various types of opposition, rejecting the power monopoly of the RPP, including rich landowners and businessmen. landless peasants and small proprietors and industrial workers. 34

The DP, the State and Democracy Throughout their 0 osition years e Democrats overused the word ocraci, loadin' WI as much aura as ossibl Tt)e tenn , p~~e a ~anace~ almost any prob em, om tax ~equility 10 _~armene pressure, from sugar shortages to nabonat oefence 35 E!t large l!l-tasure, the DemocratStfQP$ldered democracy in prescnptive ~eITris, defii'i§ia way of life.£tThey hoped that the Damc IQeaS of democracy - including the view that struggle is necessary for its realization - would take root in the daily life of the population at all levelsJln their view, the National Assembly was the only platform for w-s6fssing all matters confronting Turkey. They felt that fine-tuning the law should b~ctated by the people's will, as expressed in the home or street. bfhe function of a political party, on the other hand, should be that of debating a concern before the public and attempting to secure a majority. This view, according to the Democrats, far from being one of street democracy, was of real democracy itself. Anything less was a surrender to lobby interests and backroom politi~6 ~time passed, particularly in their first four years in office, the Democrats aimed at advancing democracy by curbing government interference and by increasing individual freedoms, 'while also ensuring that political power emanated from below rather than from above'. 37

126 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

fin

this vein the DP, for example, adopted a liberal Anmesty Law; enacted a similar Press Law; amended some of the restrictive laws and established a committee to list 4undemocratic' laws. 38 Also, when the DP took power in 1950, voluntary associations multiplied eightfold, to exceed 17,000 by 1960. This was a period of rapid growth and extensive geographic diffusion for a wide variety of associations. 39 However, these liberal policies were maintained for only four years. After 1954, rising prices, spiralling inflation, shortage of. goods and black marketeering led the government to abandon those policies. r,-Parallel to the failure of the economy, measures against the ~position began to be taken. They included the fono~:J ~ }~/

I'

j

t

The. Press Law was tightened. The Electoral Law was amended so that a candidate rejected by one party could not stand for another party in a subsequent election. In order to pre-empt the possibility of electoral cooperation. between them, opposition parties were forbidden from putting forward joint lists. The opposition parties were proscribed from using the state radio, although the party in power could continue to use it. The bureaucracy's autonomy from the executive branch was curtailed by a law empowering the latter to suspend, and after a period of suspension, to retire civil servants., including university professors and judges who either had twenty-five years' service or were over sixty. "

fTo

achieve peace and stability - 'the prerequisites for economic growth - a number of freedoms were limited. This meant that democracy lost some of its force. 41 However, it is difficult to argue that the economic difficulties were solely responsible for the failure of democracy. There were other important factors responsible for that.. q'the first such factor was the particular conception of the state that between the RPP and· Dp· the DP shared with the RPP'),Distance _.. ' -.. ..;--""'-=--';'-' pjs.:d-1lis politics was minimal: both parti§J.¥ere centre~oriented. 42 As Metin Heper noted, 'the Democrats. . . were in effect opposed to UIe ~ bureaucratic intelligentsia, not to the transcendentalist state itself."43 Let me note here parenthetically that 4transcendentalism' has been explained as the belief that man is first and foremost a member of a moral community. In its extreme manifestation, however, the state can be regarded as being inunersed in the person of the ruler. Civil servants are virtually tools of the ruler. Thus, it is no wonder that the most valued cha.cteristic of a governrrte-rtt :servant is his devotion to the person of the- ruler.44 Such a state of affairs became even more manifest during the later years of the DP. -~

-~--":

THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, 1946-1960

127

(mdeed, like the Republicans, the Democrats considered all institutions to be at the service of the party in power. This is exemplified by Menderes' reply to the Republicans during a debate on the goveniment monopoly of the state radio and not providing equal air time to the opposition. Menderes said that 'this practice was completely
128 . POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY Ceaucratic elites and the urban educated, on the other hand. saw the ~~ in its political pragmatism and leniency towards social and religious conservatism, as a danger to the modernist values of the Republic and undertook the role of champion and protector of these very val~3 As mutual mistrust between the DP and RPP increased" the fonner resorted to greater authoritarianism; this it did at the expense of letting the regime drift to its eventual demise. Politicat conflict in the 1950s between the RPP and DP was primarily about cultural cleavages rather than economic ones. In this respect, Islam emerged as the most important issue. In order to appeal to the traditional-religious sentiments of the peasantry, the DP pursued somewhat radical policies in this direction. They included the following: 54 $

o 8

e

•

The lifting of the. ban on the recital of the ezan (the call to prayer. chanted from the minarets of mosques) in Arabic. This was welcomed by religious circles, which interpreted the decision as a victory for Islam; Permitting the broadcasting of readings from the Koran over the state radio; Broadening the scope of religious education; Establishing prayer leaders' and preachers' seminaries (lmamHatip Okullan) in seven cities in 1951, and expanding their number to sixteen between 1954-55; Increasing the budget of the Presidency of Religious Affairs

(Diyanet I§leri Btl§kanlzgz). In addition to these, 15,000 new mosques were built between 1950 and 1960. On the other hand, parallel to the increase in voluntary asso<jations, the number of such private religious organizations as societies for the construction of mosques or Koran courses continuously increased. 55 More significantly, the revival of religious orders and fundamentalist religious movements, too, were tolerated. Also, during 1950-60, notables from the eastern provinces of Turkey having connections with religious orders (tankat) were regularly elected to the GNA on DP tickets. 56 The DP emerged as a party that fought to put an end to the domination of the bureaucratic state over·civil society. In C.H. Dodd's··' words: Once in power . . . the Democrat Party . . . fell foul of the bureaucracy . . . and began to mobilize people. . . in a populist fashion. They made a direct appeal through religion and other symbols, there being no classes or institutions through which to work as inrermediaries. 57 .

THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, 194&-1960

129

Conclusion /The Democrats came to power in the belief that free competition without any bureaucratic restraints in economy and polity would result in consolidating democracy in Turke~articularly after the 1957 elections, increasing economic difficulties and strengthening opposition prompted the Democrats to bear down on their opponents and introduce measures limiting democratic rights. Such a policy was certainly not what those intelleetuals dedicated to democratic ideals had been expecting. Indeed, they felt betrayed, and their disillusionment focused on the DP' s failure to maintain effective controls on spiralling inflation, its Increasing partisanship and on its sharp reaction to public criticism. 58 Besides the dissatisfaction expressed by the public at large, there were" notable negative reactions against the government in the DP's own parliamentary group, too. One of the founding members of the party, Refik Koraltan, was nominated candidate for the chairmanship of the Assembly with a mere 98 votes. The opposing candidate, a little known deputy, received 147 votes. The Vice-Chainnen of. the Assembly were elected over the candidates favoured by the party hierarchy. Furthermore, during a debate on governmental policy in the DP's parliamentary group, the opposition faction presented an interpellation on the subject of inflation and requested the Ministers of Finance, Trade and Foreign Affairs to resign. 59 In the 1955 municipal elections, popular response to the DP was decisively negative: the RPP and NP boyc.otted the elections, and the electoral turn-Qut was a paltry 37 per cent. This can be compared to the 1954 general election when the turn-out was a solid 88 per cent. 50 In the end, the DP leadership had to promise measures aimed at democratization to assuage a growing opposition both in the party's parliamentary group and in the country. These were reassurances of: ID

e III G Ci)

/ill

A constitutional amendment providing an Upper House. Respect for the autonomy of the universities. Amendment of 'undemocratic' laws enacted since 1950. Amendment of the Election Law. Amendment of the Press Law which would permit newspapers to submit evidence against high government officials accused of maladministration. New measures to curb the rate of inflation. 61

It is noteworthy that these measures resembled those that the DP had to defend against the RPP during single-party rule. However, it

130·· POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY was not long afterwards that opponents were expelled from the party, and measures limiting political freedoms were put into effect. Fuad Kopriilii, one of the founding members of the DP, resigned from the party's Central Committee, and denounced the Government as being undemocratic. 62 It was as though history were repeating itself. But this time no new political party was able to emerge. as the defender of democracy. Ironically, the Turkish army, then the strongest wing of the bureaucratic intelligentsia, intervened in May 1~60 to 'restore democracy' as well as to 'protect the state' .63. ,~

Notes 1. Dankwart A. Rustow, 'The development of parties in Turkey', in Joseph LaPalombara and Myron Weiner (eds, Political Parties and Political Development (Princeton, l'f): Princeton University Press, 1966), p. 122. See also Ergun Ozbudun, 'Development of democratic government in Tl1!key: crises, interruptions, and re-equilibrations', in Ergun Ozbudun (ed.), Perspectives on Democracy in Turkey (Ankara: Turkish Political Science Association, 1988), p. 16. 2. Giovanni Sartori, Parties and Party Systems (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), p. 277. 3. ilkay SWlar, State and Society in the Politics of Turkey's Development (Ankara: FacultY,of Political Science,' 1974), p. 80. 4. Ibid., p. 31. 5. Suna Kill, Kemalism (Istanbul: Mente§ Matbaasl, 1969), pp. 144-5. Cern Erogw, Demokrat Pam (Tar£hi ve Jdeolojisi, . (Ankara: Ankara Universitesi Siyasal Bilgiler Fakiiltesi Yayuu, 1970), pp. 10-11. 6. Erogw, Demokrat Parti, p. 12. 7. Feroz Ahmad, The Turkish Expen'ment in Democracy (19501975) (London: C. Hurst, 1977), p. 14. 8. Ibid., p. 14. 9. Sunar, State and Society in the Politics of Turkey's Development, p.85. 10. Douglas W. Rae and Michael Taylor, The Analysis of Political Cleavages (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1970), cited in Jan-Erik Lane and Svante O. Ersson, Politics and Society in Western Eurape (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1987), p. 40. 11. Hans Daalder, 'The comparative study of European parties and party systems: an overview', in Hans Daalder and Peter Mair (eds)~estern European Party Systems: Continuity and Change (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1983), p. 19. .

THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, 1946-1960 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

20.

(;I

131

Ergun Ozbudun, 'The nature of the Kemalist political regime', in Ali Kazanclgil and Ergun Ozbudun (eds), Ataturk: Founrkr of a Modern State (London: C. Hurst, 1981), p. 82. Ergun Ozbudun, Social Change "and Political Participation in Turkey (Princeton, NJ= Princeton University Press, 1976), p. 43. Ibid. Frederick W. Frey, The Turkish Political Elite (Cambridge, MA; MIT Press, 1965), p. 41. Ozbudun, Social Change and Political Participation in Turkey, p~ 44. Ibid. Ali Kazanclgil, 'The Ottoman-Turkish state and Kemalism', in Kazanclgil and Ozbudun (eds), Ataturk: Founder of a Modern State, p. 48. Frederick W. Frey, 'Patterns of elite politics in Turkey', in George Lenczowski (ed,), Political Elites in the Middle East (Washington, D. C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1975), p. 45. Kemal H. Karpat, Turkels Politics: The Transition to a MultiParty System (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1959), p.287.

21. 22.

23. 24.

25. 26. 27.

28. 29. 30.

31. 32. 33.

Alnnad, The Turkish Experiment in democracy, p. 370. Ibid. p. 367. Ibid. Cited in Binnaz Toprak, Islam .and Political Development in Turkey (Leiden: T.]. Brill, 1981), p. 73. ~ad, The Turkish Experiment in Democracy, pp. 367-72. Ozbudun, Social Change and Political Participation in Turkey, pp.35-6. Serif Mardin, Religion and Social Change in Modern Turkey: The "Case of Bediiizzaman Said Nursi (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1989), p. 98. Ahmad, The Turkish Experiment in Democracy, p. 372. Ibid. Karpat, Turkey's Politics: The Transition to a Multi-Party System, Qp. 317-18. " Ozbudun, Social Change and Political Participation in Turkey, p.45. CagIar Keyder, 'The political economy of Turkish democracy', New Left Review, 115 (1979): 19. ilter Turan, 'Continuity and change in Turkish bureaucracy: The Kemalist period and after', in Ataturk and the Modernization of Turkey, Jacob M. Landau (ed.) (Colorado: Westview Press, 1984), p. 113. Let me note that this passage of political

132 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39; 40. 41. 42. 43.

44-.

45:

"46. 47. 48. 49. 50.

51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58.

leadership has been put into a broader context by Metin Heper who noted: 'The Democrats came to power on the claim that they represented the people as against the bureaucracy (read the "state")'. See Metin Heper, The State Tradition in Turkey (Walkington: The Eothen Press, 1985), p. 75. Karpat, Turkey's Politics, pp. 316--18. Eroglu, Demokrat P arli, p. 58. Karpat, Turkey's Politics, p. 323. Ahmad, The Turkish Experiment in Democracy, p. 13. Karpat, Turkey's Politics, pp. 423-4. Robert Bianchi, Interest Groups and Political Development in Turkey (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, ·1984), pp. 114, 155-9. . Ahmad, The Turkish Experiment in Democracy, pp. 52-3. Karpat, Turkey's Politics, pp. 423-4. Sabri Sayan, 'The Turkish party system in transition', Government and Opposition, 13 (1978): 43. Heper, The State Tradition in Turkey, p. 106. Ibid., pp. 7-9.., '.: .',,' Ahmad, The Turkish-Experiment in Democracy, p. 45. Heper, The State Tradition in Turkey, p. 9. ilter Turan, 'The evolution of political culture in Turkey', in Ahmet Evin, (ed.), Modem Turkey: Continuity and Change, (Opladen: Leske Verlag, 1984), p. 94. Ibid., p. 98. Ibid. Frey, 'Patterns of elite politics in Turkey', p.65. The 'Fatherland Front' can better be evaluated in the light of this split. The , Democrats planned to create such a front against the 'front of malice and hostility' being created by the Republicans. The idea of the Fatherland Front was not original to the Democrats; some Republicans had proposed it in 1945. See Ahmad, The Turkish Experiment in Democracy, p. 60, n.111. 'Heper, The State Tradition in Turkey, p. 108. Ahmad, The Turkish Experiment in Democracy, p. 37. Turan, 'The evolution of political culture in Turkey', p. 99. Toprak, Islam and Political Development in Turkey, pp. 79-80. Ibid., p. 82. Mardin, Religion and Social Change in Turkey, pp. 159-60. C.H. Dodd, The Crisis of Turkish Democracy (Walkington: Eothen Press, 1983), p. 81.· Haluk Ulman and Frank Tachau, 'Turkish politics: the attempt to reco~i1e rapid modernization with democracy', The Middle East Journal, 19 (1965): 161.

THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, 1946--1960 59. 60. 61. 62. 63.

133

Karpat, Turkey's PotiNes, pp. 426--427. Ibid., p. 426. Ibid., p. 427. Ibid., p. 428. ilter Turan, 'Continuity and change in Turkish bureaucracy', p.115.

9

The Justice Party, 1961-1980 Avner Levi

Introduction Change and continuity in Turkish political party life and the case of the Justice Party OP) may conveniently be studied within a framework· of centre-periphery relations. 1 The centre-periphery relations have already been taken as a key to studying Turkish politics. 2 Indeed, the Turkish party system from the 1940s to the 1960s constitutes .unequivocal evidence of the existence of one central issue dividing the electorate into two camps. During this period, the Turkish party system was a bipolar one. Although the Political Party Law permitted the existence of more than two parties and many were established, only two had the political support to become dominant parties, in Maurice Duverger's sense. The combined votes of the Republican People's Party (RPP) and the Democratic Party (D P) reached close to as high as 90 per cent of the electorate (in 1950, 93 per cent, in 1954 91.9 per cent and in 1957 88. 6 per cent). Thus one can presume that the then important issues, Uke etatism versus free market economy and strict secularism versus moderate secularism, were only surface facets of the one real issue, namely the reciprocal rights and status of the state and the people, of the bureacratic versus the political will. In spite of the many changes Turkey underWent, the conflicts . inherited from earlier periods maintained their significance during the 1950s and the 1960s, and, in fact, became even more salient. In the 1950s, the tension between the RPP and DP, which represented two separate wills were so well disguised that they could be mistaken for having derived from personal feuds. ismet inonii, chairman of the RPP and Adrtan Menderes, DP prime minister throughout the 1950s, were involved basically in a strong ideological conflict. Only one month after the 1950 general election, inoriii declared that the state was being destroye~ 'because officers and officials feel insecure'. 3 Years later,

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Celal Bayar pointed out that neither the RPP nor the DP went to the heart of the problem and presented their real views. 4 Although in the 1957 general election platfonn of the RPP the problem was presented quite openly, it gained further salience following the 1960 military intervention. On the· first day of the intervention (27 May), General Cemal Madanoglu invited certain professors to Ankara to advise the military. Although the intervenors officially declared that their move was not against any person or party, later the DP parliamentarians were arrested and tried. 5 The episode the then naive Madanoglu's initially releasing some of them and the protest of some of the professors against this action, who declared, 'All of them are potentially guilty'S is well known. The same pr.ofessors gave legitimacy to a military regime which had, according to them, 'original power to rule'. 7 Thus while Menderes and two of his ministers, who enjoyed strong support in parliament and with the electorate, were convicted and hanged for violating the constitution, the same constitution was declared void by non-elected officers, advised by non-elected professors. Some may agree with the professors' declaration, that 'the legitimacy of any government is not based only on how it came to power, but how it used this power'.s But nobody would go along with the argument that a government, in order to be legitimate, 'should use [its] power with the collaboration of the press, universities and the military'. This view could not be inspired by the 1924 Constitution, which stipulated: 'The sovereignty belongs without. any conditions and qualifications to the nation; the nation excercises its sovereignty. through its elected representatives' (Article 3). , The view of the centre was that the bureaucracy should participate . in governing through the institutions that they themselves staffed. This idea was developed into a constitutional nonn by a Constituent Assembly (Kurucu Meclis), which did not represent more than half the population. Article 3 of the 1924' Constitution was replaced in the 1961 Constitution by a new Article 4, which was similar to both the RPP election platform of 1957 and the professors' declaration, and which asserted that the sovereignty belonged to the people who would exercise it not only through parliament but 'through the authorized agencies, as prescribed by the principles laid down in this constitution' . . Later, Siileyman Demirel, the JP's leader, called the new political structure 'government by many' (Coklu idare), and complained that with such a constitution it was impossible to govern. Any change in the constitution was virtually impossible, because it required a two-thirds majority in parliament, while the election system was now a proportional one with the principle of 'national remainder'. The

of

136 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY former National Unity Corrunittee (NUC) members were appointed senators for life, and the president of the State obtained the right to appoint a contingent of fifteen senators. And then, there were also the Constitutional Court and the Council of State with stren~ened powers.

The Formative Years It is remarkable that during the interregnum following the intervention, while the DP leaders were still being tried, a party with the aim of 'bringing justice' to the DP was established, survived and even succeeded in participating in a coalition government. 'What was the meaning of the tenn 'justice' in this context? Did it simply mean 'vengeance'? Former DP members or supporters who backed the idea of establishing the JP, merely wished to save the DP leaders, especially Menderes, from too harsh a punishment. After the Yassmda trials, their main concern was to'·obtain a general amnesty for the . convicted DP leaders and then return their political rights to them. They were convinced that moderate policies were the best way to achieve these ends. . The factors which seemed to have cardinal importance in the success of the JP in its formative years were the support received from a number of influential groups; and the pragmatic policies that it initially pursued. The division between the centre and the periphery often implies a structural dimension. Nevertheless, neither the centre nor the periphery are static, frozen bodies.· On the contrary, they are dynamic, basically, because they are subject to internal conflicts. ,In Turkey, for instance, all the major opposition parties to the RPP were founded by dissident members of the centre. In the case of the lP, not merely a few individuals but a large body of former officers became actively involved in its foundation. In August 1960, the NUC carried out a major purge of the military forces. More than 5000 officers were dismissed. Among them were 235 generals, out of 245 then serving, including the Chief of General Staff'RagIp Gumu§paIa. Consequently, most of these officers became critical of the Government. Giimu§pala, while in the anny, had stated that if one day he entered political life, he .would certainly join tsmet [inonii]'s political party (RPP). But, after having been dismissed from the army, he changed his mind. He talked in Izmir to Mehmet Yorgancloglu (who was active in the founding of the lP) and proposed to participate in the establishment of a new party which would be a continuation of the DP.9 In the event, Giimii§pala and ~inasi Osma, his fo~er .~?e-4~~~,p, were among the founders of tht:)P, and

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GiimU§pala later became its chainnan. Many other former. oJ;ijG.er~, were also active in the efforts to make the J.p- an effective political force.lO Generals Nedim Okmen and Mehmet Ali Ayta~, for instance, established many of the JP's branches and strived for the survival and success of the party. Many of them wanted to use the new party as a lever for their return'to the army. A second group of founders belonged to the extreme right. Some came from a Pan-Turkish youth organization, closed down in 1954 by the DP government. Within this group were Gokhan Eviliyaoglu and Hami Tezkan, who were in close consultation with Alparslan Tiirke§, the then strongman of the NUC, and who presented the first rallying cry to the fonner DP supporters, in their newspaper Son Havadis. This group had a very militant ideological approach. They were against some of the Kemalist reforms and principles, but their main goal was to fight the leftist tendencies which became salient after the 1960 military intervention. Another group within thejP, led by Tahsin Demiray, carpefrolIlt11e p~~§;mCP?i.ty; an offspring of Prince Sabaheddin's DecentraliZation Party. They advocated a very liberaJ ..~conornic system and political r~~e. . These different groups pursued divergent goals. Many of their members had little real sympathy for the ex-DP leaders. Rather they wanted to profit from the political vacuum that the DP had left behind. .. Among the eleven founders of the .party, only four had had any relations· with the DP. Professor Cevdet Perin from Istanbul and Mehmet Yorgancloglu from Izmir were formerly activ~ in the local municipal councils. The third, Ahmet Acar, left politics immediately. The fourth, Kamuran EvliyaogIu, was a journalist and a fonner leader of the DP youth organization. The JP was eventually successful because the newcomers did not turn into effective factions with,in the party. With the general elections in December 1961, they lost their importance. From then on, real power belonged to the parliamentary group of the party, which was soon divided into two major camps: the moderates and the extremists. Cerna! Gtirsel, head of the junta, and those in his entourage also contributed to the JP's success. hnmediately after the intervention, Gtirsel and his associates began dividing the Turkish nation between 'good guys' and 4bad guys', with the former supporters of the DP among the latter. According to Giirsel and those around him, the 'head' of the monster was destroyed but the 'tail' remained. The more they attacked the 'tail' the more people became sympathetic to the jP.

138 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY The JP was constantly threatened and insulted, and this only increased the party's popularity. Gu.rsel seems never to have Wlderstood that his accusation of the JP's being a continuation of the~p P (the lP itself could not acknowledge it because of the legal limitations imposed by the NUC) was this party's winning asset among the electorate. The rivalry between Giirsel and Inonii was also instrumental in the survival of the JP. Also favourable for the success of the JP were the party's pragmatic policies. Their strategy in this respect was not unlike that of the DP in the late 1940s. The DP's slogan 'We will not judge the past' (Devr-i sabtk yaratmayacagzz) created a positive atmosphere which facilitated, even enabled, the regime transition. This approach stood diametrically opposed to the RPP's declaration, in the late 1950s, iWe will demand the accounts', making many DP leaders believe that if they lost power, their personal security would be threatened. The JP's pragmatic policies were best ,examplified inunediately after the 1961 general election. The party finally agreed to participate in a coalition govenunent led by its arch-rival, the RPP. (There was also prodding by Giirsel.) Many in the army and their civilian allies were shocked by the election results. A government crisis could provide a pretext for not returning power to a civilian government. The significant fact is that pressure on the JP to enter such a coalition was applied by former DP members and families. They believed that only an inonii government could grant a general amnesty to the convicted members with no reaction from the military. Pressure by others, particularly by Gu.rsel, was applied on the New Turkey Party, but they refused to join the government. The main argument of those officers who wanted to maintain the military regime-was that the lP was a party with a vengeance. But the very acceptance by the lP to serve tmder inonii, left the military without an argument. From then on, any military intervention was bound to be against both inonii and the RPP. The RPP-lP coalition government was short-lived. The two parties had very little in common. The coalition soon feU apart; however, the fact that it could be put together saved the regime. The future and security of the members of NUC and Giirsel was a condition without which the civilian regime might not be set up. The fears were allayed ,by the creation of. senatorships for them in parliament. The credit for this idea goes to Inilnii. In any case, not long after the foundation of the JP, those members of the party who had earlier be.en members of the DP wanted the party to declare its full support for Giirsel's presidency, as a token of goodwill. Such a declaration, they thought, could remove tensions, a~ least partially, and lead to mor:e lenient sentences in the Yasstada

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trials. Yorgancloglu insisted that such a move was absolutely necessary if one wished to save the DP members, including Menderes, from a probable death sentence. The refusal came ,trom Gfunu§pala, who felt no obligation to the fonner Democrats and strongly resented Giirsel and the NUC members. At the time the party's activities were centred in Izmir, where Burhanetin UIU(;, governor of Izmir, was sharply critical of th.e new party. Thus it was decided to transfer the party's activities to Istanbul. A few days before the departure of the leaders for Istanbul, there came a new accusation and a new threat from Giirsel. Giimii§pala was demoralized; he now went from one extreme to the other and wanted to disband the party altogether. The hard-core old Democrats, however, did not give up. Cevdet Perin arranged for 4000 former DP local leaders from all parts of Turkey to meet Giimu§pala, who was encouraged and decided to continue. The first party congress took place in Istanbul, and Gfunii§pala was elected its chairman. Another critical episode~ took place during the preparation of the party programme. On the day official application was made for the foundation of the party, the Demiray group presented an ultimatum; they wanted a programme they themselves had prepared to be adopted intact. The demand was accepted, on condition that it would be revised by YorganclOglu, who, while amending the Derrriray group's text, heavily borrowed from the former DP programme. The final event was the demand corning from Evliyaoglu's group that, in, the 1961 elections, secure places be set aside for nine persons on the JP slate. In addition to Evliyaogiu and Tezkan, they pressed for the election to parliament of well-known rightists like Ali Fuat Ba§gil, Alpars1an Ti.iike§ and Necmettin Erbakan. Although the then very important support of Son Havadis was at stake, the party leaders refused. After some hesitation, Son Havadis continued to support··the JP. Subsequent requests by Erbakan for a place on the lP slate were always refused. Only in 1968 did he begin his independent political career. And, after 1975, the JP accepted both Erbakan and Tiirke§ as coalition.partners just as Billent Ecevit's RPP had done with Erbakan. . The special circumstances of 1960--61 provided the JP with support from groups not quite identified with the mainstream JP-DP line. Some in these groups held important positions in the party at the outset, but could not influence it in the long run. JP did not actively work for the re-entry of the officers dismissed from the military back into the ranks, nor did it actually adopt ail extreme rightist ideology. Erbakan and Tiirke§ were never admitted into the party, and even Evliyaoglu felt it necessary to resign from th~ it. These· groups, however, prevented the party from declaring its

140 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY support for Giirsel's presidency, and the progranune of the party came to have an ultra-liberal touch, inspired by the Demiray group. Still, the JP's policies were more moderate than its programme; for instance, the party never considered selling the state economic enterprises· to the private \sector. .

The JP in Power. Jp. Ideology The JP was always aware that in order to win a large number of votes it must represent different and sometimes contradictory interests and aggregate them into policy packages acceptable to as many groups as possible. Demirel often repeated that the JP was a mass party which represented the interests of all classes - city dwellers and villagers, workers and employers. 11 The JP was for social justice but, in the words of Demirel, this did not mean equality in poverty, hostility to capital or equal distribution of income. The way to achieve social justice did not pass through class struggle but through a real increase in the national income. Impoverishing the rich and the middle classes would only mean equality in poverty which would perPetuate itself, since the enthusiasm that any citizen might have for work for self-improvement would be destroyed. Thus it was imperative to have economic growth first. This required collaboration and hannony among different social groups. Such harmony could be provided by melting particular interests into the national one. 12 The JP's programme spoke of nationalism as a guarantee for the unity of the nation, while class struggle was clearly rej~cted. . Similarly, the JP opposed extreme ideologies and movements which would undermine the social fabric and antagonize citizens. This particular stand on the IP's part was· clearly directed at the extreme left 'which wished to change the existing social structure totally, suddenly and by force'. 13 One of the ways in which the JP proposed hannonizing the interests of different social classes was free bargaining between employers and employees who would enjoy the right of lockout and strik~, respectively. Another was a comprehensive .welfare programme which would include national security for all against unemployment, illness and old age. According to the same programme all would enjoy free education and health security. Social security would help widows, orphans and the disabled, too. Slums would be supplied with municipal and social services. Pensioners and housewives would also benefit from the programme. 14

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The point was how this generous welfare scheme could be financed.

A related matter was the question of taxation. Because of the then influence of the Demirey group and as a reaction to the policies of the NUC, the lP was very liberal in the beginning. The party maintained that there should be neither agricultural taxes of any kind, nor any property taxes. There would only be an income tax and this, too, had to be reduced. 15 Later, as already noted, the Demirey group lost its influence in the party, which meanwhile came to power. The party was now also open to grassroots' pressures. Thus, in its platfonn for the 1969 elections, the JP called for a new tax system wQich would have favoured those on lower incomes. It spoke about efficiency in tax-collecting, too. Demirel sununarized the party's new approach to taxation, in 1972, as follows: Taxes should not destroy the enthusiasm to invest . . . taxes should not be so high, since income then loses all its meaning . . . no one tries' to earn more and, as a result, the state loses. In the meantime, taxes are obligatory . . . not only to meet the current expenses of the state, but to make economic development possible . . . the IP accepts the necessity for new taxes when they are necessary and just. 16 Later the lP called for a progressive income tax system to insure justice, in which there would be a difference between income from work versus income from other sources, like property and investments. In this economic development scheme, the JP always accorded an important role to the private sector. 17 Its liberal anti-etatism was stronger than that of the DP. The party programme called to honour the rights of ownership and considered the private sector and free economy indispensable for a democratic regime. The programme al'so held that the public sector must begin where the private sector ends. The party saw the way to economic progress and social welfare in expanding the activities of the private sector to the maximum. 18 While in opposition, not only did the 1P reject nationalization, but even called for the sale of the state economic enterprises to the private sector." But later, when the party came to power, the share of the goverrunental sector in the Turkish economy did 'not diminish and the state economic enterprises continued to exist. Sabri Sayan has attributed this to the lP's being a pragmatic party.19 He is certainly right. The lP in power realized that the' state needed the revenues from its own enterprises, that there was still much to invest in the infrastructure which by nature was the responsibility of government and that the private sector was still weak.

, 142 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY The JP thus gradually arrived at the idea of mixed economy; that is, to the notion of, a harmonious collaboration between the two sectors. The creative and imaginative force of the private sector would complement the resources of the public sector. This should enable Turkey to attain a balanced and effective econp!Jl,ic growth. .

JP Policies From the 1960s on, industrial workers and. busi. nessmen began to become important political factors to be reckoned with. Until then, both industrial workers and businessmen were relatively few and weak, and so was their political impact. The situation started to change from the end of the 1950s, because of accelerated urbanization and industrialization. In 1963. the workers obtained the rights to strike and collective bargaining. Until then, the relations between employers and employees had been managed individually, in a rather paternalistic manner. Since then, however, these relations' have taken on an organized pattern, which could lead ultimately to' class consciousness. This does not mean that the workers began to vote on a class basis; on the contrary, they voted massively for theJP. The JP aimed at representing the interest of both sides. It promised businessmen the cancellation of many NUC measures, including the compulsory wealth declaration which earlier was designed to prevent the unusually high degree of tax evasion. These, together with the liberal economic policies, and the promise of less bureaucratic interference, endeared the party to most businessmen. Simultaneously, the party promised the workers new jobs, better working conditions and social welfare measures.. It collaborated in the, promulgation of the 1963 Trade Unions Law. JP members met regularly with representatives of the workers and discussed their positions. 20 In addition, the JP parliamentary group had more than ten members from a working-class background. Even before the 1961 elections, JP leaders kept fifteen guaranteed places in their election states for workers who were generally representatives of Turk-i§, the Trade Union Confederation. These close relations arouSed discontent with the JP among some businessmen. With the establishment of the new Revolutionary Trade Unions Confederation, DiSK, m1967, the situation changed drastically. In many important issues the position of the Jp and Turk-i§ were similar. Under JP-dominated leadership, Turk-/§ did not oppose the private sector as long as the workers' interests were adequately safeguarded. 21 It preferred to remain apolitical and refused to identify itself with any political party.22 It preferred national consciousness

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over class-consciousness and hence over the Turkish Workers' Party (TWP) policies. 23 In the Fifth Congress of Ttirk-i§, in 1967, jp supporters again won a majority in the Confederation's administrative COlUlCils. It was decided that Turk-i§ could support a political party only .wi~h a two-thirds majority,24 a decision that virtually guaranteed Turk-I§ independence. Hence some radical trade union leaders, who wanted to use their growing influence on the workers for political goals, left Ttirk-i§ and established DisK, which was for class-war and identified with TWP. DiSK almost immediately succeeded in taking over more than 15 per cent of Turk-i§'s members. This caused.a harsh rivalry between the two trade union confederations, as Turk-I§ felt threatened by DiSK. At this juncture for the JP, Turk-i§ became crucial. Without it, the JP could hardly check DiSK's militant activities. Thus in 1969 and 1970, the JP government introduced important changes in the Trade Unions Law. 25 These were prepared jointly by' the JP and Turk-i§, and were intended to strengthen the latter against DiSK and somehow to moderate the strikes and tensions in labour relations, as is shown below. It seemed, however, that Turk-l§ could not hold out against DiSK without massive government support. According to these changes, a strike was permitted only after the conflict had been discussed in a special court and no compromise had been reached; trade unions could receive foreign aid (US money for Turk-}§ was at stake); resignation from a trade union could become valid only if it was registered by a public notary; a confedetation could receive the right to represent the workers of a certain branch only if more than 50 per cent of them were its members. 26 DiSK tried to prevent these changes, but failed in this and then organized illegal general strikes and caused bloody riots in IstanbuL Martial law was then declared in the provinces involved. The relations between the JP and Turk-i§ cooled down after a 'national front government'~ comprising JP, the Nationalist Action Party, the National Salvation Party and the Reliance Party came to power in 1975. Turk-i§ declared that democracy was in danger while the anti-Kemalists were in the Cabinet, and refused the establishment of special courts to deal with terrorist activities. 27 The relations between the JP and business, too, underwent some ups and downs. The deep split within the JP, which took place from 1969 onwards, was explained by some as largely the result of a conflict between agrarian interests and big city capitalists. 28 However, the crux came with the second military intervention in 1971, which caused serious tensions between the JP and the business conununity. The JP was for the non-conditional supremacy of parliament, while the

144 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY businessmen were more inclined to compromise with a semi-military regime for the sake of political tranquility, necessary for business. Against this, Demirel declared that 'the private sector has no justification for its existence if it refuses to safeguard democracy'. 29

JP Versus the Bureaucracy The passage to a multi-party regime in Turkey was decided from above. The state party, the RPP, granted the Turks multi-party politics almost of its own volition. The transition was so short and easy that many problems could not even be fores~en. No consensus on many vital points concerning authority-sharing between the bureaucratic and the political elites could be arrived at. Therefore, during the 1950s, the RPP and DP fought each other constantly on the question of legitimacy, while the limits of government aGtjYity dhaI,lged, depending on who .Was in power.;J:":-'):i~;;_;_ .."..... '," .... (,',:': ,,_ The lP inherited this pto.blem:' with the difference that the; Dctrea4~ cracy had already received".qU:fte~;~f~~ig share of power thanks 'fb"lhe 1961 Constitution. The JP wa~~'aAathema to many bureaucratic circles, not because of anything it had done, but because of what it was a party based on 'political will' 'Only. It is uncontroversial to state that, had the JP won the 1961 elections, the military would not have allowed the transfer of power. Even the fact that it came out as the second largest party created a crisis. It was obvious to everyone that it should not even attempt to fonn a coalition government without the RPP, although in the tenns of parliamentary arithmetics it could have done so easily. For four years, the JP was on the defensive, struggling to survive. In February 1965, Silleyman Demirel, the JP's new leader, dared to bring down the third inonii government. A new coalition (for the first time since the 1961 elections) without the RPP in it, was formed. The new government was headed by Suat Hayri Urgilplii, an independent elected on the JP slate. This government was a success in showing that a government without the RPP was possible and not unacceptable to the military. Mer the 1965 general election, the JP fonned its firstsingle-party government headed by its leader. Soon Demirel began to attack the political structures provided by the 1961 constitution. So the conflict between the JP, which wished for unlimited supremacy for the 4political will', and the bureaucracy became operative and then changed style. The JP using governmental authority, tried to erode what the bureaucracy had won. It must be stated, as Leslie L. Roos Jr and Noralou P. Roos have pointed out,30 that the conflict was institutional and not personal. Indeed, in the first years of the JP government, there was an accelerated economic growth which J

I

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supplied many new jobs, easing in general many pressures on the bureaucracy. As always, the military was of crucial importance. The JP was very cautious in its relations with it. In 1966, the JP-dominated parliament elected Cevdet Sunay, the ex Chief of General Staff, President of the Republic. This can be seen as a token act only, a show ()f good will to the military, perhaps necessary for the lP. On the other hand, the IP never called for the abolition of the National Security Council (NSC), the very institution that put the civilian government, at least concerning certain matters, under the custodianship of the military. On the other hand, Demirel for his own reasons turned the NSC in to an active tool in everyday politics. Thus from the very beginning the JP contradicted itself on this central issue. The IP's desiderata were quite clear and simple. 31 The government should be free to choose its chief executives, the State Planning Organization (SPO) should be reduced to a consultative body, and the autonomy of the universities assigned to the academic field only and the power of the Constitutional Court, Council of State and the High Election Council limited, also. For all this, the constitution should be changed. But the JP never had the two-thirds majority needed for

this. On one point only, and this only with the help of the RPP, was the constitution amended. It concerned the political rights Of ex-DP members. In retrospect it proved to be disastrous for the JP and one of the last master-strokes by the veteran inonli. The JP tried to keep the sympathy of the ex-DP members without a direct conflict with the military, and lost on both counts. The change of the election system prior to the general elections of 1969, also achieved with the help of RPP, was another mistake. As a consequence, the small political parties of the extreme right and left were almost eliminated from parliament. So the radical movements turned increasingly to terrorist activities. The economic growth that characterized the first years of the JP govenunent slowed down. Inflation became more accentuated. Personal grievances were added to the institutional conflict. This, coupled with mounting terrorism and labour~related conflicts, proved too much. Neither Sunay, elected thanks to the support of theJP, nor Derpirel's close relations with the top commanders through the NSC, helped. On 12 March 1971, the military, supported by the bureaucracy, put an end to the JP government. Prior to this intervention, the JP had managed, although with some difficulty, in making numerous changes in the personnel of many state institutions, and curtailing the power of spa. Nevertheless, the IP accepted the principle of planned economy. The government worked

146 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY according to the first five years' plan and prepared the second. In this· respect, the 1P was much more realistic and progressive than its predecessor, the DP, whose dictum was 'rice, not planning'. In different elections, the High Election Council invalidated the IP candidates after the elections, when they were already winners. In many cases, the RPP candidates who lost in the elections received the nomination. Against these decisions, JP could do nothing but protest but to no avail. In any case, the institution that caused the greatest difficulties in current problems of everyday was the Council of State. Completely unable to get along with it, the JP government sometimes resorted to subterfuge, like refusing to accept letters sent by it. After the military intervention of 1971, the IP was never in ppwer alone. Nevertheless, tensions 'and crises with different institutions of the bureaucracy were ever-present. In the presidential election of 1973, a direct confrontation took.place between the military and the 1P. The military wanted to impose its Chief of General Staff, General Faruk Gilrler; the JP courageously refused. While many military units were parading in the streets of Ankara and senior officers sent their message by filling up the balcony of parliament, the JP still voted against Giir~er time after time. The-Constitutional Court became a target for open attacks by theJP, in 1974, when it changed the Amnesty Law so that those condemned because of terrorist activities, too, were pardoned. In this ·case the IP accused the Constitutional Court of usurping the prerogatives of parliament. To sum up, the JP, although much more moderate and realistic than the DP, could arrive at a limited modus vivendi with the military and the bureaucracy oilly in optimal conditions, namely economic growth..

Leadership and Organization W. B. Sherwood saw the IP as the only real grassroots party in the Middle East. 32 Ergun Ozbudun noted that the lP was the continuation of the DP; it resurrected itself one year after the 1960 intervention, thanks to its very effective organization. 33 Sabri Sayan saw in the ban of secondary party branches, introduced after the above intervention, a wish to curtail the influence of the strong DP organization which lP had inherited. 34 . Indeed the fact is that the organization of the lP was the strongest of all Turkish political parties in the 1960s and 1970s, pre·dating its leadership. Generally, in Turkey the leaders emerge first and they establish the organization later. In the case of the lP, the opposite happened. It is possible to say that it was the organization that found

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147

Demirel and raised him to leadership. So one wonders if Demirel was less strong in his party, in comparison with other party leaders. Generally in Turkey the leader's position in the party is very strong and, save for some small ideological parties, they are almost unchangeable. Thus were both Giimu§pala and Demirel; this, in spite of the fact that the organization was already in existence. . On the other hand, the JP was exceptional. Its parliamentary grQUP was less strong than those of other Turkish parties, including its predecessor, the DP. The real power in the JP after the party chainnati. was the unofficial assembly of the 67 chainnen of local branche,S. They did not have merely a dominant impact on the election of district candidates and of delegates to the general convention, but in that congress they used to gather separately and choose a committee of fifteen among themselves, and this committee prepared the list of candidates for the central bodies of the party. In every case, this list was unanimously accepted by the convention. There was a clear interdependence between the party leader and the local chairmen. Demirel's support was vital for being chosen chairman of the local branch, and as long as the chainnen of the local branches were loyal to him - as was generally the case - Demirel was secure in his post. The JP had quit~ a lot of ups and downs with Demirel: brilliant electoral victories, rifts, electoral defeats and military interventions. His hold on the party, however, .always remained very tight. Two rival factions existed in the lP, the Bilgic; group versus the Yalc;m one, the conservatives versus the liberals. First, Bilgic;, then Yalc;m, challenged the leadership of Demirel and both had to leave the party. In his darkest days, the party congress convention extended Demirel its support almost unanimously. This needs to be explained, so the question was put to different personalities in and outside the party. Their answers were generally unsatisfactory. They tried to explain it only with this or that kind of patronizing. The fact seems to be that Demirel was seen as the very personification of the JP's beliefs and tenets. In 1964, the party searched a leader. Demirel was chosen because of his abilities. He was considered a potential prime minister: a person who could represent Turkey respectably in any international forum, progressive and intellectual. He proved himself an astute politician as well. Different from fonner leaders like ismet inonii and Adnan Menderes, Demirel was modern rationalistic. His unyielding attitude on the question of Glirler's presidency, with Menderes' execution only twelve years previously, with no direct confrontation with the top commanders of the military, is proof of his statesmanship.

148-- POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY Mter the debacle in the general election of 1973, he showed he knew how to lose with dignity. He declared that the people wanted the IP to be in opposition, and promised that it would fulfil its new task in the most constructive manner. For two years there was chaos in Turkish politics. The IP, although much weaker than before, was, ideologically~ the pivotal party. Without it there was no serious possibility of any coalition. Nevertheless, only in 1975 did Dernirel agree to fonn the 'national front government', which later became notorious. The ideological differences between the JP and RPP were so great that a coalition of the two was ahnost impossible. Such grand coalitions are rarely successful. The 4national front government' was dictated by the electorate. The strength of .local branches' chairmen was great, as is shown above and this guaranteed that the JP parliamentarians were natives of the districts they represented more than in any other party. They were generally YOWlger and less uniform in their social and educational backgrounds. More women and workers entered Parliament through the }P than through any other Turkish party of the time. On the personal level, the organization of the JP was a very important vehicle of social integration. It gave the citizen a kind of protection against the bureaucrats, it helped him in his personal, economic and even family problems and, as Sherwood35 noted, helped the absorption of the peasants into the city.

Conclusion JP was a civilian and grassroots' party, with a strong organization and tens of thousands of active members. It could come to power only wheri it received an absolute majority of the votes. To achieve this, it had to present a platform which would reflect the interests and ideas of different sections of the people. It was able to do this successfully during the almost twenty-year period of its existence, since it was the sole party to obtain an absolute majority of the electorate, and this it did more than once. While in power, its policies depended on an aggregate programme which apparently gave satisfaction to its supporters who voted for it again and again. On the other hand, it could not find a real modus vivendi with the bureaucracy. without which a state cannot be governed. At best, in normal times, the two just got along. In periods of tension and crisis, the lP could not obtain enough bureaucratic collaboration and crises developed into unmanageable proportions. The question of political appointnlents was o~ardi~1ell!!!Q~~se. It becam~ salient immediately after the 14 May 1950general elections, when th-eflrst' change of power took place. It seems that Turkey was

THE]USTICE PARTY, 1961-1980

149

not ready for this, and there was no consensus concerning which posts were political; hence the government had the right to make personnel changes. On this question, government and opposition took positions according to party interests only and fought each other, instead of looking for a consensual rule based on compromise. This remained a source of continual tension. The leaders' grasp on the political parties in general was too strong, so that they had the character of leaders' parties; this was especially true of the lP. The two large parties, the]P and the RPP, constantly refused to collaborate with each other. Their cooperation could have solved many . problems, while their hostility opened the way to extra-parliamentary activities. This hostility was accompanied by a mutual hatred of the leaders for each other.

Notes 1. 2.

3. 4. 5.

6.

This chapter is based on the present author's unpublished doctoral dissertation 'The lustic~,Party of Turkey, 1961-1977', the Hebrew University ofJerusalem, 1983. Serif Mardin, 'Center-periphery relations: a key to Turkish politics?', Daedalus, 102 (1973): 169-90. ' Celal Bozkurt, Siyaset Tarihimizde Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, (Istanbul: Remzi Kitabevi, 1968), pp. 73-5. Celal Bayar, BQ§vekilim Adnan Menderes, ismet Bozdag (ed.) (Istanbul: Baba Matbaasl, n. d.) p. 11. On the intervention and the Natioruu Unity Committee (NUC) fonned after the intervention, see Abdi ipek<;i and Orner Sarni Co§ar, ihtilalin ifYuZU (Istanbul: Uygun Yaymevi, 1965); Mii§erref Hekimoglu, 27 Mayzstn Romanz (Istanbul: Cagda§ Yaymlan, 1974); Ali F. Ba§gil, La Revolution Militaire de 1960 en Turquie (ses origines) (Geneve: Perret-Gentil, 1963); Metin Toker, ismet Pa§q,yla 10 Yzl, 4 vols (Ankara: Akis Yaymlm, 1966-67); Ergun Ozbudun, The Role of the Military in Recent Turkish Polit£cs (Harvard, MA: Center for International Mairs, 1966); Walter F. Weiker, The Turkish Revolution, 1960-1961 (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1963); George S. Harris, 'The causes -of the ·1960 revolution in Turkey', The Middle East Journal, 24 (1970): 428-55. "'1 ipek~i and Co§ar, ihtildlin j~Uzu, p. 262. A Turkish professor, Biilent N. Esen, called it 'la trahision de l'elite' [Biilent N. Esen, La Turquie (Paris: R. Pichon et R. Burand-Auzias, 1969),

.p.5]. 7.

..

Ipek<;i and Co§ar, Ihtilalin Ifjuzu, p. 256.

150- POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY 8. 9.

10. 11. 12.

13. 14.

15. 16. 17.

18. 19.

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

27. 28.

29. 30. 31.

Cela! Bayar, Ba§vekilim Adnan Menderes, p. 15. On the initial contact between Gilinii§pala and the ex-DP members, see Levi, 'Justice Party of Turkey, 1961-1977', pp. 17-18. On the role of these ex-officers in the establishment of the JP t see Cumhuriyet (Istanbul daily), 31 January, '7 February, 1 March, 6 March and 12 July 1961. SilleymanDemirel, SerimKonU§malan(Ankara: n.p.1969), p.14. Ibid., p. 34; idem, Yeni Bir Sosyal Mukaveleye Dogru (Istanbul: n.p., 1974), p. 195. Cumhuriyet, 3 February 1965. C.H. Dodd, Politics and Government in Turkey (Manchester: University of Manchester Press, 1969), p. 141. Cumhuriyet, 1 December 1962, 6 July 1963, 11 February 1964. Cumhuriyet, 5 January 1972. Muzaffer Sencer, Turkiyede Siyasal Partilerin Sosyal Temelleri (Istanbul: Ge9§ Yaymlan, 1972), p. 271-5. Cumhuriyet, 6 February 1963. Sabri Sayan, 'Party politics in Turkey', unpublished PhD, Dissertation, Columbia University, 1971, p. 180. Cumhuriyet, 22 January 1963. YtldlZ Sertel, Turkiyede ilerici Aktmlar ve Kalkmma Davam12 (Istanbul: Cern Yaymevi, 1969). Kemal H. Karpat, 'Socialism and the ·Labour Party of Turkey', The Middle East Journal, 21 (1967): 157-72. Cahit Talas, 'Sendikaciliguruzm Diinii, Buglinii ve Politikasl', in Yavuz Abadan'a Arrnagan (Ankara: Ankara University Faculty of Political Science Publication, 1969), p. 643. Ibid., p. 646. '~ennin Abadan-Unat, 'Tiirk Univer§itesi Ogrencileriyle Gen~ I§~ilerln Sosyal Egilimleri', Ankara Universitesi Siyasal Bilgiler Fakultesi Dergisi, 26 (1971): 83-4. Ibid., p. 85. Cumhunyet, 17 September 1976. Sencer, Turkiyede Siyasal Partilerin Sosyal Temelleri, p. '274. Cumhuriyet, 28 February 1973. Leslie L. Roos Jr and Noralao P. Roos, The Managers of Modernization: Organizations and Elites in Turkey (1950-1969) (Cambridge, MA: Ha'rvard University Press, 1971), p. 211. ~ahri SavcI 'iktidann ve Ana Muhal~fetin Rejim ve Uygulamalan Uzerlne Bazl GOIii§ler', Ankara Universitesi Siyasal Bilgiler Fakultesi Dergisi, 21 (1966): 131-5; idem, 'A.P.nin Fikir Beyantru Deyimleyen Bazl GOIii§ler',Ankara Universitesi Siyasal Bilg£ler Fakultesi Dergisi, 22 (1967): 47-8.

THE JUSTICE PARTY, 1961-1980

151

W.B. Sherwood, 'The rise ofthe}ustice Party in Turkey', World Politics, 20 (1967/8): 5<Wl5. 33. OzbudWl, The Role of the Military in Recent Turkish Politics, p. 7. 34. Sabri Sayan, 'Aspects of party organization in Turkey', The Middle East Journal, 30 (1976): 195-6. 35. Sherwood, lThe Rise of the Justice Party in Turkey', p. 57. 32.

10 The Motherland Party, 1983-1989 Dstiin Ergiider Introduction The 1980 military intervention in Turkey was an attempt by the military to reshape the Turkish political system so that a viable democratic order would take root. The measures implemented between September 1980 and November 1983 by the military to restructure the political system had significant but mostly unintended consequences for Turkish politics and parties. The Constitution, approved by a referendum in 1982, and new laws modifying the electoral system and regulating party formation and party activities were all fonnal aspects of the attempts to restructure Turkish politics and restrain some of its tendencies towards polarization and fragmentation. The military leaders, laying principal blame for the polarization of the political system during the 1970s on the political party system and leaders of politic~ parties, most of whom had been in place since the 1961 Constitution, disbanded all the parties that existed before 12 September 1980, without exception. Their leaders and rank and file were banned from politics for ten and five years, respectively. The present author and Richard I. Hofferbert had posed the following question, iinmediately after the 1983 elections which brought the Motherland Party (MP) unexpectedly to power under the leadership of Turgut OZal: 'To what extent, do the results of the 1983 election suggest that the effort succeeded in remoulding the Turkish polity in such a way as to enhance the chances for a viable democratic order?'l We had started out by proposing that Even though the manifest goal of the military govenunent between 1980 and 1983 may l1ave been to restrain the pluralist thrust of recent Turkish politics, the unintended consequence may have been to align the party system along a more modem dimension. The refonns may have set a framework conducive

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to the consensual conflict management characteristic of Western democracies. 2 After analysing the election results of 1983 and comparing them, using statistical methods, with voting patterns of the 1970s, we had concluded that there was not much fragmentation on .the Turkish left and that the Populist Party (PoP) had replaced in 1983 the Republican People's Party (RPP) as a social democratic force. We had likewise added that the multi-diffiensionality of Turkish politics on the right had perhaps disappeared, giving a chance for party competition on the left-right continuum to take root in Turkish politics. We used multidimensionality to denote party competition on an ideological spectrum of right versus left in addition to another spect.l1Un of centre versus periphery. We noted, emphasizing the 4nportance for a democratic system of a ~~gitimate right as an alternative to a social democratic force, that 'Ozal's MP may have provided a broadly acceptable, pro-system alternative, neutralizing (for the time being, at least) and· reintegrating, if not eliminating, the anti-systemic tendencies on the right and the periphery'. 3 In terms of the major theme of this volume, we cautiously concluded that perhaps a new modem cleavage in terms of left and right was emerging, eclipsing to a great extent the former cultural cleavages. On the sources of support 9f the MP under ()zal's leadership we added: 4 )- The MP is not the reincarnation of any of the pre-1980 parties. Instead of the NDP (National Democracy Party), Ozal's MP as a centre-right, moderate force has serVed to draw back into the mainstream supporters of those pre-19BO parties of the right (National Salvation Party, Nationalist Action Party) who were formerly engaged in anti-system protest. The statistical analysis indicated that MP had created a new cleavage in Turkish politics which had cut across the old cleavages of the right and perhaps extending into the centre-left. We had also commented on a somewhat optimistic note that the MP's appeal Wlder Ozal's leadership to market-rationality and traditional values had struck a responsive cord with the Turkish electorate: 5 When faced with a moderate option, disassociated from the tarnished politics of the past, the Turkish electorate seem~ to have responded positively. In the campaign of 1983, Turgut Ozal ran on a platform stressing economic growth and fiscal caution. He advocated de-emphasis on state economic enterprises. He has described himself as a devotee of 'supply-side economics'. His program would have placed him comfortably within the range

154 -POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY of many western right-of-centre parties. He also stressed the need to enhance Turkey's place within' the Middle Eastern economic network. Sometimes described as a 'Muslim technocrat', he seems to appeal to traditional values without giving them ideological pre-eminence over the need to bring Turkey into the international competitive marketplace. The 1983 election indicated intriguingly that the MP had all the potential to emerge as an important new force in Turkish politics. Similar to Greek, Spanish and Portuguese models, here was a centreright party that came to power in the first stage of a return to democracy. Yet, the MP was not a party that received the blessing of the military. It was closest, if you will, to the expression of the genuine popular will within the limits set to the autonomous operation of electoral party system. The MP is a new party and new parties have come and gone in Turkish politics. Between the 1950s and the 1980s, minor parties around personalities who have fallen into discord with the leadership of major parties have appeared. Their electoral and parliamentary lives, although short-lived, have been more prolonged, due to 'institutional facilitators'6 such as the electoral system in force 7 during the 1960s and the 1970s. Other minor parties, such as the National Salvation Party (NSP) and the Nationalist Action Party (NAP) based on emerging socio-economic and cultural cleavages, have attempted to articulate interests that were not reconciled on the right of the political spectrum within the framework of the Justice Party. They exhibited more electoral durability than the minor personalistic parties of the same era. The impact they left on Turkish politics may be considered major. In tenns of voter support expressed in national percentages, however, they were not able to transcend minor party status. Tile emergence of the Justice Party (JP) in 1961, 011 the other hand, was somewhat similar to that of the MP. It filled a void in the party system after a military leadership outlawed the Democratic Party which had been in power between 1950 and 1960. Research, however, suggested that the JP appealed to .the same socio-economic base as the DP.8 Using similar methods of clientelistic politics, theJP, like the Democrats, forged a coalition of the right which cut across diverse cultural and social cleavages. 9 Besides, the restructuring of the party system in 1961 was not as total as the one in 1983. The DP was the only political party to bear the brunt of the military intervention in 1960--6l. Since November 1983, two local elections in 1984 and 1989, and a general election in 1987 have taken place. The MP was able to continue its status as a major party of the right in 1984, and in 1987, despite declining national percentages of support. The MP suffered

an

THE MOTHERLAND PARTY, 1983-1989

155

an important setback in the local elections of 1989 when its support declined to 21.8 per cent of all the votes cast nationally. The six years since 1983 also witnessed two hotly contested constitutional referenda, and the return of the leaders of the pre-1980 parties to active politics, after their rights had been restored in the constitutional referendum of Septemb~r 1987. Economically, the same period initially witnessed high rates of economic growth which proved increasingly difficult to maintain in the "face of a rate of inflation that climbed from over 30 per cent in 1983 to approximately 80 per cent in 1988 and 1989 (projeGted according to the statistics of the first four months). This chapter attempts to reflect on our earlier findings and research, 10 whether the MP represents an important break with the pre-1980 past - as had been suggested - or are there continuities with old patterns of party politics?

The Party and Elections The MP, under the leadership of Turgut Ozal, was formed by a group of founders who primarily came from the private sector or who had p'layed a role in the lower echelons of the pre-1980 political parties. Ozal himself had served under Siileyman Demirel, the prime minister of JP goverrunents as well as of coalition governments led by the JP, in a technocratic capacity on several occasions. On both occasions (in 1969 as the Director of the State Planning Organisation, and, in 1979 as the economic adviser to Prime Minister Siileyman Demirel) his name was associated with relatively successful economic policies. He also had close ties with the NSP, as his brother was one of the influential members of that party. Ozal contested in 1977, albeit unsuccessfully, a seat in the Grand National Assembly, on the Izmir NSP list. Although he had never been actively involved in politics before 1983, he was somewhat closer to politics than most of his colleagues in the MP. In terms of former political associations, he was occupying a space in Turkish politics somewhere between the moderate and more secular right of the JP vintage and the religious right of the NSP. A survey study by this author of the province and district leaders of the MP revealed that 106 (52.2 per cent) of 203 respondents had served in the local organisations of the pre-1980 political parties. Of those who had pre-1980 party organization experience 73 per cent had worked in the JP organization, 8.7 per cent each in the RPP and the NAP local organizations. When all respondents were asked about their pre-1980 party sympathies, the percentages obtained were similar to those reported above. The results of this survey, however, must be interpreted with caution as the sample surveyed lost its representativeness due to circumstances unforeseen by the

156 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY researchers. Yet this survey reveals some evidence that supports our findings based on aggregate data analysis referred to above: e

•

Even though elements sympathetic to the JP figured prominently among MP supporters, the MP was also able to draw from the sympathisers of other pre-1980 political parties. Organizationally, the MP was also able to draw on those who had been identified with pre-1980 political parties but were unable to rise in the ranks of their own parties.

It is proposed here that what made an intra-party electoral coalition, forged by the MP, possible in 1983 was that the Turkish electorate of the previous decade was already groping for a new centrist solution to the maladies of the party system in order to achieve regime stability. It was this search, for stable govenunent and efficient delivery of services and solution of problems rather than ideological polarization of the electorate, that brought the RPP and Biilent Ecevit to power in 1977. Similarly, it was the poor policy perfonnance of the Ecevit government and the ceaseless ideological conflict at the political elite level that quickly destroyed the Ecevit myth and brought his govenunent down after the off-year election of 1979. Referring to the political mood of the post-1980 years, Niliifer Gole states: 'Softening· of political conflict' and 'policy-oriented dialogue' appear to be two key concepts that have shaped the fonn and the content of the post-1980 political life. On the one hand, concepts like 'softening, tolerance, and conciliation: are replacing the conflict between serious ideologies and causes. On the other hand, in relation to this change in political sty' co¢lict and criticisms over policies have replaced systemic arlo anti-regime conflict.l1 The MP leadership seems to have sensed this centrist and pragmatic leaning of the Turkish electorate and have come up with policies and a style of politics, in its early days of power, that appealed to the masses. In tenns of economic policy the MP's emphasis was on economic rationality, communicating with the masses to explain the rationality behind policy decisions, a commitment to reduce inflation to reasonable l~vels (around 25 per cent), strengthening economically the orta direk (main pillar), 12 and securing economic growth and prosperity. Perhaps the most revolutionary among these, within the Turkish context, were policies that we label economic rationality. These included economic decisions responsive to market signals rather than being based on raisons d'etat and bureaucratic priorities, an emphasis on exports and internationalization of the Turkish economy in contrast to the unquestioning preference of the earlier periods for import SUbstitution,

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an effort to divorce economic policy from decisions and priorities based on patron-client relations - an important characteristic of Turkish electoral politics and specifically of the style of politics associated with the JP. In practice, also, MP governments heavily invested in infrastructural development and tourism, with extensive borrowing abroad. In its early days of governance, the MP was not as vocal and pronoWlced in its policies and policy statements on social and political issues. The leadership seemed to be happy with the 1982 Constitution, criticized especially by the intellectuals and the opposition parties. It did not openly challenge the implicit military guardianship of the post-1982 constitutional regime. Political restructuring did not receive the same attention as economic restructuring. The politics of the MP, however, was distinctive in two important respects:

An emphasis on a conciliatory style of politics and moderation, in sharp contrast to the polarized and non-conciliatory style of politics of the pre-1980 days; 2. Giving more autonomy and power to local government and especially to the municipalities. This was regarded as an important attempt at reform by the MP leadership especially in terms of recruitment of political leaders ,and their training. Moreover, decentralization had important implications for depolarization of Turkish politics. 13 One of the problems of Turkish politics had been an important centralization of rewards and power at Ankara, . making efforts to capture power and hold on to it more intense and polarized. 14 1.

rtfe MP government led by Ozal was faced with important problems, after 1985, on two major issues: despite high rates of economic growth of around 7 ,per cent per annum, rates of inflation were climbing, prompting loud criticism from all quarters; the leaders of pre-1980 parties were making their presence increasingly felt, despite the constitutional ban on their political rights. Moreover, there were signs that, faced with increasing criticism, Ozal and the MP leaders were giving up their conciliatory style, especially with respect to the . ~ ~ press. r1heconstitutional referendum of 6 September 1987 was an important landmark for the MP and for post-1980 Turkish politics. The referendum was held on the issue of lifting the ban on the political '"aetivities of pre-1980 political leaders;. 50.3 per cent of the voters voted 'yes', and 49.7 per cent 'no'. A 'yes' vote indicated an agreement with an earlier parliamentary decision to lift the ban on pre-1980 leaders among whom Silleyman Demirel OP) and Biilent Ecevit (RPP) were the most prominent as the leaders of two major parties. 15 The Grand

158 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY National Assembly had voted earlier to lift the political ban on condition that it would take effect only after it received popular approval in a referendum. The MP was closely associated with the 'no' vote. This led many.. observers to conclude that this was a triumph for Prime Minister Ozal and his MP; both actively campaigned against lifting the ban on the pre-1980 political leaders. One might agree with this point in terms of its short-term implications. It was the first major and real challenge to the party at the polls. The party regrouped, organizationally, waged a successful campaign and proved its organizational vitality and strength, destroying the myth that it was only a temporary beneficiary of the void that was created by the military leaders in 1983. On the other hand, in the long term, the referendum may also be regarded as an important event which signalled the departure of the MP leadership from the conciliatory and moderate style of politics on an issue of basic political rights that should never have been submitted to a referendum. The referendum not only took the heat out of Turkish politics, it also put the MP, in the long tenn, in a difficult and inconsistent stance with its declared commitment to basic democratic values. Early general elections were called by Prime Minister Ozal on the eve of 6 September 1987 just as the referendum polls closed. The close margin forecast py public opinion polls on the constitutional referendum was apparently interpreted as an indication of the strength of the party at the poll~. The general elections of 1987 were held on 29 November and the MP captured 292 seats (out of 450) with 36.3 per cent of the vote. 16 An interesting aspect of the 1987 election was that in one respect it was a contest between what remained of the post-1983 parties and pre-,1980 parties as all the pre-1980 leaders were at the helm of parties claiming to be inheritors of the mantle. There was a minor exception. The Democratic Left Party (DLP), under Billent Ecevit, claimed a new grassroots approach and attempted to divorce his party from a past heritage. But paradoxically, its leader, despite his rhetoric, evoked memories of the past,. especially of the days of 1978 and 1979 of three-figure inflation, shortages of vital goods and ramparit political violence when the RPP, led by Ecevit, was in power. On the other hand, Erda! inonii (ismet inonii's son), as the leader of the Social Democratic Populist Party (SDPP) cast a new image of civility and moderation in contrast to the polarized and uncompromising politics. of the 1970s, while the party largely depended on the rank and file of the RPP and seemed to enjoy the loyalties of the Republican voters. It is proposed here that the fortunes of the MP in Turkish politics, specifically in ,the elections of 1987, did not rest only on the early successes of the economic policies of the MP government. The

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159

Post-1980 General Election Results

Parties

,MP tSDPP '.TPP DLP NWP

pp

RDP NDP Ind

1987 Elections Votes Seatsb (percentages) Nwnber Percentages

1983 Elections Votes Sea~sb (percentages) Nwnber Percentages

36.31 292 64.90 24.74 99 22.00 : 19.14 59 13.10 .8.53 .2.93 7.16 0.82 dissolved before elections 0.37

211 45.1 30. sa 117 not allowed to run founded in 1984 founded in 1985 not allowed to run fOWlded in 1986 24.0 71

52.S 29.3

17.8

MP (Motherland Party), SDPP (Social Democratic Populist Party), TPP (True Path Party), DLP
MP came up with measures to reduce the burden of bureaucracy on the people: Furthennore, there was a very concerted effort to emphasize service delivery to the citizen; a well-conducted campaign to show the relations between taxes paid and services delivered. The MP attempted, with some success, to revolutionize the concept of government and citizen and the attitudes of each to the other. Especially at the municipal level, very energetic MP mayors, forging a reputation for getting things done, listening and being responsive to the demands and problems of citizens have emerged. The MP, with its emphasis on economic rationality, service delivery and decreasing bureaucracy, urban problems coupled with a careful avoidance of ideological issues and partisan conflict appeared to have opened up a place for itself at the centre-right of Turkish politics. This was a place that had bee~ occupied by the IP in the pre-1980 days when Turkey was less urbanized. Decreasing support for the JP in urban areas was tending to become an important Achilles' heel for that party, especially in the 1970s. The perfonnance of the MP in the 1987 elections has been viewed, especially by the opposition, as a setback when its national percentages of voter support declined from 45.1 in 1983 to 36,3 in 1987. As the inheritor of the JP, the True Path Party (TPP), under

160 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY Stileyman Demirel (earlier the leader of the. JP), was· in 1987 and remains to be the major obstacle - on the right of the political spectrum - for the prospects of the MP to regain the dominant position it enjoyed at the polls in 1983. The major challenge from the TPP came on constitutional issues and more generally on civil-military relations: an area where the appeal of the platform put forward by Demirel and the TPP was expected to go beyond the right in Turkey, as a rallying point for those who would like to limit the role of the military in Turkish politics. The M·P, on the other hand, perhaps.ID response to the exigencies of being in power. had a more conciliatory attitude towards the military than other parties. As will be discussed shortly, there has been, however, a recent effort by the MP leadership to define its place more clearly on the political spectrum in terms of political issues, democratic values and the party's relations with the military. The evolution of Turkish politics between the elections of 1983 and 1987 tends to lend support to our findings that the MP may have emerged as a new party, taking advantage of the vacuum created by the absence of the old parties and the yearning of the electorate for a democratic and relatively grassroots centre~right alternative, given the choice they had in 1983. By steering clear of ideological and partisan conflict and by addressing new sets of issues in a changing and urbanizing Turkey, through dynamic leadership both at the national and local levels, tl).e MP seemed to have become a major party of the right, despite strong opposition from the old guard of Turkish politics.

Post-1987 Developments The important question after the early elections of 1987 was whether this electoral support would stabilize and help the MP to play the role of a melting-pot of the diverse elements on the right. The post-1980 electoral coalition of the 'four inclinations' of liberals, fundamentalists, nationalists and social democrats within the MP, which Prime Minister Ozal has often referred to with pride, may not withstand the challenge of increasing rates of inflation coupled with decreasing growth. Moreover, the challenge from the TPP and its leader Demirel, to be the leading party of the right, was not abandoned. First signs of strain appeared in the 1988 convention of the MP, when the 'holy alliance' forged between the nationalists and the religious fundamentalists within the party organization, mounted an attack on the 'liberals' of the party and indirectly challenged Ozal's authority. On the other hand, public opinion polls showed early in 1988 that the electoral support for the Ozal government is waning due to a rate of inflation reaching 80 per cent. This was the environment under which a referendwn on the issue of early local elections was cqntested in September 1988. All the

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opposition parties - and, consequently, the govennnent - turned the referendum into a vote of confidence. 17 Ozal put at stake the future of his government and, according to some public opinion polls, the affirmative votes identified with the MP position climbed from below the 30 per cent pre-referendum forecast to 35 per cent affinnative votes at the referendum after his dramatic resignation threat, a week before voting. All sides claimed victory: both opposition parties interpreted the result as a vote of no confidence for the MP and initiated a crisis of legitimacy by questioning the very basis of the MP government. For Ozal and the MP the referendum proved that there was no erosion in the support that had brought the MP to power in the autumn of 1987. As The Economist put it: On the face of it, everything is the same as before. . . . Mr Ozal's claim to have achieved a tactical victory rests on the fact that in the referendum he got dose to the 36.3% that his Motherland Party mustered in last November's parliamentary election (a score that was enough to give him 65% of the seats in the parliament). 18 The most important sign of trouble for the MP was the local elections of 26 March 1989. Campaigning both by the opposition and the MP leadership quickly turned the elections again into a vote of confidence for the Ozal government, with Ozal putting the future of his leadership at stake, by declaring that a defeat at the polls would lead him to consider resignation. An inflation rate climbing to 80 per cent, slowing growth rates, a mutual hardening of attitudes towards each other, both by the press" and Ozal, and vigorous campaigning by the opposition parties were the significant characteristics of the local elections of 19891 Problems within the party itself did not help. The most important indicator of these problems was the refusal of Bedrettin Dalan, the popular mayor of Istanbul, to run his campaign under the party label. In turn, it is rumoured that the MP Istanbul party organization refused to campaign for Dalan, leading to his unexpected defeat in his efforts to remain in office. Interviews with members of the party organization also reveal that in many municipalities the organization did not catp.paign, resenting the increasingly personal and authoritarian style of Ozal's leadership. An important sign of resentment was ttte use of the term 'dynasty' with reference to decision-making by Ozal in consultation with his immediate family, brothers and some close advisers, to the exclusion of the properly elected executive. The local elections' results came as a shock to the party when it was able to capture a mere 21. 8 per cent of the vote and won only two municipalities out of 67. Dernirel's TPP gained 25 per cent of

162 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY the vote, strengtJlening his claim to be the leader of the right and an alternative to Ozal and the MP. inonii's SDPP captured around 28 per cent of the vote. The significance of the events of 1989 for the MP is that the very question of whether the party is a political one with a future' in Turkish politics has come to the agenda with full force. There is already the quest!~n of how the party will look and who its leader would be in the post-OzaI era. The unexpectedly impressive showing of the TPP in the local elections of 1989 has made that party a plausible alternative for some members of the MP with future political aspirations. The issue of a new image for the political party or a, return to the spirit of 1983 was openly discussed both in closed circles and in public fora. An important instance was the symposium organized by the party in Ankara, in April 1989, on the place of the MP in Turkish political life from the perspective of political culture and economic policy.19 In his opening message, (lzal dubbed the MP an anti-status quo party,20 similar to the .. Democratic Party (DP) of 1950-60, making revolutionary changes. Ozal characterized the lP of the 1960s and the 1970s as a status quo party, playing to the tune of the military-bureaucratic elite. This speech seemed to be an effort to engage in product differentiation in order to carve a niche for the MP in the face of the challenge from the TPP. OzaI also wanted to put on the political agenda the issue of constitutional reform and civil-military relations in favour of the predominance of civil democratic institutions to steal the thunder away from the opposition parties. This se~ch for a new identity in post March-1989 politics was not limited to Ozal. Leaders of factions in the party such Mesut Ytlmaz (liberal) and Hasan CelaI Giizel (nationalist) circulated their own ideas in the form of reports to members of the party and independent academicians asking for reactions on the future place of the party on the political spectrum and especially in the face of a mounting challenge from the TPP. The question often posed was whether the party would be a nationalist, conservative one or would be closer to the centre right, with,a more liberal slant. ' Another pr9blem that seems to plague the party is the stiffening opposition to Ozal within the party itself. There was frequent reference in the press to a 'group of 45' among the MP members of the National Assembly, who would decline to vote for OzaI if and when he announced his candi~acy for the presidency. Party Policies

This author has argued elsewhere21 that the relatively rapid steps taken in the transition to democracy is to a great measure a consequence

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of the commitment of the Turkish electorate to free elections, a commitment detennined by the impact that competitive party politics and elections have had on their daily lives. Better living standards for the masses and the dramatic socio-economic development that Turkey has experienced since 1950 have been closely associated with the competitive party system. Elections have served as a means for the masses to win concessions from the government, especially on bread-and-butter issues. The success of the MP in 1983 appears to be associated with this tendency of the masses. It was the MP - among the three the NDP and the PoP being the other two which competed - that cast an image of being a product of the society rather than a concoction from above. It was closest to a centre-right party - an image that the DP and IP moulded since 1950 - that gets things done and is responsive to policy demands of the masses. It is proposed here that the fonnula for the electoral success of the MP in 1983 had been brewing during the 1970s. In an increasingly urban and industrialized Turkey of the 1970s, the winning DP-IP formula, directed towards the countryside, was being worn out. The JP was constantly losing in the cities while the RPP was gaining grOlmd. The ineffectiveness ofIP-led coalition governments (growth rates that came to a grinding halt, failure to deal with the OPEC crisis, rising inflation and increasing political violence) was partially instrumental in the decline of the voter support for the JP to 36 per cent (in 1977) from a high reaching over 50 per cent (in the 1960s). At the same time the RPP, with its charismatic leader Billent Ecevit, broke the 40 per cent barrier for the first time and came very close to being a one-party government with 42 per cent of the votes. With a left-of-centre ideology, the Republicans appeared to be emulating the winning ways of the DP-IP within the increasingly urban setting of Turkey. The plight of the Turkish cities was put on the political agenda by the RepUblicans during the 1970s. Republican mayors, voted into office in the major cities, started to playa more visible role both in national and local politics. Local governments in urban areas were engaged in interesting experimentation in services such as public transportation. Whatever the success the RPP leaders may have had in putting problems on the public agenda, their policy performance after the 1977 elections left much to be desired, especially in terms of national policy outputs. Despite the dynamism exhibited by some RepUblican mayors to solve urban problems, the policy perfonnance at the national level bordered on virtual incompetence. It was admitted - in a soul-searching address to the party congress - by AydIn Giirkant a former interim leader of the SDPP,22 that while having a positive image on basic

164 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY issues of democracy such as the rule of Jaw, freedom, peace and various civil and political rights, the Left in Turkey has not been able to project a comparable image in terms of economic management. 23 The MP, however, added important dimensions to the image that made the Democrats and the JP popular at the polls in the 1950s and between 1965 and 1969 respectively. The MP in power since 1983, cast an image of a political party that, in contrast to the polarized and ideological style of politics of the 1970s, is conciliatory, interested in getting things done with an entrepreneurial spirit, has a YOWlg and relatively unknown rank and file with a good proportion of them experienced in private enterprise. In addition Ozal projected himself as an able technician turned politician, who knows the rational formulas for Turkey's economic problems and is ready to implement them with convict!9n and without any political considerations. The party, also lUlder Ozal's leadership, was able to come across to the electorate and explain its policy positions - sometimes unpopular measures such as raising the prices of the products of the Economic State· Enterprises, lower agricultural price supports - by using modern channels of conununication (television, press, advertising). Despite heavy criticism from the opposition, one of the most closely watched programmes on the television has been (and probably still is) 'From Within Our Executive Perfonnance', broadcast at prime time, showing huge engineering projects, to cast an image of an economically developing country trying vigorously 'to skip an age', 24 i.e. to catch up with the modern world. Narration was often by Ozal himself, explaining both the new construction projects and the rationale for harsh economic measures to combat inflation. The point made here is that the MP carne to power in 1983, because it was the only hope and the representative of whatever civil society there was in Turkey. It was successful in the 1987 elections because it successfully adopted the winning fonnula DP-JP, based on an effective policy perfonnance. It was able to capture the imagination of the voters with an emphasis on bread-and-butter issues, coupled with an emphasis on conciliation and moderation in political discourse. The early days of the MP govemmentalso exhibited an important feature that distinguished it from the pre-1980 governments: an effort to shield economic policy-making from patronage to combat inflation, and change Turkey from a state-dominated economy, favouring inwardlooking import-substitution policies, ,to an export-oriented free-market economy where- the state would also be cut down to size. In addition to economic rationality the policies to privatize state Economic Enterprises had a political rationale as well: to safeguard them against political patronage. One of the diIenunas of Turkish politics has been the centralization of all activity in Ankara, which enlarged

of

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the pie to be distributed as political patronage and thus contributed to the polarization of political conflict as discussed earlier. Another measure followed by Ozal has been to use extensively, in economic policy-making, young US-trained experts as economic advisers and as managers in the public sector, while at the same time attempting to shield them from politics - and even from the patronage-oriented demands of the members of his own party. The return of the old leaders and gradual liberalization of Turkish politics has made party competition tough since the latter half of 1987. The country has gone through a by-election, a closely fought referendum to restore the political rights ·of the pre-1980 leaders and a free-for-all general election in 1987. There are indications that, in this competitive atmosphere, the MP government under Ozal resorted to the same economic policy measures popular at election time during the 1970s: higher agricultural support prices and heavy spending (e.g. paving roads) in constituencies where the electoral outcome was not certain. This type of spending, in addition to heavy borrowing abroad, was held responsible for the growing inflation rates of 1987 and 1988. 25

Conclusion The MP is new in the sense that it has addressed a new set of issues and devised new policy approaches to tackle those issues. It developed a ·creed'26 based on a mixture of modem economic rationality, 'getting things done', exploiting the economic and political international potential of the country, 'skipping an age', in terms of catching up with the West and traditional values27 that was able to capture the imagination of the voters of the 1980s. Besides, the MP appears to have derived its support from a coalition of groups in the cities and towns who were adversely affected by the politics of the seventies. The party has adopted the electoral success formula of the JP (economic growth and delivery of services), based on the countryside~ to a changing and urban Turkey. The MP has yet to show evidence of institutionalization in terms of party organization. It seems to be leader-dominated like the pre-1980 political parties and lately shows growing dependence on patronage to build party organization and establish itself in power. One of the common complaints within the rank and file of the party is that the leadership has become insensitive to the demands of the party organization. The complaints of Cabinet ministers that they have problems in getting through toOzal are no longer a secret. Newspapers are full of stories that the 'dynasty', Ozal's immediate family, plays a key role in making crucial decisions related to both party and government matters. The intensifying consolidation crisis

166 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY (with old parties trying to make a coroebaGk while the MP is hanging on for dear life) of the Turkish party system seems to be pushing the MP to the old ways of party politics as witnessed by the emergence of patron-
Notes

:J)

2.

3. 4.

5. 6.

7.

8. 9.

Ustiin Ergiider and Richard I. Hofferbert, 'Restoration of democracy in Turkey? Political reforms and the elections of 1983', in Linda Lane (ed.) Elections in the Middle East: Implications oj Recent Trends (Boulder, Col.: Westview Press, 1987), p. 19. Ibid., p. 21. Ibid., p. 39. Ibid., p. 37. Ibid., p. 38. With respect to the role of 'institutional' and 'political facilitators' in new party formation, see C. !Iauss and D. Rayside, 'The development of new parties in Western democracies since 1945', in Louis S. Maisel and Joseph Cooper (ed.), Political Parties: Development and Decay (Beverly Hills, Cal.: Sage, 1978), pp.31-57. Hauss and Rayside found that in the democracies of Western Europe and North America 'political facilitators' such as leadership, organizational base and neglect of issues by older parties were more important in the formation of 'new' parties than 'institutional facilitators' such as electoral1aws. Turkey started experimenting with proportional representation after 1961. The system used was basically d'Hondt - a version of proportional representation which favours the parties with the most votes. But different modifications were made in some of the elections. For example, in 1965 the 'national remainder' provision of proportional representation was in force. See Ustii~ Ergiider, 'Changing patterns of electoral behavior', Bogazip, Universitesi Dergisi, ~9 (1980-81): 45-81. For an analysis of clientelistic politics in Turkey, see Sabri Sayan, 'Political patronage in Turkey', in Ernest Gellner and John Waterbury (eds) , Patrons and Clients in Mediterranean Societies (London: Duckworth, 1978), pp. 103-14.

THE MOTHERLAND PARTY, 1983-1989 10. 11. 12. 13.

14. 15.

16.

167

See Ergiider and Hofferbert, 'Changing patterns of electoral behavior', passim. Niliifer GOle, '1980 sonraSl siyasal kiiltiir', Gune§ (Istanbul daily), 15 July 1987, p. II. The term 'oria direk' was used by (hal and other MP leaders to denote the middle classes. See Ustiin Ergiider, 'Decentralization of local government and Turkish political culture', in Metin Heper'(ed.), Democracy and Local Governm€nt: Istanbul in the 1980s (Walkington: Eothen Press, 1987). On this point see titer Turan, 'The evolution of political culture in Turkey', in Alunet Evin (ed.), Modern Turkey: Continuity and Change (Opladen: Leske Verlag and Budrich, 1984). Among the political parties fonned after 1983, the True Path Party, the Social Democratic Populist Party, the Nationalist Work Party and the Prosperity Party are regarded as the inheritors of the Justice Party, the Republican People's Party, the Nationalist Action Party, and the National Salvation Party of the pre-1980 era, respectively. Other parties formed after 1983 were the Nationalist Democracy Party and the Populist Party. The latter two parties dissolved themselves before the 1987 elections. The Democratic Left Party formed after 1985 by Billent Ecevit, the former leader of the RepUblican People's Party, and the Reformist Democracy Party make up the list of political parties that currently compete in elections. Billent Ecevit does not have any claims to the heritage of the Republican People's Party. The early elections of 1987 were contested under an electoral system modified immediately before the elections. The modified system appears to have achieved what the military tried to do with more direct methods back in 1983: reduce the number of parties in the National Assembly. The new electoral system, however, has been attacked by both the press and the opposition parties as 'unjust' and tailor-made for the Motherland Party. It certainly magnifies the votes of a party able to gain a plurality in the National Assembly, and heavily penalizes minor parties unable to pass the dual thresholds - a local and a national one of 10 per cent - in what is basically a d'Hondt version of proportional representation. Local thresholds are detennined by dividing the total nwnber of votes in a constituency' by the number of seats in that constitutency. According to the modifications made, however, the divisor could not be any greater than 5 even in constitutencies where 6 seats (maximum size) are to be allocated. Consequently the local thresholds range from a maximum of 50 per cent of the votes for the smallest three constituencies to a

168 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

17.

18.

19. 20. 21. 22.

minimum of 20 per cent for the largest 48 constituencies. With its further provi~ion that in 46 constituencies one deputy will be elected by simple majority, the system heavily penalizes minor parties. The referendum was held on 25 September 1988 on the not very significant issue of early scheduling of local elections. The Motherland Party campaigned for having the elections four months earlier while the opposition parties, opposing the proposition, campaigned to treat the referendum as a vote of confidence for the Motherland Party government. During the last week of the campaign Prime Minister OZal declared in a dramatic television announcement that he could be resigning if the 'yes' votes did not reach a 'satisfactory' level. The proposition was defeated by a 65 per cent margin. Ozal did not resign, apparently interpreting the affirmative votes (35 per cent), 1.3 per cent less than the Motherland Party vote of 1987 (36.3), as 'satisfactory'. See 'If I say it's a victory ... ', The Economist, 1-7 October 1988, p. 36. It is difficult to see 'yes' votes of September 1988 as votes that would have gone to the Motherland Party in a general election. Yet the special circumstances of the referendum and the closeness of the margin between the Motherland votes of 1987 and the 'yes' votes of 1988 tempts such a conclusion. When the results are analysed at the provincial level the correlation coefficient (r) between the Motherland votes of 1987 and the 'yes' votes of 1987 is 0.83, indicating a close relationship. The meeting was open to the public, and the speakers included academicians, journalists, businessmen of all persuasions as well as members of MP organizations. " From the author's notes, who was a speaker at the symposium. Ustiin Ergiider, 'Political Parties, Political Culture and the State in Turkey', paper presented at the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies Annual Conference, Exeter, 12-15 July 1987. SDPP is regarded by many as the true successor of the RPP of the pre-1980 days. Although Billent Ecevit, the leader of the RPP, fanned his own Democratic Left Party (DLP) the 1987 election results indicate that the SD PP is the true heir to the

RPP. 23. 24. 25.

See Cumhuriyet (Istanbul daily), 30 May 1986, p. 8. A slogan often repeated by Ozal during the election campaign of 1987. The" highest rate of inflation reached was in 1979 with 100 per cent. It was reduced to around 35 per cent in the early 1980s. The figures for 1987, an election and referendum year, and the estimates for 1988, are around 75 per cent.

THE MOTHERLAND PARTY, 1983-1989 26.

27.

169

I am using the term here in the sense Samuel P. Huntington uses it to describe the American system of values and beliefs as a 'complex and amorphous amalgam of goals and values, rather than a scheme for establishing priorities among values and for elaborating ways to realize values'. See his American Politics: The Promise o/Disharmony (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press), p. 15. See Erglider and Hofferbert, 'Restoration of Democracy in Turkey?', p. 38; and Gole, '1980 Sonrasl Siyasal Killtlir', passim.

11 The Social Democratic Populist Party,

1983-1989 Andrew Mango

Introduction The Social Democratic Populist Party of Turkey (SDPP) stands in direct line of descent from the Republican People's Party (RPP) , which was dissolved after the military takeover of 12 September 1980. The RPP was at that time the oldest political party in the country. It had a distinguished past, one of its characteristics being that it was the precursor, if not consciously the model; of the many single parties which, after the Second World War took over the reins of government in newly established independent states. Although the model of a single-party regime was at that time already in existence in the Soviet Union, and although the example of the Soviet Communist Party (and later of the Italian Fascist Party which also established a single-party regime) probably affected the development of the RPP, Mustafa Kemal followed in this, as in some other matters, the tradition and the conventions of the post-1908 period - the years of the ascendancy of the Young Turks, known to Turkish historians as . the Second Constitutional Era. The republican constitution of 1924 (Article 70), like the Ottoman Constitution of 1876, as amended in 1909 (Article 120), recognized the right of association1 and, therefore, of forming political parties. But just as the Committee for Union and Progress installed an authoritarian government after 1913 and thus became the party which controlled the state, overlapped with it and sought to mobilize public support for its policies and actions, so too the RPP was, except for two brief periods, the only pennitted political party until the advent of multi-party politics after the Second World War. Irrespective of the existence of other tolerated political parties, the RPP was the political arm of the state from 1923 until 1950. The single party and the state were in a

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symbiotic relationship, and as far as the population was concerned, was little to distinguish officials of the RPP from state officials - both were numbered among the country's rulers. The term party of the state (devlet par/ist), used in Turkish political arguments after the Second World War represented the perceived identity of the RPP and of the state. This identity was terminated by the 1950 elections, as a result of which the RPP ceded power to the Democratic Party. However, the RPP remained, at least in the eyes of its followers, the party of the state - not, it is true, of the existing state, which the Democrats now controlled, but of an ideal state, in other words of the Kemalist secular republic, and of those civil servants who remained true to this ideal. Just as there was a King's party in seventeenth- and eighteenth- century England, whether the king was on his throne or 'over the water', whether he ruled and reigned or merely reigned, so too there has been, at least in concept, a party of the state in Turkey, a party championing the republic and its career officials against· undisciplined private individuals and self-seeking politicians. To the extent that the SDPP is the successor of the RPP, it bears also the historical legacy of the latter's origin as a party of the state. th~re

Culture and Politics This is one difference between the Turkish SDPP and the European Social Democratic parties on which it is currently modelling itself. The latter starte~ as parties of the opposition, of a ra~cal, sometimes violent opposition, even if they have become, at least in some countries (Sweden being the prime example), parties of the new establishment. On the other hand, the SDPP is, at least to some extent. the party of the old establislunent. It is so by virtue not only of its distant, but also of its proximate origins, for the SDPP is the successor not just of the RPP, but of the old RPP. The Social Democratic Party, which became the core of the SDPP after its merger with the Populist Party (originally designed by the military as a loyal opposition), was described at the time of its foundation in 1983 as an association of alI those members of the RPP who had faIlen foul of its last leader, Billent Ecevit. It was to that extent the unreconstructed RPP, since Ecevit had tried to renOWlce the RPP legacy as the party of the state and its elite. However, Ecevit's anti-elitism which has now found its full expression in the Democratic Left Party (DLP) has had the effect of handing over to the SDPP not the political and social elite, but, at le~st a large part of Turkish intelligentsia. Much of the former had moved over to centre-right parties which dispensed the benefits of political power

172 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY for at least twenty-five of the thirty years between 1950 and 1980. But that part - probably the majority - of the Turkish intelligentsia, which had, remained loyal to the RPP before 1980, has now found a new home in the SDPP. Intelligentsia, like elite, is not a precise term. The Turkish term aydtnlar (in the plural), which denotes it, is a translation of the Ottoman munevver, which itself was the translation of the French edaire (enlightened), used as the antonym ofjanatique. The aydtnlar were the secular ulema of the republic, andjust as the latter has staffed the bureaucracy of the old Ottoman Empire, so the former provided the civil servants of republican Turkey, their teachers and mentors. A product of secular- education, the aydtn (in the singular) was deemed, almost by definition, to ,be secularist (laik, the Turkish spelling of the French laique) and progressive (ilerict). This is manifestly no longer generally true in Turkey today. The reintroduction of religious teaching in schools, where lessons of 'religious culture' are now compulsory, changes in school textbooks, the reopening and multiplication of faculties of divinity. above all the opening and phenomenal growth of religious schools (in 1986--87, schools set up ostensibly for the training of prayer leaders and preachers had some 250,000 students),2 as well as changes in the social climate, have led to the ~mergence of large numbers of educated people who are not secularists. The tenn aydtn has itself been used as the title of an association Aydtnlar Ocagt (Intelligentsia's Hearth) which is credited with developing the policy of a 'Turkish-Islamic synthesis'. None the less, the republican tradition of the secularistt progressive intellectual is still strong. The SDPP seeks to embody it. Its programme states: 'The SDPP is secularist. It keeps religion separate from affairs of the state. It believes that one can be in step with the age only if the life of society and of the state are based on reason and science.'3 Ecevit's DLP is also secularist, but since it is anti-elitist, while equating the aydzniar with the elite, it gives the latter little option but to support the SDPP, if they do not favour right-of-centre pa,rties. Distinguished from European social democratic parties by its origins, the SDPP shares with them this characteristic of attracting the support of a considerable part of the intelligentsia. The social identity - in Marxist terms, the class basis - of the SDPP is uncertain, but its cultural identity, like that ot the RPP, is clear: it is perceived to be the party of the 'progressives', of the 'enlightened', of free-thinkers in the nineteenth-century sense of the term. In most European countries, social democratic parties may have had a clearer social identity as parties of the working classes. But although there is still a considerable overlap between the social and

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the political maps of European cOW1tries (in that, for example; one can expect poorer constituencies in Britain to return Labour Members of Parliament), the links between social democratic parties and the working classes are being eroded in step with the embourgeoisement of the latter. Irrespective of this process, working-class votes are not sufficient to explain a phenomenon such as the success of the Italian ComrnW1ists (and the PCl can by now be classified as a social democratic party) in rich Tuscany, contrasted with their failure to make an impression in the poorer region of Mezzogiomo. The explanation usually offered points to the anti-clerical tradition in Tuscany, as against the clericalism of the south. Not only in Italy, but also, to a large extent, in Belgium and Holland, parties are commonly labelled as being either secularist (lai'que) or confessional. Social democratic parties belong to the fanner category. Cultural factors have always been important in the social democratic identity, and their importance is perhaps groWing today as social differences become less clear-cut. The Spanish Socialist Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez and the British Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher may apply similar economic measures, but their rhetoric, their political discourse, is different, and this difference derives from distinct political cultures. The same is true of France, where the Socialist Party has been described as the party of (anticlerical) school teachers. The cultural divide in Turkey between religious and secularist opinion may be wider than in Europe, and the secular claims of Islam are greater than those of organized Christianity today. But for all that, the Turkish kulturkampf has both past and present parallels further west, and both in Turkey and in the West this division has important political implications. The degree of importance attached to traditional religious culture is not, of course, the only factor which distinguishes conservatives from social democrats (and liberals) in politics. If socialists and liberals have less religion than conservatives, they have more ideology. Socialists are the heirs of the French Revolution which was to inaugurate the reign of virtue, of projects for 'the moral regeneration of mankind', to use the tenn with which Byron and Shelley were familiar. These projects appeal to intellectuals. In order to realize their vision of the just society, European socialist intellectuals had to capture the state, for only the state could implement their project. In Turkey, the RPP, the parent of the SDPP, could dispense with this preliminary task, since it was from its inception the party of the state. With the support of the state it could devote itself to social engineering, and altbough much of this engineering has proved solid, it was not popular. This is one reason why the RPP never achieved an overall majority in a free election in Turkey.

"174 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

Today, the SDPP is not the party of the existing state, but it is implicitly the party of the strong state, for only through a strong state can it achieve its professed aim of social justice. A strong state is, of course, a part of Turkish historical experience, moulded first by the strong traditional Ottoman state, and then by the strong refonning Ottoman and later Republican state. " However, there is also a traditional fear of the state; there is an accumulated experience of capricious, not to say tyrannical, and often ineffective state action. It is to overcome this fear of, and antipathy to a strong state, that Ecevit and other social democrats have introduced to Turkish politics the Western concept of participatory democracy, which derives in part from the critique of state action by the New Left in the West. But if state action has not achieved social justice, there is no guarantee either that participatory democracy will be conducive to the realization of the socialist or social democratic vision, for private groups, however democratic internally, can be as selfish as private individuals. Moreover, participatory democracy, like civic virtue, is a plant of slow growth. The concept of a multitude of citizens, acting singly or in groups as they seek to promote the general good through private voluntary action, presupposes an extent of leisure and, consequently, of material affluence which, arguably, can be found only in rich countries. Turkish social democrats, with their eyes turned to West European models, can thus be said to advocate the relaxed politics of the rich in a country which is still comparatively poor. In the meantime, for all the talk of participatory democracy, Europe"an socialist and social democratic parties .are more inclined than are their conservative opponents to state action, state planning, state intervention and high taxation both to finance the enhanced role of the state and increase social justice through a redistribution of "income. Since it is easier to increase expenditure than tax revenue, and since unmatched expenditure leads to inflation, social democratic governments have often had to choose between inflation and the abandonment, or, officially, the postponement of the:.r project of social justice by state dispensation. In most cases they have prudently chosen the latter alternative. Socio-Economics In Turkey, however, inflation cannot be laid at the door of social democracy. It has rather been the child of populism. The RPP, parent party of the SD PP, f9r all its reliance on state action, was origitia1ly wedded to balanced budgets; it can be blamed only to a limited extent for wartime and immediate post-war inflation, and by the time it pursued an inflationary policy under Ecevit in 1978-79, the

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inflationary virus had been solidly implanted in the Turkish economy by the Democratic Party· governments between 1950 and 1960. However, Ecevit did face the classic dilemma of social democrats, and when his policies led to an economic crisis, he made the classic decision of coming to an agreement with the IMF. The decision, which he did not, in any case, carry out consistently, came too late to redeem his stewardship of the economy, while contributing to his loss of popu1ar support. The economic measures of 24 January 1980, which Silleyman Demirel introduced when he carne to power at the head of the minority government fonned by his conservative Justice Party,4 but which the military regime carried out to the full, and was conceivably alone able to carry out, convinced Turkish social democrats that the era of what they called 'populism' had come to an end, together with the 'national' policy of import substitution. Thus Melunet Ali Brrand, in the epilogue to his account of the 1980 military intervention, says that, as a result of it, 'Turkey was declared an IMF "showcase"', at the cost of a drop in its rate of growth, of its GNP per capita and the value of its currency and of an increase in the number of its unemployed. 5 Certainly, the first two of these ill effects have proved to be short-lived. C;aglar Keyder, whom Birand quotes several times, says specifically that 'the programme of the military regime . . . consisted of an effective dismantling of . . . the redistributive institutions of the previous period.'6 But given that the main redistributive instruments had been subsidies and inflation, one can say with certainty that they have not been dismantled. Nevertheless the belief persists among Turkish social democrats that the measures of 24 January 1980, .as implemented by the military regime, had made Turkey safe for the IMF, and that today's social ills are the consequences of this choice. This is a misconception. True, the free-market policies professed by Turgut Ozal today are in line with the kind of Western economic orthodoxy which is usually associated with the IMF. But profession is not synonymous with implementation. The IMF is not in favour of inflationary policies. Yet inflationary policies have certainly been pursued in Turkey in recent years. Ozal and Margaret Thatcher may declare their belief in similar principles of economic management. But their practical policies differ, since Thatcher has not only preached but has also practised balanced budgets, while in Turkey the gross exc·ess of state expenditure over state revenue continues to breed inflation today, as it did throughout most of the post-war period. 7 It follows that while in Britain the opposition Labour Party faces a Conservative Government which has kept public expenditure under control, and can therefore urge more generous public spending policies without appearing totally irresponsible, in Turkey the SD PP opposes a right-wing government which has been over-generous with public

176 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY funds. These have been expended on both material and social infrastructure - areas which would normally commend themselves to social democrats. This poses a problem for the SDPP. It is easy to criticize the social dislocation and social injustice caused by inflation, just as it is easy to point to the cost of the free market in terms of social mequality. But if inflation is the result of a gross excess of state expenditure over state revenue, if moreover state expenditure is excessive mainly because it provides badly needed services to the community, as well as giving employment to many of its members, then what is a social democratic party to do? As one prominent member of (lzal's Motherland Party said to the author in reply to criticisms of extra-budgetary expenditure through special funds, 'Do our opponents want us to provide less housing? Could they specify the cuts which they believe should be made?' If the SD PP were to revert to the sound money policies of the pre-war RPP, it would earn the applause of the IMF and the catcalls of its own supporters. It could, of course, subordinate or propose th~ subordination of state expenditure to a national plan. The SDPP programme does in fact lay great stress on planning, 8 which replaces the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange as the basic tenet of the social democratic project. This stress on planning, together with the defence of existing state economic enterprises9 and the statement that 'strategic' minerals should be exploited by the state,1O forms the left-wing core of the programme. But while planning is popular among social democrats, it is much less so among the public if it postpones the satisfaction of their needs, and even less, of course, if it reduces the level of public services to what planners believe the economy can afford. There is also the fact that economic and social plans tend to go badly wrong, as witness the record of planning not only in Eastern Europe, but also in Western countries such as Britain. But Turkish social democrats can, of course, hope that they will be luckier with their plans. Social democrats also demand that waste and favouritism should be eliminated and tax collection improved: the IMF..and theOECp want no less, not to mention right-wing opponents of Ozafs administration, such as SOleyman Demire1. 11 But the achievement of these desirable·· aims depends to a large degree on greater administrative efficiency and on a change in social habits. Neither can be achieved overnight. .

The Prudent State The SD PP has to operate in a society where the tradition of clientelism is well established, and where elected govenunents have responded

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to popular demands for public expenditure beyond the limits of fiscal prudence. Theoretically, it can try to curb the first, and tum a deaf ear to the second. Theoretically, it can be true to its origins and become the party of the prudent state, which undertakes only such projects as it can ~ord. These are precisely the policies which the party leader, Erdal Inonii, promises to pursue in power. .' 'You may not think it credible', inonii said recently, 'but only we can solve inflation if we are elected to power. We shall foUqw a policy of balanced budgets. Ours will be a credible, a resolute government. We shall follow re.solutely an anti-inflationary policy. We shall consolidate the internal debt. There can be no question of failing to repay the foreign debt. '12 Without doubting inonii's 'sincerity, one is entitled to ask whether his party is in fact capable of carrying out his promises. Like social democratic parties everywhere, the SD PP has both a Marxist wing and a Marxist constituency. The presence of Marxists in the ranks of the SDPP is one aspect of the party which Ecevit finds disturbing, when he accuses it of welcoming all and sundry, unlike, he says, his own more selective DLP.13 This criticism fits in with Ecevit's ideological stance, since Marxists can fairly be tenned 'left-wing elitists', just as some social democratic intellectuals can be described as 'right-wing elitists'. Marxists are, of course, also proponents of the strong state (at least until true Communism' is established and the state withers away), and they are not averse to balanced budgets. But their belief in the implacable antagonism between capital, which they combat, and labour, which they profess to champion, leads them, as long as they are in opposition, to support, and often to incite, labour demands for higher remuneration, irrespective of their effects on the economy. If these demands lead to a breakdown of the free-market economy, then, as far as orthodox Marxists are concerned, 'the worse, the better': the inconsistencies of capitalism are exposed, and the 'capitalist system' undennined. Their alternative is, a command economy. The leaders of Turkish social democrats do not want a command economy, but a free market, controlled by state planning,14 They also champion what they call the mixed economy,l5 However, there is some mystification here. For all the vogue of privatization, a mixed economy continues to exist in all Western countries, including the United States. In Turkey, to give but one indicator, public investment (at 13.5 per cent of GNP in 1986) is, still considerably larger than private investment (at 9.7 per cent).16 In any cas~, it is not .the size of the public sector, but the size of GNP and the part of it .appropriated by the government which detennine the extent of the social action of the state.

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In Turkey central government revenue, a~. a percentage of GNP, has grown steadily every year, under Ozal's conservative governments, from 15.3 per cent in 1984 to 19.9 per cent in 1988. 17 This proportion should rise, irrespective of the political complexion of the government, as Turkey draws nearer to the standards of Western Europe, where governments (and there too it does not matter much whether they are conservative or social democratic) appropriate more than 40 per cent of GDP (UK: 42 per cent, Gennany 44 per cent, France 49 per cent, etc. ).18 The proportion of GDP taken in taxation depends not so much on the scope and level of taxes as on the efficiency of their collection. In Turkey the ,level of taxation is, by and large, higher than in Britain,19 but the yield is relatively smaller. The efficiency of tax collection is, as has been said, largely an administrative matter. Nevertheless, it would be logical for the SDPP to advocate it. It could do so as the party of the 'serious state'. Demands for a 'serious state' (ciddi devlet) have recently gained currency in Turkish political discussions. To some extent they can be described as a reaction of the old republican elite to the way of life and the behaviour of new rulers drawn from outside its confines. To some extent also they restate traditional complaints against nepotism, favouritism, arbitrary behaviour and waste. But they embody also a perception that public services must become more effective, as well as more impartial. Demands for the effectiveness of the state are not, of course, confined to social democrats. The Motherland Party (MP), for one, has claimed that under its rule projects and policies have been implemented more effectively. But as champions of more extensive state involvement, the social democrats should be particularly concerned that that involvement be both effective and efficient. A serious state is also a prudent state, and prudence is a virtue in the Turkish tradition of statecraft inherited by the republican elite from the rulers of the Ottoman Empire. However the SDPP does not consist only of the old elite and its supporters among the intelligentsia. Although it represents a reaction against the policies followed by Ecevit as leader of the RPP in the 1970s, both its membership and its constituency have been affected by the opening to the left which had started in the RPP under the leadership of ismet inonii in the 1960s, before being pursued by Ecevit in the following decade. OZal has even argued that roles have now been reversed, and that while Ecevit has learnt from his earlier mistakes, the SDPP has not. Speaking in Van in January 1989, OZal said:

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There are divisive, separatist and extreme left-wing elements in the SDPP. The SDPP and [its leader Erdal] inonii are unable to do anything about them. The party has thus lost its consistency ... Ecevit's DLP is much more consistent than the SDPP. He had suffered much from these elements in 1978--9. With the experience which he then acquired, he no longer accepts such people in his party. 20 Leaving aside separatists and extremists for the moment, one group which the old RPP cultivated and which the SDPP now seeks to at tact is organized labour. 'In Turkey, as elsewhere, social democrats are particularly keen on the role of trade unions in counteracting the asperities of the free market. In the rest of Europe, this does not prevent clashes with the unions when the social democrats are in power and find themselves obliged to set a limit to union demands for higher wages. In Turkey the potential conflict between social democrats and unions is even greater, since the union movement reflects popular aspirations to immediate large-scale material improvements and includes many outright opponents of the free market. Consequently, by increasing union rights, by lifting the current ban on union involvement in politics, Turkish social democrats may hann the free market system, without meaning to do so. Already the left-wing opposition within the SDPP is identified with some union leaders, and especially those who had been active in the dissolved Confederation of Revolutionary (or in presentations to the West, Progressive) Trade Unions. They are said to be tactical allies of some SDPP members from the south-east of the country. The Kurdish problem of the south-east is likely to preoccupy the SDPP. But while the problem of union militancy affects it specifically, as the party which champions union rights, the ethnic problem is not specific to it. SDPP may have received nearly 55 per cent of the vote in Tunceli in the last general elections, but in the south-east as a whole (giving the area its widest definition) its share of the vote was, at 21 per cent, below its national average of 25 per cent. 21 With the south~east accounting for little over 10 per cent of the valid votes cast in 1987,· the SDPP does not have to give undue weight to electoral considerations in detennining its policy towards the area. Socio·~conomic

Policies and Electoral Support

Electoral statistics for 1987 are,' of course, difficult to interpret because of the split in the left-wing vote between the SDPP and the DLP. Nor is it safe to aggregate the votes of the two parties, first because the split may persist, and second, because personal factors will always play

180 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY some part in election results. However, if one takes the SDPP vote alone, one can conclude that the party is strongest in the largest cities: in Izmir (36 per cent), Ankara and Istanbul (30 per cent) and Adana (27 per cent), the SDPP achieved above-average results. This trend emerged even more clearly in the local goverrunent elections in March 1989, when the SDPP increased its share of the total poll by only 4 per cent, to 28 per cent, but captured 40 out of the 67 provincial centres, including all the main cities. 22 This is consistent with its idea of itself as a modem social democratic party, given that the most 'modem' strata of society are to be found in the main metropolitan 'areas. While a social analysis of the SDPP urban vote is impossible, one can safely say that it is in the metropolitan areas that the intellectual supporters of the party are concentrated and carry the greatest weight. However, political parties do not live by electoral tactics alone. While many, if not most, voters base their electoral choices on the best calculation which they can make of the consequences on their personal circumstances of the accession to power of this or that contender for it, parties carmot derive their dynamism solely from the self-interest of their members. They also need the inspiration of a vision. What is the vision of the SDPP? In the preamble to the party programme this is described as a regime which: gives the highest value to man; derives its strength from the people; 'respects human rights, freedom and labour; extends democracy to all areas of life; extends social justice in step with production; prevents unjust profit; gives priority to social solidarity; strengthens the integrity and independence of the nation; and, at the same time, tries to contribute to world peace and to [the good of] all humanity.23 Such is the official vision of the SD PP. But among its supporters, a radical left-wing anti-imperialist nationalism (not only Turkish but, in some cases, also Kurdish nationalism), of what can be described as a Third World variety, provides an alternative ideology. Differences between the leadership and militants are not, of course, uncommon in political parties, particularly in left-wing ones. Nor is the fact that inanii resigned briefly on one occasion from the leadership of the party when he was unable to control its factions - a tactic ahnost without precedent in other countries. (Gonzalez also resigned briefly from the leadership of his' own party before succeeding in expunging Marxism from the programme of Spanish socialists.) But in Turkey the gap between the establishment origin and the moderate views of the leadership of the SD PP, on the one hand, and the

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radicalism of its militants, on the other, may prove more difficult to bridge. * In the study of Turkish politics, much attention has been given to the apparent absence of a positive correlation between income levels and voting behaviour, in that poorer citizens have often voted for 'right-wing' rather than for 'left-wing' parties. On the basis of this it has been argued that cultural factors have been more important than economic ones in determining party preference. It has already been suggested that cultural divisions are not peculiar to Turkey, even if they are stronger there than in most other European countries today. It has also been suggested that they are 'likely to persist, both in Turkey and elsewhere in Europe, but that they can be accommodated in a democratic society. However, is perceived cultural identity a more important factor than perceived economic interest in detennining voting behaviour? It is not easy to answer the question, since the two perceptions may coincide: 'if the likes of me win, then they'll see to it that I'll be better off. Thus a religious voter may well believe that the election of a Godfearing government would bring him personal material benefits, while a secularist voter may entertain similar hopes of a secularist goverrunent. In the circumstances, it is impossible to determine whether it was 'religious reaction' (Le. cultural factors) or economic discontent which mobilized support for the Free Party in the 1930s (when the world economic crisis had caused much hardship among the public), and the Democratic Party in the late 1940s (when the economic effects of the Second World War and of the policies pursued by the RPP to manage a war economy were still keenly felt). Where poorer citizens vote for 'right-wing' parties for reasons of both cultural identity and economic self-interest, because 'left-wing' parties had failed to improve their lot in the past and are believed incapable of doing so in the future, the assumed absence of correlation between personal income and voting behaviour is illusory. There does not seem to be any difference between religious and secularist Turks (or West Europeans for that matter) in the importance which they attach to material well-being. And it is the latter which forms the main subject-matter of politics. The assumption that voting behaviour is governed by cultural orientation disregards the probability that electors know where their best material interests lie. Furthermore, in certain circumstances, personal experience may lead voters to the conclusion that the political management of the economy is not a zero-sum game, where more for some means *Editors' note: SDPP's militants have been weakened recently. after seven of the party's MPs attended a meeting in Paris, in October 1989, concerning the Kurdish issue against the party's wishes, and were consequently expelled; thereupon some other militants, too, resigned in protest.

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necessarily less for others. Under the Democrats in the'1950s, and their successors in the 1960s and 1970s, most social strata became more prosperous. Keyder, for one, now recognizes this. 24 Under Ecevit's government in 1978--79, all social strata experienced difficulties. It is this experience, rather than the prevalence' of religious observance, which has impeded the development of class politics in Turkey. If this analysis is correct, class politics will not prevail until general gains in prosperity become more infrequent. Absolute gains are in this respect more important than relative ones: the fact, for example, that decreases in the share of wage-earners in the national product may have less bearing on their voting behaviour than an improvement, however small, in their material standards. Moreover, governments can generate the illusion of an advance in general prosperity by conferring on the whole of society, albeit in different degrees, greater material advantages than the economy can afford. This, of course, is not a policy that can be pursued indefinitely, although there is always the hope, in the famous phrase of an unsuccessful British Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer, Anthony Barber, that Ithe dash for growth' may succeed. Can this illusion or this hope persist? There are some in the MP who argue that with their mixture of conservative cultural and liberal economic policies they resemble the Liberal Democrats who have been continuously in power inJapan since the end of the war. But, apart from anything else, Japan seems to enjoy sustained growth without the disadvantages of inflation. This being so, an outsider can see no reason why the Japanese electorate should change the political management of the COlUltry. In the case of Turkey, Dankwart A. Rustow has pointed out that the ideal of Turkey as a future Japan of the Middle East, committed to ancestral values and up-to-date international technology, however attractive its historic and long-tenn logic, remains at best a sOI1}ewhat distant vision. Meanwhile, the questionremains whether Ozal's political programme and Turkey's economy can stay the course. 25 As an answer to this question is awaited, the SD PP may find it hard to become· the voice of specific socio-economic groups, for all of them, or enough members of all of them, would still share the common hope of a general advance to prosperity. This being so, it would have to decide whether it wishes to compete in populist policies, promising more and sooner than do the other parties. The statement in the SD PP programme that 'there can be no true stability without growth'26 could serve as a justification for a policy of spending one's way out of a crisis. As has been stated, this is not the policy which the

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party leader, inonii, is advocating at present. Moreover, as has also been argued earlier, the historic origins of the SDPP fit it for the role of defender of consistent, prudent and equitable state policies. It has been said of President Fran<;ois Mitterrand, who now cohabits happily with free-market policies, that 'it a l'esprit de ['etaf. The SDPP could lay claim to the same title. Such an option would be a reversal of the line taken by Ecevit when he was leader of the RPP, and sought to renOlUlce the legacy of his party. At first his line seemed to succeed, as the share of the poll won by the RPP achieved a record of 41.4 per cent in 1977. But two-years later it was down to 29.1 per cent in- the Senate elections. Would a reversal of his policy and a return to that of the old RPP mutatis mutandis produce better results, given that the old RPP had never won an absolute majority in a free election? The pursuit of power is the raison d'etre of political parties everywhere, and nowhere more so than in Turkey, where, as ilter Turan has pointed out, state patronage is the life-blood of parties. 27 Given the known preference of the Turkish electorate for centre parties, it is unlikely that the SDPP will ever accede to power unless it is perceived as a moderate centrist party. The prospect of power is thus a powerful weapon in the hands of the SDPP leadership in its efforts to control those of its members who would prefer to overturn the existing system in the country and sever its growing links with the world free-market system. Given, however, the likelihood that militants opposed to the system provide much of the enthusiasm which animates the SDPP, the latter may well need a source of inspiration to reinforce the quest for power pure and simple. As inonii seems to realize, a promise to increase state expenditure in the cause of social justice would carry little conviction in the present state of Turkey's public finances. This leaves a call to rally in defence of the state (which would be equitable by definition, since in the Turkish-Muslim tradition, 'justice is the foundation of the realm') against the inroads of demagogic politics, as a possible source of inspiration. It could be argued that such a call would help to reinforce democratic institutions and secure their development along Western lines. Conclusion

There are, of course, other patterns of politics in the world: patterns observable in countries where parties seem to compete in political irresponsibility in a dream-world of their own making. Fortunately, in Turkey realism usually prevails. The reason is probably to be soughtin the country's long tradition of statecraft, which is another way of saYing

184 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY that there is an accumulation of experience in dealing with real political choices. And whereas in Western Europe electors are presented with a choice between more or less state intervention, in Turkey, given that the state is intervening on a massive scale even under a regime which describes itself as liberal, the more urgent choice centres on the question of what kind of state intervenes in social life, how consistently, how effectively, how seriously and how fairly. . It has already been argued that in Turkish tradition, the notion of the paternal state (devlet baba) coexists with that of the tyrannical state (ceberut devlet), But the smooth development of Turkish society will be impossible unless this dichotomy is resolved in a growing realization of the need for a serious state. It is a cause worthy of a serious political party. It may be objected that the cause is anachronistic at a time when it is fashionable to demand that 'the frontiers of government' should be 'rolled back'. However, one must distinguish the function of the state as entrepreneur frorri its function as the regulator and protector of social life, as the source of rules and norms more than an actor in its own right. The latter role is being challenged today as the limitations of state economic activity become clearer. But the former has become, if anything, more important, as increased freedom requires increased policing. And the more crowded, the more urbanized and the more complex a society becomes, the more it needs the regulatory power of an effective and impartial state. This is the position in Turkey today, where the state is still producing beer, but finds it hard not just to provide public health and education (which can be termed a residuary function), but to enforce minimum acceptable public health, educational and environmental standards (which is an essential state function). It can also be argued that there is not just a theoretical, but a real demand for an effective, serious state in Turkey. This is one explanation of the public support extended to the military when they took power in 1980. Of course, parliamentary democracy, based on the existence of political parties, is also popular. Parties have articulated and aggregated particular interests; they have been used to redress wrongs; they have overseen and controll~d the state machinery. The SDPP can with time fulfil all these functions; it may even have already begun to do so. As a social democratic party, the SDPP is best placed to champion the interests of wage-earners in both the public and the private sectors, and, in view of its tradition and make-up certainly those of the intelligentsia. But the SDPP must win support also among farmers and the self-employed, if it is come to power, and it may find it useful to bear in mind that these groups too need a serious, in the sense of an effective state. In Turkey, as in Western Europe, the main political battle is.fought for the possession of the middle ground, Turkey, even more than

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Western Europe, is today moved by the spirit of self-improvement. Its political culture is, like its social life, predominantly petit-bourgeois. Any political party which aspires to power must recognize these facts. But Turkish society is also comparatively poor. The gap between aspirations and achievement produces social tension and, occasionally, violence. In such a society short-cuts, whether pqlitical in the shape of redemptive ideologies, or personal, in recourse to illegality, have a certain attraction. However, this temptation is usually kept in check by a tradition of social discipline, often internalized as religion, but externalized in the state. The defence of the state lies at the centre of the middle ground of Turkish politics', One cannot, of course, predict the development of the SDPP. It may espouse specific social groups and push their interests to extremes. It may propose vast projects of social engineering, like 'agro-towns' (kiiykent, which had prompted the joke CHP ne kliykent olur ne kasaba, meaning literally 'RPP will make neither an agro-town nor a market town' - in other words, it will never come to anything): these projects which are, alas, no joke in present-day Romania, were still mentioned in the 1979 RPP progranune28, at a time when the country had rather more serious problems to consider. It may, as has been said, compete in promises of immediate material improvements, as all parties are prone to do. It will, at least to some extent, be affected by the pervasive habits of clientelism. But the country has learnt some lessons in the fifty years since the death of Atatiirk, and in the forty years of multi-party life. It is, therefore, likely that while the manifesto of the SDPP may be inspirational, its actions may be soberly pragmatic, However, its ability to be pragmatic may depend less on the inclinations of its leaders than on the country's material circumstances. The future of the SD PP, like the development of democracy in Turkey, is tightly bound up with the development of the Turkish economy within the world free-market system in general, and the orbit of the European Community in particular. Given the continuation of this development, the SD PP should be able to realize its aspiration of acquiring the position and fulfilling the functions of social democratic parties in Western Europe. Without it, one should look not to member states of the European Community, but to less developed countries for' portents and parallels. And there, the question which is the more frequently asked is no longer 'Can development be achieved under capitalism?' but 'What does a democratic regime cost the economy?'

Notes 1. Rona Aybay, Kar§tla§ttrmalt 1961 Anayasast (Istanbul: Fakillteler MatbaaSl, 1969), p. 49.

186 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY 2.

Prime Ministry State Institute of Statistics, Statistical Pocket !,988 (Ankara: n.d.), table 42, p. 54. SHP Istanbul II Orgiitii, Sosyal Demokrat H alk~t Parti: Program, Tuzuk (Istanbul: n. d.), p. 19. Labels given to parties can only be approximate: there are considerable differences between, say, British conservatives and Turkish conservatives, Turkish social-democrats and Danish social-democrats, or, for that matter, between British and Italian liberals. To avoid confusing labels, general classifications such as right-of-centre or left-of-centre can be used. These are more accurate, since the location of the centre is specific to each country. But apart from the fact that tenns such as 'right-of-centre' are cumbersome, transnational alliances of parties point both to perceived similarities of stance and to a growing homogenization of politics, at least in democratic Europe. Now that the Turkish SDPP has been accepted into the Socialist International (Milliyet, Istanbul daily, 22June 1989), while the Motherland Party takes part in international meetings of 'democratic' (i.e. conservative) parties, the time has perhaps come to apply to Turkish parties the simpler labels used in Europe, while bearing in mind the differences in contents. Mehmet Ali Birand, The Generals' Coup in Turkey, trans. M.A. Dikerdem (London: Brassey's, 1987), p. 212. Caglar Keyder, State and Class in Turkey, (London: Verso, 1987), p. 228. William Hale, The Political and Economic Development of Modern Turkey (Croom Helm, London: 1981), p. 165. Program, Tilzuk, pp. 22, 34. . Ibid., pp. 23-4. Ibid., p. 42. In Demirel's graphic phrase, the Motherland Party has one hand in the honey pot, the other in the butter jar (bir eli balda, bir eli yagda) (Sakarya meeting on 19 March 1989, author's notes). Milliyet, 23 May 1989. BUlent Ecevit at the Royal Institute or' International Affairs in London, on 24 January 1989, author's notes. Program, Tuzuk, p. 22. Ibid., p. 19. OECD Economic Surveys, Turkey, (Paris, September 1988), table 1, p. 12. Ibid., table 21, p. 50. OECD in Figures, supplement to the OEeD Observer, Paris, No. 158, Junel1uly 1989, pp. 22-3. Book.ofTurk~

3. 4.

5. ,6.

7.

8. 9. 10. 11.

12. 13.

14. 15. 16. 17.

18.

THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC POPULIST PARTY 19.

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

28.

187

Personal tax rates are higher, and while local government and VAT rates are lower. Turkey levies additional taxe.s payable into special funds. Milliyet, 25 January 1989. I have computed the percentages on the .basis of the table published in Ana Britannica 1988 Dunya Almanagz (Istanbul: Ana Yaymcillk, 1988), pp. 18-19. Newspot (weekly published by Directorate General of Press and Infonnation in Ankara), 30 March 1989. For city results, see Milliyet, 28 March 89. Program, Tuzuk, p. 11. Keyder, State and Class in Turkey, p. 186. Dankwart A. Rustow, Turkey: America's Forgotten Ally (New York: Council on Foreign Relations. 1987), p. 8. frogram, Tiizuk. p. 46. Ilter, Turan, 'Stages of political development in the Turkish. ~~public', in Perspectives on Democracy in Turkey, Ergun Ozbudun (ed.) (Ankara: Turkish Political Science Association, 1988), pp. 103-4. Directorate General of Press and Information, RPP Program, Ankara, 1979. It will be noted that this party programme was published by the state, although it says that 4political pressures and partisanship are [to be] prevented in public administration' (p. 142).

12 The True Path Party, 1983-1989 Feride Acar

Since its inception in 1983, the True Path Party (TPP), through the public and private statements of its officials, party publi€ations and symbolic demonstrations, has been hammering home the claim that it is 'in body and soul' the Justice Party OP). As opposed to the Motherland Party's (MP) initial claim ·of being an amalgam of various pre-1980 political identities, 1 the TPP's clear message has been the articulation of its exclusive association with the Justice Party OP). The presence of Silleyman Demirel as its leader obviously gives this claim significant credibility, for it establishes a tie between the present-day TPP and the JP of the 1960s and 1970s, which in turn was founded on claims of inheritance from the Democratic Party (DP) of the 1950s. Keeping this continuity argument in mind as a main premise, this chapter purports to analyse leadership and organizational characteristics, some aspects of the support bases as well as some ideological themes of the TPP. The purpose is that of delineating the place of this party in the transition to democracy in Turkey. Leadership and Organizational Characteristics In the eyes of many, the TPP is a party primarily identified with its leader, Demirel. Despite the party's initially less than satisfactory election performance, the TPP leader has appeared exceptionally strong and continued to be unchallenged within the party. Resilience in the face of adverse circumstances has been an important source of his strength. Given the fact that he was ousted from power twice, Demirel's present status in the Turkish political scene as leader of the TPP is in itself no mean achievement. One of the obvious aims of the 1980 coup was to prohibit for some time Demirel along with others, from engaging in politics. The military held Demirel, along with Billent Ecevit, Chainnan of the Republican People's Party (RPP),morally responsible for the civil

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war-like situation of the 1970s. Thus, not only were constitutional and legal bans put on Demirel's political activities after 1980, but also the highly popular leader of the intervention, General Kenan Evren, publicly pointed his finger at him (and at other pre-1980 leaders). Demirel's attempts at fonning new political parties by proxy have met clear and strong opposition from the military.2 Part of his traditional support base of DP-lP voters was captured by his former protege, Turgut Ozal, through the formation of another centre-right party, the Motherland Party (MP), which enjoyed the unwilling tolerance of the military first,and the advantages of being in power next. Yet despite all this, Dernirel managed to stay in politics. Thus as far as the TPP experience is concerned, Dernirel's leadership has been crucial. This should come as no surprise because, in the post-September 1980 period, Demirel followed a deliberate strategy of keeping his contacts alive with his supporters all over Turkey. His personality and leadership style as well as the organizational characteristics of the defunct lP, facilitated the pursuing of such a strategy. The predominantly patron-client type of relationship between the TPP and the party's supporters made such a personal touch possible. In the post-coup period his followers had easy and open access to De mire I personally. In his residence in Ankara Demirel kept an open house for his followers and constituents; he could be reached quite easily by telephone by many local JP leaders throughout Turkey. He, in fact, made a point of personally getting in touch with them on a regular basis. He held periodic meetings with former JP deputies and the central committee members of the party. Thus, he maintained very close, even daily, contacts with his former lieutenants. . At the time, many among his followers and sympathizers, as well as those in the state bureaucracy and private sector, expected that after the return to democracy, Demirel's chances of playing a key role in Turkish politics were considerable. Such expectations obviously encouraged further and facilitated the maintenance of an active party network. Many an observer of the Turkish scene has noted that had Demirel been allowed to form the Great Turkey Party, this party could have carried the banner for and united the Turkish right in its ranks. 3 An indication of Demirel's personal and organizational strength can perhaps be seen, also, in the fact that Billend Ulusu, the prime minister of the post-1980 military government, is reported to have approached Dernirel, in the days following the lifting of the ban on political parties, for the latter's endorsement of his attempt at fonning a political party. Demire I's reported refusal of such cooperation has been interpreted as both indicative of his relative strength and to be in line with the fervently anti-militarist stand he and the TPP were to take in the ensuing years. 4 ..

190 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

In the period prece~g the fonnation of new parties, there have been attempts to bring Ozal and Demirel together so as to prevent the fragmentation of the Turkish right. These attempts were also met unfavourably on Demirel's side. This was as much due to Demirel's Wlwillingness to cooperate with someone who could· be a potential challenger for the pdme position in the party representing the rightS as to his objection to any association with the September 1980 coupmakers and their supporters. The local organizations of TPP, too, were often initiated following personal messages to fonner IP officials from Demirel himself, who at the time was detained by the military at Zincirbozan. These messages were often sent clandestmely. The local party organizations in question were staffed whenever possible by former JP members, by their reliable relatives, friends and/or neighbours. The TPP officials claimed that, as of October 1988, about 70 per cent of the local party heads were former JP members. Most of these are people who were active in the youth corps of the JP. The TPP was thus able to set up its local organizations very' quickly because it could make use of fonner JP organizations, despite the legal and political obstacles put on their way by the authorities and despite the (unfair advantage' Ozal and the MP had by being given an earlier go ahead. It was suggested that the uphill battle fought by TPP members to establish their political party has radicalized them considerably and that this fact may account for the strong sense of cohesiveness among the TPP members. In the words of one senior party official, Because in the post-1980 period the military took Demirel and his supporters as one of their main targets, the struggle to fOnTI .the party has been particularly intense; today there is a most militant, aggressive and committed cadre in this party. In fact, in the process 'a monster' difficult to control has been created. The party organisation is constantly demanding blood. 6 The rhetoric in question and the incipient pride in the aggressiveness of party members indicate a political identity shaped by a sense of being victimized. The consequent mission is one of restitution of 'justice'. It should also be noted that the DP-JP approach to politics has placed particular emphasis on clientelistic relations and party patronage,7 even though such pattem~ have been also identified in other political parties in Turkey.8 Demirel's personality and political style have always exhibited characteristics much in ~e with this type of politics.· The fact that he projects the image of a tpeople's man' Chalk adamz) is undeniable. Demirel has been the only major party leader in Turkish political life at times to speak in a rural, central Anatolian accent. That he comes from a small village made projecting such an

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image easier and helped his natural affinity with the conunon people, especially in rural areas and smaller cities. He has always been at home with large, basically rural masses. Part of that ease undoubtedly comes from a shared experience of peasanthood and poverty. 9 Based on Demirel's past, his main message has always been a commitment to better the lot of the masses. This, he always argued, could best be achieved by the presence, in parliament, of the true representatives of people. He has been exceptionally successful in communicating this message because the rural masses in particular identified with him. With the coming to power of the DP in .1950, democracy was gradually perceived by many in Turkey 'as a system through which one can bargain with the state for particular goods and services. 10 In the process, party patronage and clientelistic relations were intensified. Thus the DP and its heir, the JP, not with too much exaggeration, have always been marked in Turkish politics as both 'beneficiaries' and 'initiators', of party patronage and machine politics. ll Demirel, with his image as the 'people's man', his commitment to distributive governmental policies and his personal style of easy access, all combined, has been both a product of and an integral part of the clientelistic JP of the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1980s, however, the situation has been quite different. Obviously, . opposition status is not favourable to clientelistic politics and prolonged opposition may prevent protective clientelism, toO.12 To the extent that being in opposition keeps a patron away from state resources, it is likely to disrupt clientelistic ties and endanger former support built on and accustomed to such benefits. This very fact has been an influential negative force in the party's current· struggle for power. Also, Demirel's life and personal style, which have helped him and his party enormously in the 1960s and 1970s by fitting him nicely into the patterns of Turkish politics of the time, have not been appropriate for the 1980s. The populist and conservative beliefs and values which were an asset in the 1960s and 1970s and still help endear him and his party to most rural populations and people in smaller centres throughout Anatolia, have not accorded well in the 1980s with the qualitatively and quantitatively different ambitions and values of second- and thirdgeneration urbanites, young technocrats, professional elites andlor new liberal intellectuals, particularly in the presence of an alternative rightist discourse of a more daring nature, i. e. that of the MP. Thus the above beliefs and values did not seem to generate much support from upwardly mobile groups in the large metropolitan centres in the 1980s, neither the new urbanites of gecekondu (squatter) areas, nor the so-called 'yuppies' on the move, seemed to respond as much to the TPP's message andlor Demirel's personality and charisma. This

192 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY state of affairs, especially while the alternative appeal of Ozal and the MP preserved its credibility and momentum among these groups, has meant a lack of popularity for Demirel and the TPP in the better part of the post-1983 politics in Turkey. In its short history, the TPP has also faced difficulties pertaining to its internal structuring. Following the referendum in September 1987, when constitutional bans on politicians of the pre-1980 period were lifted, Demirel and many of his close entourage of old IP parliamentarians returned to political life. Although Demirel's assumption of the party's leadership from the caretaker leader Hiisamettin Cindoruk did not encounter any significant opposition in party circles, the comeback of his old JP associates caused some discomfort in the party. Before the national elections in November 1987, how the presence of the latter group would affect the determination of candidates thus emerged as a major intra-party issue. At the time, another significant rift also surfaced in the party between the group of parliamentarians who had joined the TPP in May 1986 - enabling it to fonn a parliamentary group - on the one hand, and the members who had a JP background and had worked in the party organization from its start, on the other. Many in the former group were originally members of the National Democracy Party (NDP) the party that had the image of being the 'generals party' and had later merged with the TPP, following the NDP's poor performance in the 1983 general elections. 13 They were not looked upon favourably by many a TPP member, whose true feelings towards NDP deputies had been expressed earlier by the party's then chairman, Cindoruk, when he called the latter 'the revolutionary guards'. The former NDP deputies had been allowed to join the party with assurances of re-election in order for the TPP to gain parliamentary status and some such concomitant advantages as a chance for its views to be broadcast by the Turkish Radio and Television Agency on a regular basis. In the face of such intra-party strife, at the November 1987 national elections, originally planned to be held in October, Demirel selected the party's candidates single-handedly, and in the process paid back his 'obligations' to his fonner colleagues who had stayed by him during the past difficult seven years. The new in the party, as would be expected, resented this particular pattern of nominating the candidates. Then the Constitutional Court ruled to postpone the elections to 29 November 1987, and so enabled the political parties to hold primary elections. This helped ease the situation somewhat and a compromise was reached between the new elements in the party and the old guard through the adoption of a joint system of primary election and central conunittee-determined lists.

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193

Where candidates were detennined through primary elections, thanks to the age-old delegate-candidate patronage relations, often the new, locally-based individuals were elected at the expense of the fonner politicians of national reputation or in place of candidates that did not have strong support within the party. Although this caused resentment and criticism in the latter circles, it somewhat eased the tensions in the party's local branches. In hindsight, it seems that while this tum of events has had a negative impact on party cohesion and election perfonnance at the time,14 it has made possible a relative rejuvenation of the party.

Programmatic Themes Official statements, party programme, by-laws, etc., of the TPP, like those of other Turkish political parties, contain a standard political rhetoric devoid of much specific meaning. I5 In itself, this type of rhetoric does not reveal much about the principles on which a political party diverges from others. Yet it is obvious that, in order to assess a party's role in a political system, one needs to analyse the fundamental values and beliefs it espouses, regardless of how vaguely they may have been fonnulated. Thus what is needed is looking more closely at some general themes of the TPP's ideology - namely, 'free' democracy, nationalism, and conservatism - that are particularly significant in defining this party's identity and describing its location vis-a.-vis other parties in the post-1980 political spectrwn in Turkey. The themes in question were chosen and their contents were analysed through a study of formal party statements, reading between the lines of such documents and through occasional projections from the political stands of ancestral political parties, the DP and the JP. Given the constraints of studying the TPP, this method seemed to be the only realistic one. The TPP is a party with a short history, some of which coincided with an authoritarian rule where free expression of political parties' beliefs was seriously curtailed, legally and otherwise. More importantly, from the day of its inception it has claimed to be the very same party as the defunct JP. Thus, not only has it regarded its continued association with the ideas. stands and tenninology of the JP as its basic identity definition but it has also been reluctant to develop a new and distinct discourse for the 1980s, for fear that this might imply' a separation from its JP roots. Only very recently has the TPP leadership accepted the inadequacy of exclusive reliance on the continuity factor in defining their party identity and generating electoral support. Therefore, at the time of writing (1989), there was very little, if any, genuine TPP discourse, distinct from that of the JP, that could be analysed in its own right. Furthermore, during the

194 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY period under investigation here, being relegated to the position of the third party in parliament, 16 within a political system designed basically for two~party competition and having to compete against another rightist rival (the MP), the TPP has been disadvantaged in terms of receiving intellectual and media support from likely sources. This factor, in conjunction with the fact that the party's existing intellectual cadre tended to be overshadowed by Demirel, has contributed to its ideological barrenness and lack of sophistication. Despite the ideological vagueness of party programmes, pointed out earlier, the themes to be discussed have often been formally stated in the party's literature and by its leaders as dearly defining TPP's political identity. These concepts, however, are frequently used as code words with a connotation different from their usual meanings. Below, an effort is made to shed some light on the question of what kind of ideas the TPP has advocated and the implications those positions have had for transition to and consolidation of democracy in Turkey. 'Free democracy', a most frequently emphasized term in the party's ideological discourse, means unquestionable superiority and unhindered exercise of the national will (milli irade). The TPP's populist and majoritarian conception of democracy is reminiscent of the popular understanding of the term that was current in Turkey of the 1950s. In the words of one prominent student of Turkish politics, ITurkish democracy, especially in the 1950s, displayed populist and majoritarian rather than liberal characteristics, '17 meaning that there was a strong orientation to unmediated mass political participation but not necessarily to such 'attitudinal concomitants of democracy as avoidance of political violence, respect for the rights of the minorities, toleration for opposition and a spirit of compromise and acconunodation'18 to the same degree. Subscribing to this understanding of democracy to the hilt, the lP in the 19705 had defined its mission primarily on the basis of its opposition to any type of external restraint on the people's will. Unfavourable Constitutional Court and Council of State decisions and presidential vetoes were all considered as 'illegitimate', i. e. undemocratic restrictions on those who had the 'popular mandate'. Following in the footsteps of the JP, the TPP's emphasis on the national will has been paramount. Such emphasis was articulated in two main issue areas. In the first place, the TPP displayed vehement antimilitarism. This facet of the theme of 'free democracy', or national will, has constituted the public face of the party's ideology and was a direct inheritance from similar values held by the JP. It was elaborated in the party's propaganda literature and stressed co~~t~tly by party leaders in their public speeches and statements. Through their insistence on politics being a civilian domain, and a very respectable one at that,

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195

the TPP's leadership has put up a significant fight against post-coup attempts to depoliticize society and belittle politics and politicians. In a society plagued with three military interventions in three decades, the TPP's ideological conunitment to civilian politics was, of course, a commendable stance and, no doubt, contributed to the maintenance of consensus on democratic formulas. To reiterate what has already been implied: the party has a conception of debilitating democracy. The association of the party's and its leader's views with vociferous anti-militarism has constituted the basis of the TPP's major challenge to the MP and to its leader, ()Zal, and led Demirel in the post-coup period to attempt fanning a democratic civilian front. 19 Secondly, built into the TPP's conception of 'free democracy' was the firm belief that, if left to their own devices, people would support the DP-JP-TPP line so that everything else - such as an MP victory or a Social-Democratic government - was by definition, null and void, i.e. illegitimate. TPP ideology assumes that some external force (such as the military, the electoral law or the President of the RepUblic, etc.) representing the 'bureaucratic will' of the state has often interfered with the free will of the people. This line of thought is crucial concerning the TPP's perception of its current position vis-a-vis the MP. In the TPP discourse, the MP's power position is attributed directly to the 'unfair and unjust' conditions of the post-1980 period in which the MP emerged. 2o According to the TPP leadership, this was not an isolated incident in the multi-party period in Turkey. In the words of one senior party official, 'The TPP - like its predecessors - has had to deal with the hostility of the military' and the state. They could not put up with our party. What has been the raison d'etre of our party? Nothing but being a spokesman of the national will. '21 In the TPP's view, such hostility has existed in the past and continues to exist today because of the presence in Turkey of a dichotomy between civil and military bureaucracies, on the one hand, and the ordinary people of the country, on the other. It is claimed that, because they have a vested interest in maintaining their own 'illegitimate' hold over society, the former resort to the method of 'divide and rule' concerning the representatives of the national will. The fragmentation of the right in Turkey, past and present, is perceived in this light. The skeletal outline of the argument, when divorced from its rhetoric, derives from the traditional centre-periphery rift in Turkish politiCs. 22 In its present fonn, the TPP discourse on this matter has ethnocentric and self-righteous overtones. The approach is built on exclusionary attitudes towards other groups in that it is hardly tolerant of other political groups and parties and of their claims to represent civil societal elements. Thus, it perceives 'free democracy' both as simple

196 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY majoritarianism relying exclusively on the forces of the periphery which are assumed to be the incarnation of the national will and as coming to the fore only when the DP, theJP or the TPP, i.e. true representatives of the masses, are in govenunent. This perception naturally has negative implications in terms of minority rights, legitimacy of opposition, peaceful transfer of power and desirability of a governmental system characterized by checks and balances. 23 Equating the TPP's conception of 'free democracy' with a pluralist understanding of the term thus appears problematic. The TPP's party programme and propaganda literature make ample reference to Turkish nationalism, too. Party officials and founders, when asked to list defining characteristics of their party's ideology, often mention nationalism first. Nationalism is formally defined by the TPP leaders as social cohesiveness, territorial integrity, altruism and promotion of a higher national consciousness among the citizens. The TPP's nationalism appears to be devoid of an extreme rightist formulation of the concept, i. e. one does not encounter a nationalism with racist overtones, such as that which characterized the pre-1986 Nationalist Action Party (NAP). Beyond the standard rhetoric of patriotism - in no sense unique to the TPP - the connotative meaning of the TPP nationalism may be captured, more than anything else, by reference to anti-communism and anti-leftism. It is, therefore not surprising that recent discussions on the possibility of legalizing the Communist Party in Turkey have received the harshest response from 'Demirel and the other TPP leaders.24 Such a reaction may have seemed to many. highly inconsistent with Demirel's earlier, post-1980 rapprochement with the leftist intellectuals on the matter of anti-militarism. 25 This earlier effort at rapprochement, however, needs to be interpreted mostly as a political ploy on the part of the TPP leader so as to ,secure much needed support at the time for his party and person, and thus receive legitimation from the more visible and articulate segments of the society, i.e. the intellectuals and the press. In this sense, Demirel's implied liberalism should be evaluated as a temporary attitude, deemed politically necessary at that point in time, whereas his anti-conununism has been a persistent and clear ideological theme 4ilierited from the DP-JP traditibn. As such, anti-communism can be considered the most salient underlying dimension defining TPP's brand of nationalism. Although the TPP is often described as conservative, as well as being nationalistic, by party officials and in the public opinion, the term is not formally used in any relevant party literature that this author could find. Furthermore, although conservatism appears as a basic tenet of the TPP ideology, there is ~ambiguity and lack of consensus among party leaders regarding the meaning of this term. For instance,

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in a recent interview with the weekly N okta, Mr Cindoruk stated that the TPP is not conservative; it is protectionist. While it is protective of national values, it is progressive in the economic, social and cultural fields. 26 The perception of conservatism as the protection of national tradition and culture is shared by many among the TPP leaders. Yet another notion of conservatism is also present in the TPP's discourse and seems to have been increasingly adopted by some leaders, including Demirel himself. Earlier, conservatism was a world-view that centred on a mild dislike of Western culture, believed to be imposed on the people by the political centre. Although this perception of conservatism included a sensitivity to the Muslim values and practices of the popUlation, it was, nevertheless, quite different from the connotative meaning conservatism had in the National Salvation Party (NSP)-Prosperity Party (PP) discoUrse. The TPP's version was basically secular. The wann relationship the DP-JP line has enjoyed with people with religious conviction in Turkey is well known. In the past, however, this situation did not necessarily imply an overt appeal or exclusive message to Islamist groups by either of these political parties. 27 While to some extent secular conservatism has continued to characterize the TPP, as noted lately, signs of an anti-secularist perception of conservatism could also be detected in the TPP's ideological appeal. For instance, the interview Demirel gave to the religiously-oriented monthly KOjJrfl, in March 1987, asserted that, Article 2 of the 1924 Constitution stipulates that the religion of the Turkish state is Islam. In the period from 1928 through 1937, too, we do not come across the tenn secularism in the Constitution. The tenn secularism appears in the programme of RepUblican People's Party only in .1931 and in the Constitution in 1937.... The state Atatiirk has established is not a secular state; it is a Muslim state. . . . Since the Law for the Unity of Education is not a holy book, if Koran courses or religious education are against this law then it is not religious education that is wrong but the law itself. 28 o

Obviously, such public statements, highly unusual if not unprecedented so far as major political parties subscribing to the ideology of the republic are concerned, point to the beginning of an anti-secularist discourse. Furthermore, actions and statements by others in the party, too, indicate that religious conservatism has been emerging as a significant dimension of the TPP's identity definition. 29' 0

198· POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

Conclusion While the basic elements of the TPP's discourse were present in the definitions of the identities of its antecedents, the DP and theIP, they appear to have acquired new and more extreme connotations. As such, the TPP has emerged in the 1980s as articulating a more conservative and exclusionary discourse than did the DP or the JP in earlier decades. In evaluating the TPP, one should not overlook the fact that, in the post-1980 period, through the symbolism of the continuity of its leadership and its anti-militarism, this party has played an important role in the legitimization of civilian politics and in maintaining the issue of democracy on the political agenda. However, the nature of its rather simplistic conception of democracy, along with recent conservative developments in its ideology, indicate - barring the unforeseen' - a rather negative role for it in the development and consolidation of pluralist democracy in Tur~ey.

Notes *The author wishes to express her gratitude to the unnamed journalists and TPP officials who agreed to be interviewed for this study; to Dr Sencer Ayata and Dr Ay§e Giine§-Ayata who contributed to the development of some of the points made here. 1. For an analysis of the Motherland Party's political identity and its evolution, see 0 stiin Ergiider and Richard Hofferbert, 4The 1983 elections in Turkey: continuity or change in voting patterns', in Metin Heper and Alunet Evin (eds), State, Democracy and the Military: Turkey in the 1980s (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1988), pp. 81-102; and Ustiin Ergiider, Chapter 10, . this voltune. 2. Mer the ban on political activity was lifted three different political parties (including the TPP) were founded at different times and, upon his instructions, by Demirers associates and followers. The first of these, the Great Turkey Party, founded (20 May 1983) by a retired general and joined by many former JP deputies and Demirel's closest lieutenants, was summarily closed down by the military and resulted in Demirel's placement - along with other senior politicians of both camps - under house arrest. Then, the TPP was fonned (23 June 1983) with less public fanfare and in a more cautious manner. However, the legalization of the party took a fairly long time, since, at four different stages, 57 of its 8~ (ounding members were vetoed by the National Security coU'iicil. A third party - Our Party

THE TRUE PATH PARTY, 1983-1989

3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

8.

9. 10.

11. 12. 13.

199

- was also fonnally established (8 July 1983) by followers of Demirel as part of a contingency plan. For detailed accounts of these events see: Birol Ye§ilada, ~New political parties and the problems of development in Turkey' , New Perspective on Turkey, 1·(1987): 35-51; Jolm M. McFadden, 'Civil-military relations in the Third Turkish Republic', The Middle EastJournal, 39 (1985): 74-6. See, for instance, Lucille W. Pevsner, Turkey's Political Crises (New York: Praeger, 1984), p. 117. Interviews by the author with two TPP leaders and one senior journalist of a major Turkish daily (October-November 1988, Ankara). Ye§ilada, 'New political parties and the problems of development in Turkey', p. 44. . Statement made by a high-level official in the TPP, during an interview with the author (30 October 1988, Ankara). Sabri Sayan, 'Some notes on the beginnings of mass political participation in Turkey', in Engin D. Akarb with Gabriel Ben-Dor (eds), Political Participation in Turkey. Historical Background and Present Problems (Istanbul: Bogazi<;i University Publications, 1975). For such patterns of politics in the Republican People's Party, for instance, see Ay§e Giine§-Ayata, 'Class and clientelism in Republican People's Party', in Andrew Finkel and Niikhet Sinnan (eds) , Turkish State, Turkish Society (London: Croom Helm, 1989). Nimet Arztk, Demirel'in jri-DZ§t (Istanbul: Milliyet Yaymlan, 1985). Ustiin Ergiider, 'Decentralisation of local government and political culture in Turkey', in Metin Heper (ed.), Democracy and Local Government: Istanbul in the 1980s (Walkington: Eothen Press, 1987); Ergun Ozbudun. 'Turkey', in Ergun Ozbudun and Myron Weiner (eds), Competitive Elections in Developing Countries (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1987), p. 353. Inter alia, Ustiin Ergiider, 'Decentralisation of local government and political culture in Turkey', p. 13. Sabri Sayan, 'Some notes on the beginnings of mass political participation in Turkey'. p. 132. For a detailed discussion of these developments see: ilter Turan, 'Political parties and the party system in post-1983 Turkey', in Heper and Evin (eds), State, Democracy and the Military: Turkey in the 1980's, pp. 77-80; and Ustiin Ergiider, 'Post-1980 parties and politics in Turkey', in Ergun Ozbudun (ed.), Perspective

200 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY

on Democracy in Turkey, (Ankara: Turkish Political Scie.nce Association. 1988), pp. 129-32. 14.

DYP Genel BfJ§kam Suleyman Demirel'in Kongre Aft.§ KonU§mast (Ankara: Dogu§ MatbaacJltk. 1988). p. 20.

15.

According to the TPP's programme, some of the main aims of this party are: . to render the national will as the source of final decision-making authority in society; to protect parliamentary democracy, the national unity and the territorial integrity of the Turkish Republic; to safeguard the integrity of the state and the security of the citizen; to achieye development in freedom; and to realize social justice, to provide social security for all citizens, to eradicate hopelessness in society, to end poverty and unemployment. (Dogru Vol Partisi Tuzii,k ve Programt, (Ankara: Tipar, n. d.), p.75)

16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

23.

In the March 1989 local elections TPP trailed behind the Social. Democratic Populist Party as the second party. Ergun Ozbudun, 'Turkey', p. 354. Ibid. Ustiin Ergiider, 'The 1983 elections in Turkey: continuity or change in voting patterns', p. 102. The TPP leadership has found further support for this line of argument in the results of the March 1989 local elections which placed the TPP ahead of the MP. The statement by a high-ranking member of TPP during an interview with the author (30 October 1989). On the centre-periphery rift in Turkey, see inter alia, $erif Mardin, 'Center-periphery relations: a key to Turkish politics?', Daedalus, 102 (1973): 169-90; Metin Heper, 'Center and periphery in the· Ottoman Empire with special reference to the nineteenth century', International Political Science Review, 1 (1980): 81-105. Also, see Avner Levi's Chapter 9, this volume. For similar conclusions, see Ergun Ozbudun, Social Change and Political Participation in Turkey (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976); ilkay Sunar and Sabri Sayan, 'Democracy in Turkey. Problems and prospects', in G.O'Donnell, P.C. Schmitter and L. Whitehead (eds), Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Southern Europe, (Baltimore, MD.: The JoOOs Hopkins University, Press, 1986); and Frank Tachau,

Turkey: The Politics of Authority, Democracy and Development 24.

(New York: Praeger 1984). See Milliyet (Istanbul dail y\}8--19 October 1988. (~:f.

THE TRUE PATH PARTY, 1983-1989

25.

26. 27.

28. 29.

201

For a discussion of Demirers rather convoluted 4democratic' response to Connmmism, written from a sympathizer's perspective, see Tanju Cilizoglu, Zincirbozan'dan Bugune Demokrasi Miicadelesinde Demirel (Istanbul: Matay, 1988), pp. 26-8. 'Cindoruk'la DYP'ye ve Demirel'e dair', Nokta (Istanbul weekly). 6 November 1988. Binnaz Sayan, 'Ttirkiye'de Dinin Denetim t§levi' An~ara Universitesi Siyasal Bilgiler Fakultesi Dergisi, 33 (1978), pp. 181-2; ilkay SWlar and Binnaz Toprakt 'Islam in politics: the case of Turkey', Government and Opposition, 18 (1983): 430; and ~erif Mardin, 'Religion and politics in modem Turkey', in James Piscatori (ed.), Islam in the Political Process (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 144-51. 'Demirel ve islami Uyaru§', KOjJrii (Istanbul monthly) (March 1987), pp. 14, 15. In this context, the support provided by TPP deputies to the MP's attempt to override the presidential veto of the 'head scarf law', the initiative, in the National Assembly, by a TPP deputy to tum the Ayasofya Museum into a mosque, and remarks by the party's Deputy Chainnan that Friday should be the weekend for Muslims, are all cases in point (Milliyet Gstanbul daily), 12 December 1988, Humyet (Istanbul daily), 31 January 1989). I

13 Conclusion Jacob M. Landau

This conclusion will attempt to draw some inferences from the other papers collected here concerning the standing of democracy in the Republic of Turkey. As suggested by Metin Heper in his introduction, we shall examine and comment on some of the attitudes . and contributions of the various political parties to the promotion and functioning of democracy in Turkey, regarding both structuralistlegalist aspects and readiness to compromise with rivals. In other words, we shall try to evaluate the parties'· views and performance in promoting viable democracy and in increasing democracy or, rather, democratization and consolidation of democracy. Late Ottoman history, as Dankwart A. Rustow pointed out in his' overview, alternated between parliamentary constitutionalism and authoritarian rule. While Mustafa Kemal accorded much thought to the forms that democracy was to assume in the Republic of Turkey, bringing debate to remote comers of the state, his own understanding of refonns was from above downwards, inspired and carried out by his own style of leadership. Even ismet inonii's major decision to change the regime from a single-party to a multi-party system was taken at top leadership level. Nevertheless, representativeness was emphasized repeatedly by both leaders. Since then, the conunitment of Turkeis political parties to d~mocracy has been widely taken as self-understood; even those who might have hesitated, paid lip-service to it. Thus, majority tyranny in the 1950s and later was disguised as benevolent democracy. In discussing Mustafa Kemal and political parties, C. H. Dodd concedes that although parties are sometimes perceived merely as instruments for the articulation and aggregation of inputs from the environment, a competitive party ~ystem' remains a pivotal factor in assessing the democratic character of a state. Mustafa Kemal saw his own RepUblican People's Party (RPP) as a party with a mission, dedicated to the entire Turkish nation, which made him suspect other

CONCLUSION

203

political groupings. He considered his party to be capable of responding to the needs of the people and urged it to behave as such in what he must have seen as a sign of true democracy. All this was consistent with Mustafa Kemal's own views about the irrelevance of class divisions in Turkish society. The RPP was the official political party during the single-party era, and Kemal H. Karpat demonstrates how crucial its role was in instituting democracy in the new republlc. Largely established and led by Mustafa Kemal, it aimed at initiating political and civic institutions imbued with democratic ideals within the framework of a populist patriotic vision. Still, its emphasis was on statehood and nationhood rather than on the political regime, although it was generally agreed that the new administrative nonns should be different from the previous ones. When Mustafa Kemal declared, in 1923, that the government's main objectives were 'the preservation of national existence and the securing of national welfare', the implication tor the RPP was that democratization was to be pursued within this framework. This was immanent in the conception that this party was neither class-oriented nor interest-oriented, but rather responsible for the nation as a whole. Essentially. the RPP set out to instruct the Turks in reforms for modernity and democracy, in that order of priority. Thus, when in 1930, the RPP persuaded Mustafa Kemal to close down the recently established Free Party (FP), it evidenced its reluctance to accept neutrality and party competition. Religiously-inclined politicians were equally frowned upon, while Marxist ones were excluded from the Grand National Assembly. Indeed, Recep Peker, RPP's long-tenn secretary-general, wrote in 1935 that common thinking fonned the basis of any political party; this could be taken as a justification for authoritarianism. In essence, it was more a 'responsible' than a 'responsive' system of government. These trends notwithstanding, the RPP contributed to Turkey's democratization. The 1924 Constitution set several democratic ideals which, even if not always acted upon, served as a yardstick for the future and later provided the opposition with a legal platform. Moreover the RPP was an agency for mass mobilization and political training, instructing sizeable numbers in participatory politics - all of which became more relevant when ismet inonii, Turkey's second president, inaugurated the multi-party era in 1945. However, there are signs that Mustafa Kemal had wanted a pluralistic democratic regime in the new republic, as evidenced by his experiments with a second party. Feroz Ahmad deals with the first of these, the Progressive Republican Party (PRP) of 1924-25. In its brief span of activity, it injected into party life an element of competitiveness, offering additional options within the Grand National Assembly and in public opinion. The PRP's l

204 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY leaders visualized democracy as an open cpmpetition between elites through a two-party system. Without a definite consensus on the impending reforms, however, such competition was inadmissible to the RPP's leadership. Moreover. the PRP's style was aggressive, without attempts at acconunodation, and the RPP responded in kind; a government decree closed the PRP down. The experience of the PRP did not prevent Mustafa Kemal from experimenting briefly with a two-party system in 1930, perhaps assuming that the new political elite was sufficiently entrenched to open the way for political debate in Turkey. The FP, as Walter F. Weiker tells us, was headed by Fethi Okyar and other stalwarts of this new political elite (including some of its critics). The FP's success in attracting the exuberant support of many thousands of would-be members and adherents was a sign of democratization. The RPP's bitter attacks on the FP and the latter's 'dissolving itself after only 99 days signalled to the regime a need for 'tutoring' leaders and followers in more effectively controlled participatory politics, via People's Houses and People's Rooms. All this was intended ultimately to promote changing Turkey into a competitive democracy. During 1945-80, the RPP, although no longer the only political party, still held a critical role· in Turkey's multi-party politics and democratization, as discussed by Frank Tachau. Liberalization was at least partly due to the RPP's need to solicit votes and to its electoral base, shifting from the old coalition of elites to a predominantly classbased alignment; this was accompanied by a move from a rather rigid ideological commitment to a more pragmatic one, from an authoritarian frame of mind to a more public-minded one, better suited to competitive politics. Indeed, as early as the 19505, the RPP became a champion of democratic principles, combatting the increasing authoritarianism of the then ruling Democratic Party (DP); it subsequently upheld an economic policy aimed at benefiting society. The DP emerged as the main opposition party in 1946-50 and the ruling one in 1950-60. The DP, as Ali Ya§ar Sanbay perceives it, soon attracted counter-elites which campaigned, from the party's inception, for democratization in the political regime and the bureaucracy. By claiming to have been the champions of competitive politics, the DP leaders were able to project their party's image as a sponsor of mass political participation, which is what democracy meant to them. Indeed, they overused the term 'democracy', presenting it as a panacea. However, the DP's actual contributions to democracy pertained solely to its first four years in government (1950-54): curbing government interference, passing a liberal amnesty law and press law and encouraging voluntary associations· and free enterprise. The worsening of the economic situation and a lust for remaining in power

CONCLUSION

205

later impelled the DP's leaders to retreat from these positions and restrict various freedoms, particularly the free activity of opposition parties. The DP's tendency towards authoritarian practices, no less than its polarization of Turkish politics (e. g. in its politicization of religion), created serious difficulties for viable democracy. The Justice Party OP) emerged in 1961 under a new constitution and different conditions, as Avner Levi points out. Established after the trials of the DP's leaders, its first slogan called for justice (i. e. amnesty) for those leaders. Later, since it considered itself a mass party,. representing the popular will, the JP's progranune became mostly pragmatic. moderate and free-market economy-oriented. Its emphasis on free bargaining between employers and employees can be seen as one liberal facet of viable democracy, with at least an implicit element of readiness for compromise (which, however, seems totally absent from the JP's relations with other political parties, especially the RPP). For the JP democracy meant, more explicitly, the 'national will', particularly against the 'bureaucratic will'. The 1980 military intervention was aimed at restructuring Turkey's political system so as to render democracy viable. The 1982 Constitution and new laws regarding party formation and. activities were intended to limit some of the political order's earlier tendencies towards fragmentation and polarization. Of the new parties which emerged, the Motherland Party (MP), founded in 1983, achieved impressive results in the parliamentary elections of 1983 and 1987, apparently reflecting its wide mass appeal (even though its support declined in the 198910cal elections). Ustiin Ergtider defines the MP as a centre-right, moderate force which cut across former cleavages of the right, mainly those with traditional values. However, its campaigning against lifting the political ban on pre-1980 political leaders, in the 1987 referendum on this issue, would indicate that its support of conciliatory politics and its conunitment to democratic values was eroding. Truly, the MP's measures to reduce the burden of bureaucracy on the citizens and its emphasis on service delivery to them attempted to revolutionize the concept of government-citizen relations. These were offset, however, by a harsher attitude to the press and increasing tension between the MP and other parties. Yet another new political party, also established in 1983, the Social Democratic Populist Party (SDPP), is perceived by Andrew Mango as the home for many groups formerly loyal to the RPP - chiefly from among its elites and intelligentsia. It is secularist, and claims that society and state ought to be based on reason and science to achieve the SDPP's professed objective, social justice. For this end, it places considerable emphasis on trade union .support. The party's programme, indeed, envisages a regime which would respect hwnan

206 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY rights, freedom and labour and extend social justice and democracy to all areas of life. However, as the SDPP has never had an opportunity to govern in Turkey, one wonders how the party would carry out the extension of democracy, if accorded the opportunity to do so, considering the difference between the perceptions of its moderate leadership, on the one hand, and the radicalism of its left-wing militants; on the other. Nevertheless, the repeated call of the SDPP's leaders to shun demagogic politics offers some hope for reinforcing democratic institutions. The True Path Party (TPP) , another new party set up in 1983, was basically a direct continuation of the JP, essentially, led by its erstwhile chainnan, Siileyman Demirel, Feride Acar sees·the TPP as a party grouping right-of-centre elements and, like the DP and the IP previously, largely based on patronage and clientelistic relations. This perception of democracy as a system for bargaining was, of course, less convenient in opposition than in government. While much of the TPP's discourse has been merely a continuation of the JP's (and' presented as such), some of it has related to the party's perceptions of democracy. Following in the footsteps of the JP, the TPP has considered free democracy as an expression of the national will, advocating strong anti-militarism on the one hand, and on the other, professing the belief that were it not for the 'bureaucratic wilr of the state, the people would overwhelmingly support the DP-JP-TPP line. This emphasis, however, seems unconcerned with the legitimacy of opposition, peaceful transfer of power, checks and balances, minority rights and a'spirit of compromise and accommodation. Rather, it equates democracy with tnajoritarianism. In conclusion, many imponderables have affected the relation of political parties to democracy in the Republic of Turkey. At least some of these consist of elements in Turkey's political culture. Following a generation of single-party rule, during which the RPP had been identified with the state in public consciousness, some doubts emerged in the multi-party Turkish polity concerning the ideal nature of a democratic political culture. Much of the political culture was based on in-group versus out-group relations. This has bred intolerance towards intra-party opposition in general and inter-party opposition by the party in power. Reluctance to compromise has been a manifest sign of political competitiveness between the Turkish parties; its only bright point, in so far as democracy is concerned, is the impact on the electorate's commitment to free elections. In Turkey, the state constantly intervenes in politics, economics and social life; hence the choice before the parties seems to be how to react, when it intervenes. Here their conception of democracy is significant. While the future of democratization - and,··· even more

CONCLUSION

207

so, that of instilling more democracy - may well depend in Turkey on several factors, such as the material situation, it remains in no small degree contingent on the perceptions and inclinations of the political parties. The gap between the parties' ideological and other conunitments, on the one hand, and the democratic rules of the political game, on the other hand, largely dictates the operational outcome. The general approach of Turkish parties to the politics of democracy can be divided into three categories: ~ttQJ,1-range and pragmati~. middle-range and programmatic; and long-range and messianic. With rare ~xceptions, the first is the most prevalent in Turkish politics, whereas the policies of increasing democracy are frequently relegated to a middle-range or long-range levet thus receiving less than immediate attention in the praxis of Turkish political parties. In other words, returiting to the postulation in Heper's introduction, the constraints of politics in Turkey seem to have prevented political parties from successfully striking that delicate balance between the horizontal and vertical dimensions of democracy which is closely related to its consolidation - even though progress in that direction has been made.

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Rustow, Dankwart A., 'Transitions to democracy: toward a dynamic model', Comparative Politics, 2 (1970): 337-63. . Rustow, Dankwart A., Turkey: America's Forgotten Ally, New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1987. Rustow, Dankwart A., 'Transitions to democracy: Turkey's experience in comparative and historical perspective', in Metin Heper and Ahmet Evin (eds), State, Democracy and the Military: Turkey in the 1980s, Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1988. Sartori, Giovanni, The Theory of Democracy Revisited. Part two: The Cla~sica1 Issues, Chatham, N.J.: Chatham House, 1987. Sayan, Sabri, 'Party politics in Turkey: dimensions of competition and organization', Unpublished PhD Dissertation, Columbia University, New York, 1971. Sayan, Sabri, 'Some notes on the beginnings of mass political participation in Turkey', in Engin D. Akarh with Gabriel Ben-Dar (eds), Political Participation in Turkey. Historical Background and Present Problems, Istanbul: Bogazi~i University, 1975. Sayan, Sabri, 'Governmental instability and problems of coalition formation', Current Turkish Thought, no. 24, 1975. Sayan, Sabri, 'Political patronage in Turkey' in Ernest Gellner and John Waterbury (eds) , Patrons and Clients in Mediterranean Societies, London: Duckworth, 1977. Sayan, Sabri, 'The Turkish party system in transition', Government and Opposition, 12 (1978): 39-57. Sayan, Sabri, Parlamenter Demokrasilerde Koalisyon Hukumetleri, Istanbul: Bogazi~i Universitesi, 1980. Schumpeter, Joseph A., Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, New York: Mentor, 1942. Sencer, Muzafier, Turkiye'de Siyasal Partilerin Sosyal Temelleri, Istanb.~: Ge~i§ Yaymlan, 1971. Sezgin, Omiir and Gencay Saylan, 'Terakkiperver Cumhuriyet Frrkasl', inCumhuriyetDonemiTurkiyeAnsiklopedisi, no. 65(1984): 2043-5l. Sherwood, W.B., 'The rise of the Justice Party in Turkey', World Politics, 20 (1967/68): 54-65. Soysal, illiami, '12 Eyiill Sonrasmm Ba§hca Partileri', in Cumhuriyet Donemi Turkiye Ansiklopedisi, 68 (1985): 2132--40. Sperco, Willy, Moustapha Kemal Ataturk, Paris: Nouvelles Editions Latines, 1958. Sunar, ilkay, State and Society in the Politics of Turkey's Development, Ankara: Ankara Universitesi Siyasal Bilgiler Fakilltesi, 1974. Sunar, ilkay, 'Demokrat Patti ve Populizm', in Cumhuriyet Donemi Turkiye Ansiklopedisi, no. 66 (1985): ·2076-86. Sunar, Ilkay and Sabri Sayan, 'Democracy in Turkey: problems and prospects't in Guillenno O'Donnell, ·Philippe C. Sclunitter and

214 POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY Laurence Whitehead (eds) , Transitions from Authoritarian Rule. Southern Europe, Baltimore, MD and London: The Johns Hopkins University·Press, 1986. Szyliowicz, Joseph, Political Change in Rural Turkey. Erdemli, The Hague: Mouton, 1966. Tachau, Frank, 'Turkish provincial party politics', in Kemal H. Karpat and contributors, Social Change and Politics in Turkey. A Structural - Historical Analysis, Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1973. Tachau, Frank with Good, Mary J.D. 'The anatomy of political and social change: Turkish parties, parliaments and elections', Comparative Politics, 4 (1973): 551-73. Tachau, Frank, 'Turkish· political parties: toward a reconciliation of modernity and tradition?', Paper prepared for submission at the international conference, 'The Next Fifty Years in Turkey, 1974-2024', Ankara, May 1974. Tachau, Frank, 'The political culture of Kemalist Turkey', in Jacob M. Landau (ed.), Ataturk and the Modernization of Turkey, Boulder~ Col.: Westview Press, 1984. Tachau, Frank, Turkey. The Politics of Authority, Democracy and Development. New York: Praeger, 1984. Tachau, Frank, 'Political leadership in Turkey: continuity and change', in Metin Heper and Ahmet Evin (eds), State Democracy and the Military. Turkey in the 1980s, Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1988. Tachau, Frank and Heper, Metin, 'The state, politics and the military in Turkey', Comparative.Politics, 16 (1983): 17-33. Tezi<.;, Erdogan, S£yasi Partiler (P artilerinHukuki R ejimi ve Turkiye'de Partiler), Istanbul: Gen;ek Yaymevi, 1976. Toker, Metin, ismetPQ§ayla 10 Yzl, four volumes, Ankara: Ajans TUrk Matbaasl, 1966-67. Toker, Metin, Tek Partiden Cok Partzye, Istanbul: Milliyet, 1970. Tokin, F. Hiisrev, Turk TarihindeSiyasiPartilerveSiyasiDii§uncenin Geli§mesi, Istanbul: Elif, 1965. Tunaya, Tank Zafer, Turkiye'de Siyasi Partiler, 1859-1952, Istanbul: Dogan Karde§, 1952. Tuncay, Mete, Turkiye Cumhuriyetinde Tek Parti Yiinetiminin Kurulmasz, 1923-1931, Ankara: Yurt, 1981. Tuncay, Mete, 'Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (1923-1950)', in Cumhuriyet Diinemi Turkiye Ansiklopedisi, no. 64 (1984): 2019-24. Turan, ilter, 'The evolution of political culture in Turkey', in Alunet Evin (ed.), Modern Turkey: Continuity and Change, Opladen, West Gennany: Leske Verlag and Budrich, 1984. Turan, ilter, 'Political parties and the party system in post-1983 Turkey', in Metin Heper and Ahmet Evin (eds), State, Democracy

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I

Index

Abadan-Unat, Nennin vii Abdillhamid IT (Sultan) 10 Abdillmecit (Caliph) 67 Acar. Alunet131 Acar. Feride xi, 206 Adana 87, 180 AdIvar, Adnan 68, 71-3, 77 Africa 11 AgaogJu, Aluned 68, 86 Agha Khan 70 Agriculture 14, 16, 164-5 Agro-towns 185 Aluned, Feroz xi, 101, 107, Ill. 113, 121,203 Ak gUn/ere (manifesto) 109 Ak~uniOglu, Yusuf 74 Akif, Meluned 104 Akkor, Giindogdu vii Alevis (Turkey's Shiites) 16 Amnesty Law 126, 146, 204 Anatolia 11, 12, 49, 67, 69, 73, 75, 79, 190 Ankara 12, 73, 79, ·108, 135, 146, 157, 162, 164, 180, 189 Antalya 87 Artisans 67, 111 Asia 11 Associations, voluntary 126, 128, 204 Atatiirk see Kemal, Mustafa AtatUrk Law 123-4 Atatiirkism see Kemalism Atay, F. R. 70 Austria 4 Authoritarianism 55--8, 61, 85, 100-1, 103, 106, 114, 128, 161, 170, 193, 202-4 Avni, ~efik 87 Aybars, Ergun 75, 78 Aydemir, ~. S. 94 Aydm 119

Aydtnlar 172

AytaC; M. A. 137 Balkans 87 . BaltaCIoglu, L H. 87 Barber, Anthony 182 Ba§giI, A. F. 139 Bayar. Ce1al15, 36, 58, 61, 96, 119-21. 123, 135 Bekta§is 16 Bele, Refet 68, 71, 73, 78 Belgium 173 Bellioglu, SIl11 92 Berkman, A. U. vii

Bilgic; 147 Bilkent University (Ankara) vii Birand, M. A. 175 Bolsheviks 55, 69 Bourgeoisie 79, 87, 102, 125, 173, 185 Bureaucracy 15,33,36,44-5, 59, 76. 87, 96. 102, 106, 110, 121, 125-6, 128-9, 134-5. 142. 144-8, 156,

159, 171, 195. 204-6 Burke, Edmund 24-5, 32, 36 Businessmen 124-5. 142 Byron (Lord) 173 Cabinets 18. 19, 21, 68-9, 71-3, 76, 103, 138. 143-4, 148, 155, 163, 165; see also Ministers Caliphate 35.43, 55, 67. 69; abolition of 13, 48-9, 67, 70-1, 75, 86 Campaigning, political 14, 17, 10~, 124, 15~. 158. 161. 205 Canbulat, Ismail 73 Ceberut devlet 184 Cebesoy, A. F. 68, 71-4, 78, 92 Centre/periphery cleavage 87, 99, 124,

218

INDEX

134, 136, 153, 195; see also Cleavages Chile 15 China 11 Christianity 173 Ciddi devlet 178, 184 Cindoruk, Husamettin 192 Circassians 12, 16 Class struggle 29, 30, 37, 67, 74, 87, 109, 140, 182, 203 Cleavages 114, 122 ft, 128, 153-4, 181, 195,205 Clientelistic policies 154, 157, 164-6, 176-7, 18~ 189-93 Coalition cabinets see Cabinets Codes of law 13 Conunittee of Union and Progress ix, 10, 14,65, 68, 70-1, 73, 75, 77-9, 170; see also Union and Progress Party Comrnurusm 55,57, 61, 67, 88, 177,'196 Concepts of history 95 Conflict 31; political 31, 156, 159-60, 165; social 31; see also class struggle Conker, Nuri 86 Consensual compromise 149, 153, 156-8, 164, 192, 194, 205 Conservatism 65 ff, 71 ff, 75, 79, 86, 104, 108-10, 113, 128, 147, 162, 173-5, 178, 182, 191, 193 ff, 196-7 Constituent Assembly 135 Constitutional Court 136, 142, 192, 194 Constitutionalism 202 ff Constitutions, 1876: 10, 170; 1921: 32, 45; 1924: 13, 35. 48, 59-62, 135, 170, 197, 203; 1961: 3. 18, 135, 144, 152, 205; 1982: 4, 19, 152, 205 Council of State 136, 146, 194 Crises 5, 18, 20, 69, 106, 148, 163, 175, 181-2 Cyprus crisis 112 (;akmak, Fevzi 71 9alt§ma cl?j>hesi 71 90klu idare 135 ~oruh, Midhat vii ~onun 78 Datan, Bedrettin 161 Decentralization Party see Private Enterprise and Decentralization Society Defence of Rights of Anatolia and Rumelia see Defence of Rights' Society Defence o~ Rights' Society 10, 12, 43-6,

48,67, 100 Demiray, Tahsin 137, 139-41 Demirel, Silleyman 18-21, 107, 110, 135, 140, 144 ff, 155, 157, 160-1, 175-6, 188-97, 206 Democracy 13, 38, 42,_ 48, 73-5, 83, 91, 97, 180, 203-7; and free economy 141, 144: as panacea 125-6; characteristics in Turkey 194; commitment to 14-16, 21, 163, 202, 205; competitiveness 85, 91, 125, 129, 202, 204; consolidation of 194, 198. 207; definitions 1 ff, 194-5; failure 126; 'free democracy' 193-5; from below 16 ft, 125-6; ideals 203, 206; introduction of 101; issues 164; multi-party 59, 61, 68, 91, 95, 104-5, 119ff, 185.202; parliamenUuy 59, 184; participatory 174; party attitudes to 202-7; prospects for 20,185; restoring of 130, 189; social democracy 153. 160, 171 ff, 178; system 100, 102, 185; values 158. 160 Democratic Left Party ix, 158-9, 171, 179 Democratic Party (in 1940s-1950s) ix, 1, 2, 14-20, 38, 61, 101, 104-7, 113-14, 119-30, 134. 146, 154, . 162,164, 171, 182, 188, 195--6, 198, 204-5; and inflation 175; anti-etatism 141; 'bad guys' 137; clientelism 191, 206; conventions 123; demise 128; establislunent 103, 120 fi, 204; organization 103, 121 ff, 146; policies 190, 204-5; popularity 164; programme 1~1 ff, 127, 146, 193; social basis 124 If; support for 181. 189 Democratic Party (in 1970s) ix, 182 Democratic socialism 18 Democratization 6, 83-4, 86, 97, 119-21, 202-7 Devlet baba 184 Devlet partisi 171 DinWkvlet 48 Directorate of Religious Affairs 53, 128 Diyarbalur 78 Dodd, C. H.. xi, 202 DogramaCl, lhsan vii Duverger, Maurice 83, 87, 96-7, 134 DU§Unsel, F. F. 73 Ebuzziya, Velid 68 Ecevit, Billent 16, 18, 19, 100, 107, 109

INDEX if, 139, 156-8, 163, 171-2, 174....5. 177-9, 182--3, 188 Ecevit, Rah§an 19, 20 Economic development 96. 106-7, 163 Economic issues 16. 17, 30, 62. 83, 106. 148. 174 if Economic policies 34, 54-6. 58, 84. 87. 94. 104-5. 129. 140-6, 153. 156-8, 164-5, 174 ff. 179 ff, 204-5; see also etatism Economy 15. 18.85-6,92, 134. 174-8, 181-2 Education 13, 14, 16, 34, 36. 85-6, 92, 96, 104. 107, 123, 128, 140, 172 fi, 184, 197; see also universities Egilmez, C. T. 73 Elections (local) 33, 160; 1930: 84, 89; 1955: 129; 1973: 109; 1984: 19, 154; 1989: 154-5, 161-2, 180, 205 Elections (parliamentary) 10, 14.38, 79, 86, lOS, 107, 146, 163, 173, 181, 206; 1923: 47, 55,68-9; 1924: 77; 1931: 34, 91; 1935: 91; 1946: IS, 89, 103, 121; 1950: 15-18, 61, 105, 119, 121, 134, 148, 164, 171; 1954: 18, 134; 1957: 18. 107, 129, 134-5; 1961: 18, 107, 137-9, 142; 1965: 18, 107-9, 164; 1969: 18, 107-8, 141, 164; 1973: 18, 108-10, 148; 1977: 18, 108, 112, 156, 163, 183; 1983: 19, 21, 152-4, 159-60, 163, 192, 205; 1987: 21, 154-5, 157-60, 164-5, 179 ff;

192, 205; 1988: 160 Electoral laws 18, 19, 67, 126, 195 Electoral system 2~1. 58, 114, 126, 135-6, 152, 154 Elit~s 2, 3, 5, 16, 32, 42, 45, 60, 66, 74, 83 ff, 87, 96, 99, 102, 104-6, 109-10, 122-5, 127-8, 144, 156, 162, 171-2, 178, 191, 204-5 Enayat, Anna vii Entrepreneurs 120, 124, 164, 184 Enver Pasha 79 Erbakan, Necmettin 18, 111, 139 Ergiider, Ustful xi, 205 Erzurum Congress 11-12, 45-6. 55 Esat, Malunud·35 EsendaI, M. ~. 59 Eski§ehir 29 Etatism 13, 36, 52, 56, 87, 94-5. 107. 134. 141; see also economic policies Europe 5. 94. 178-9, 181, 184-5 European Community, and Turkey 21,

219

111. 185 Evliyaoglu, GOkhan 137. 139 Evliyaoglu, Kamuran 137, 139 Evren, Kenan 21, 189 Extra·parliamentary activity 88, 149 Ezan 128 Faculties of theology 104, 172 Faik 73 Farmers see peasants Fascism 57 Fatherland Front 124 Feyzioglu. Turhan 107 First Group 46 First World War 10, 75 Foreign policies 86-7, 10~"t :;ee also Soyiet Union, United States France 4, 15, 26, 173, 178 Free Party ix, 14, 15, 32, 50-1, 83--97, 127. 204; characteristics 87 ff; demise: 88 fi, 203; establishment 84 ff; failure or success 96-7; leadership 86-7,204; programme 86-7; social base 87-8, 204; support for 181, 204 French revolution 173 Frey, F. W. 66, 75. 102, 122 FWldamentaI Law of Organization see constitutions, 1921 FWldamentalism 160 Galip, Re§it 86 Gallipoli 11 Gecekcmdu 106, 191 Gennany 4, 16, 17, 20, 178 Ghazi see Kemal. Mustafa Gonzalez. Felipe 173, 180 Gokalp, Ziya 37, 86 Gale, Niliifer 156 Grand National Assembly 12, 13, 31. 33-6, 43, 45-7, 49, 53, 55, 58, 61, 67 ff, 76, 84-6, 90--1, 102, 110, 112, 125, 127-9, 135-6, 155, 157-9, 162, 203; see also parliament; elections .Great Britain 15, 17, 26, 171, 173, 176, 178 Greece 67, 72 Greeks 45-6, 72 'Guest workers' 16 Giimu§pala, Raglp 136-7, 139, 147 Giinaltay, Semseddin 17, 104 Giirkan, Aydm Guven 163

220

INDEX

GOrier, Faruk 146--7 GOrsel, Cemal 137 fi Gi.i.zel, H. C. 162

Hakimiyet-i Milliye (newspaper) 76 Halk 74 Halk ad4mz 190 Halk devLeh' 50 Haydar, Ali 86 Heper, Metin xi, 31,36, 112, 126,207 High Election Council 146 Hofferbert, R. I. 152 Holland 173 Hurriyetperver 74; see also liberalism Ideologies 36-8, 42 ff, 50 ff, 56 ft, 66 ff, 70, 73 fi, 78 fi, 93 ff, 110-:11, 137, 159-60, 163, 170-3, 180 ff, 185, 202 ff; see also conservatism; democracy; Islamism; Kemalism; liberalism; Pan-Turkism; pragmatism In-groups/out-groups 127 lndependence tribunals 78 Independent Group 58 Individual freedoms 59, 104, 125-6, 205-6 Industrialists 87. 106, 163 Industrialization 53. 56, 142 Instability 4 ft. 182 Intellectuals 4, 36--7, 68, 106, 125-6, 129, 147, 171-3, 177-8, 180, 184, 191, 194, 196, 205

Islahat71 Islam 13, 37, 46, 61. 75, 173, 197; as a major issue 128; call to prayer 17, 128; flag of 88; resurgence 124; see also Muslims; religion Islamism 11, 46, 551 124, 197 Israel 20 Istanbul 11, 12, 14, 16, 27-9, 48, 66--7, 69-72, 76, 78-9, 86, 108-9, 121, 137, 139, 143, 161, 180 Italian Communist Party 173 Italian Fascist Party 170 Italy 173 Izmir 65, 77, 87, 108, 137, 139, 155, 180 Izmir Economic Convention 56 Izmit 27, 30--1, 67

jlerici 172

jmam-hatip kurslan 104, 128, 172 lJrnen, Siireyya 86

I nktlap 71, 73

jnonu, .Erdal19, 158, 162, 177, 179, 183 Inonii, Ismet 14-16, 18, 32, 36, 51, 58-9, 66, 68, 71-3, 76,89, 94,100, 103-9, 112-14, 119, 121, 124, 127, 134, 136, 138, 144, 147, 158, 178, 180, 202-3 Japan 11, 132 Justice Party ix, 1, 18, 19, 100, 107-12, 114, 134-49, 154-£, 159-60, 163, 175, 188-9, 194-6, 198; clientelism 157, 206; continuation of DP 146, 188, 206; establishment 136, 154, 205; formative years 136 ff; groups 138-44, 147; ideology 140 ft; leadership 146 ft; membership 148; organization 146 ft, 189; parliamentarians 147 ft, 192; policies 142 ff, 162, 190, 205; popularity 164-5: progranune 139 ft, 146, 148, 193, 205 Kadro (movement) 36--7, 92,94-5

Kadra (periodical) 36, 94-5 Kanunname 48 Karabekir, Kazun 68-9, 71-2, 77-8, 92 Karaosmanoglu, A. L. vii Karpat, K. H. xi, 103, 203 Kars 119 Katmandu 18 Kemal, Mustafa vii, 1, 2, 11, 13-17, 24 ff, 43 ft, 56 ft, 65 ft, 83 ft, 89 ff, 100, 123, 170,185, 197, 202; and political parties 24-38, 65 ft, 83 ft, 202-4 Kemalism 2, 12, 52, 66 ft, 71. 74, 79, 85, 87,91, 93ft, 96,171 Keyder, ~aglar 175, 182 KJr§ehir 16 KitaW, Hiisnii 92 Koraitan, Refik 119-21, 129 Koran 48, 95, 128, 197 KijprU (monthly) 197 KoprulU, Fuad 119-21, 130 Kurds 14, 32, 77,88, 179-80 Labour legislation 35 Labour Party (Great Britain) 175 Land Reform Law 102-3, 120, 125

INDEX Landau, J. M. xi Landowners 87, 102, 120, 124-5 Language reform 58, 62, 95 LaPalombara, Joseph 100 Latin America 5 Lausanne Treaty 49. 52. 68, 94 Law for the Maintenance of Order 77-8 Law for the Unity of Education 197 Leadership 4, 11, 14, 26, 38, 42, 44, 68, 70, 79, 8&-8, 91-3, 96-7, lOa, 109, 113, 124--7, 142, 144, 146 fi, ISS, 157, 165.180-3. 188-92, 202-6; see also by person's name League of Nations 86 Levi, AVIler xi, 205 Lewis, Bernard 102 Liberalism 68 ff, 74, 86, 94, 103, 111, 137, 147, 160, 162, 173, 182, 184, 194, 196, 204-5 Liberalization 1, 83, 91, 101-5, 123, 126, 141-2, 165, 204 Linz, Juan 4, 6

221

107, 112, 119, 129, 135, 147, 155, 165, 173, 189; see also cabinets Minorities in Turkey 91, 194 Minority nationalism 11 Minority rights 196, 206 Mitterrand, Franc;ois 183 Modernism 53, 68, 79, 203 Modernization 51. 55, 60, 91, 96, 111 Moscow 108 Mosques 128 Motherland Party ix, 19, 21, 152-66, 188, 191-2. 194-5; campaigns 158, 161, 205; characteristics 153 ff, 205; conventions 160; economic policies 156-9, 162, 164-5, 175-6, 182; establislunent 156, 189, 205; groups 162', 165; in elections 154--63, 205; leadership 153 ff, 157, 160-1, 165; organization 165; political policies 178; problems 157, 161; programme 153 ff, 159 ff, 182; support 155-6 Mufti 12 Muslims 12,43-4,48,68, 70-1, 154. 197; see also Islam

Mii.nevver 172 Macartney 76 Madanoglu, Cemal 135 Mahrnud II (Sultan) 42 Makbule 86 Mango, Andrew xi, 205 Marcos, Ferdinand 15 Martial Law 59,69, 77-8, 143 Marxists 177, 181, 203 Mecca 16 Menderes, Adnan 15, 17, 18, 20, 87, 96, 99, 102, 119-21, 127, 134-6, 139, 147 Menemen89 Mente§e. Halil 77, 92 Mezzogiorno 173 Migration, external 16; intemal14, 16 Military forces 2, 3, 5, 6, 11, 18, 20, 72-3, 79, 102, 104, 107, 110, 136, 144-5, 154, 189, 195 Military interventions 111, 130, 160, 195; 1960: 2, 3, 16-18, 20, 99, 107, 119, 124, 135, 154; 1971: 2, 16-18, 99, 143. 145-6; 1980: 2, 16, 17, 19, 20, 101, 112-13, 115, 152, 154, 158, 170, 175, 184, 188-90, 205 Millet 74 Milli ira~ see national will

MiLH§e/58 Ministers 68 ff, 72, 76-7, 86, 92, 104,

Nadi, Yusuf 88 Nation Party ix, 16, 121 National Assembly see Grand National Assembly National Democracy Party ix, 19, 153, 163, 192 National Front government 143, 148 National Order Party ix, 111 National Pact (1919) 11. 12, 46, 49, 71, 74 National Protection Law 59 National Salvation Party ix, 18, 21, 111, 143, 153-5, 197 National Security Council 4, 145 National sovereignty 35, 135 National Unity Committee ix, 18, 136, 138, 141-2 . National will (slogan) 12, 35, 49, 114, 125, 144, 154, 194-6, 205-6 Nationalism 13, 33, 46, 52-4, 56, 93, 95, 107, 140, 160, 162, 180, 193-5 Nationalist Action Party ix, 18, 21, 112, 143, 153-5, 196 Nationalist Work Party 159 NATO 111 Nazi Party 25

222

INDEX

Necati 73 New Left 174 New Ottoman Society 10, 14 New Turkey Party ix, 138 Nokta (weekly) 197 Nurcular 124 O'Donnell, Guillenno 5 Oguz, Tiilin vii Okyar, Fethi 14, 31-3, 50, 68, 76-7, 84, 86, 88-90, 94, 204 Onulduran, Ersin vii Opposition 6, 13-15, 18,27-8,31-5, 45, 49, 50, 53, 55, 58--61, 65 ft, 71ff, 75-8, 84 ff, 88 ff, 101-3, 106, 110, 114, 119, 124, 126-7, 129, 141, 148-9, 159--60, 162, 164, 166, 171, 177, 189, 191-2, 194, 196, 204-6 Orbay, Rauf 35,66, 68-9, 71-2, 74, 77 Organization 77, 84, 88, 93, 155 Oria direk 156 Osma, $inasi 136 Ottoman Empire 10, 11, 14, 34, 48, 174; authoritarianism 28; cleavages 122; despotism 34; prudence 178;

see also by subject Ottomanism 11, 12 Ottomans 12, 70-1, 75, 79 Okmen, Nedim 137 (hal, Turgut 19-21, 152-65, 175-6, 178, 182, 189-90, 192, 195

Ozbudun, Ergun vii, 109, 124, 146

Pan-Turkism 86, 137 Parliament 12, 15. 16, 18, 26-7, 110, 135, 138, 143, 145--8, 173, 191, 194;

see also Grand National Assembly Participation 5, 17, 20--1, 33, 60, 62, 194,203-4 Parties 2 ff, 10, 170; attitudes to democracy 202-7; change 14, 155 ff; characteristics 10-21, 57, 100-1, 184, 202-7; cleavages 122 ff, 153; competitiveness 14-16, 25, 31, 33, 38, 46, 74, 89,91,96-7, 101, 123, 127, 153, 163, 165, 194, 206; continuity 14; definition of 24 ff; organization 14, 84, 88, 99-102, 155, 161; recruitment 16, 34, 42, 51, 55, 92, 105; restructuring 152, 154, 205; role 3, 100-1, 198; system 134, 152, 154;

see also by party's name Party laws 126, 134, 205 Patriotism 33, 52, 97, 196, 203 Patronage see clientelist policies Peasants 16, 59, 67, 102, 104-6, 120, 122-3, 125, 128, 148, 184, 191; see also population, rural' Peker, Recep 34, 36, 47, 53, 56-9, 61, 95, 102-3, 203

People's houses 33-4, 52, 61, 85, 92, 95, 204

People's rooms 34, 52, 61, 85,92,95, 204

People's Party see Republican People's Party Perin, Cevdet 137, 139 Philippines 15 Pinochet, Augusto 15 Polarization 5, 112, 114, 124, 152, 156-8, 164-5, 205

Police 18 Policy·oriented dialogue 156 Political will see national will Popular will see national will Population, rural 87, 104, 106, ·140, 190-1; urban 16, 87, 104, 106, 128, 140, 159, 163, 165, 180, 191

Populism 12-15, 34, 42, .45, 47-8, 50-6, 67,74-5, 79, 93, 109, 113-14, 128, 174-5, 182, 191, 194, 203 Populist Party ix, 19, 153, 159, 163, 171 Pragmatism 79, 100, 128, 136, 138, 141, 146, 156, 183, 185, 204-5 Presidency of Turkey 4, 15, 16, 21, 35-6, 43, 49, 57, 61, 69, 71-3, 77, 89, 90, 94, 100, 103, 136, 138-40, 145, 147, 162, 195, 203 Press 14, 21, 27, 66-7, 69-72, 78, 87-8, 90,94-5, 124, 135, 161, 1~, 196,

205; see also by newspaper's name Press Law 126, 129, 204 Private Enterprise and Decentralization Society 54, 137 Professions 106, 110 Progressive Republican Party ix, 14, 28, 31-2, 35, 49, 65--79, 86,203-4;

characteristics 65 if, 204; conventions 78; establishment 67, 71-3; leadership 72 fi, 204; organization 73; programme 65, 71 ff, 75, 78 ft, 204; social base 79 Propaganda 67 ft, 72 ff, 85, 92, 95, 127, 137 ff, 183, 191 'Prosperity Party ix, 159, 197 .;

INDEX Radicalism 79, 108, 113, 122, 128, 181, 190, 206 Raluni 77 Rauf Bey see Orbay, Rauf Ree, Synglunan 15 Re-equilibrations 4 Refonnism 52, 56, 74-5, 94, 123 Reformist Democracy Party 159 Reforms, Kemalist 13ff, 29, 33, 46-8, 52, 56-8, 72, 95, 101-2, 123, 202; Ottoman 16, 27,38,42,85 Rejkjavik 18 Reliance Party 143 Religion 12, 16, 43, 46, 53, 70, 75, 78, 104, 106, 123-4, 128, 173, 181, 185, - 197, 203, 205; see also Islam Religious movements 128 Republican Nation Party ix Republican Peasants' National Party ix Republican People's Party ix, 1, 10, 12, 14-19, 27-38, 42-62, 65 fi, 71 fi, 84 ft, 91, 96-7, 99--115, 119 ff, 126 ff, 134-6, 138-9, 144, 146, 153, 155-6, 158, 163, 170-3, 176, 178-9, 181, 183, 185, 188, 202-6; characteristics 100 fi; commitment to democracy 114; conservatism 104; conventions 56, 58-9, 107; demise 113-14; functionaries 89; ideology 50 ft, 56 ff, 100, 107, 114, 135, 163, 185, 197; in opposition 105 ff; left-of-centre stand 108 fi; mobilization 61, 92, 203; organization 93, 100; phases 99; revolutionism 104; role 29-30, 33, 43 ff, 50, 100; votes 108 ff Republican Reliance Party ix Republicanism 13,51-2, 77, 86, 93 Revisionism 75 Revolutionism 13, 37, 72, 74, 76, 84-5, 94-5 Romania 185 Roos, L. L. 144 RODS,

N. P. 144

Rousseau, J. J. 26, 37 Rumelia 67

Russia (Tsarist) 16 Rustow, D. A. xi, 5, 100-2, 182,202 Rti§tii Pa§a 73 :-~abaheddine

::abit 69 :lIonica 14

(Prince) 54, 137

223

Samsun 87 Saracogiu, ~tikrti 59 Sanbay, A. Y. xi, 204 Sartori, Giovanni 6 Sayan, Sabri 141, 146 Saydam, Refik 59 Schmitter, Philippe 5 Schwnpeter, J. A. 25 Second Group 31-2, 46-9, 54-5, 68, 86 Second World War 15, 59, 85, 101, 119-20, 124, 170, 181 Secularism 3, 12, 13, 16, 33, 37, 43, 52-4,56, 58, 75, 86, 93, 104-7, Ill, 123, 134, 171-3, 181, 197, 205 Secularization 85 Selim III (Sultan) 42 Shelley, P. B. 173 Sherwood, W. B., 146, 148 Shiites see Alevis Sililke 16 Sivas 71,94 Sivas Congress 12, 45 Six Arrows 12, 13, 31, 52, 56, 58, 93 Social democratic parties 171 ff, 180, 184-5; see also Social Democratic Populist Party Social Democratic Populist Party ix, 10, 19, 158-9, 163, 170-85; and organized labour 179; economic policies 179 ff; groups 178-9, 182, 205; in elections 159, 162; leadership 206; membership 178-9, 183, 205; pragmatism 185; programme 172, 176~ 180 ff, 20&-6; radicalisrn 206; -social base 172 ff, 179 ff; social policies 179-82 Social issues 16, 17, 29-30, 83, 87, 148, 182 Social justice 107, 14OC-l,176, 180, 183, 205c-6 Social policies 56, 75, 104, -157, 179 ff Socialism 12; 46; 55, 173-4, 180-1 Society for the- Defence of Rights see Defence of Rights' Society Society for Uniollalld Progress 10, 12 San HaiJadis (newspaper) 137, 139 South Korea 15. Soviet Connnwrust Pmiy 170 Soviet Union 15, 53, 55, 79, 170 Stalin,J.V. 53 State, ideaof4; 123, 126, 170-1, 174, 176 ff, 185, 206 State Planning Organization 145, 155 Sultan (Ottoman) 35, 43, 48, 55,

224

INDEX

57; s~e also by name Sunar, Dkay104, 106 Sunay, Cevdet 145 Sunnites 16 Sweden 15, 171 Switzerland 15 Syria 11 $ahtS devleti 50 $ahsi saltanat 69 ~eyh Said's revolt 49. 77 ~iikrii, Alunet 73 Tachau, Frank xi, 204 Tanin (newspaper) 78 Tanzirnat 10 Taxation 59, 86-7, 120, 125, 141-2, 174-6, 178 Tensions 149, 185

Terakkiperver 75 Terrorism 16, 18, 19, 143, 146; see also violence Tezkan, Hami 137, 139 Thailand 11 Thatcher, Margaret 173, 175 Third World 25, 180 Ticanis .123 Tigrel, 1 H. 73 Togan, Siibidey, vii Totalitarianism 34-7, 100 Trabzon 45 Trade tmions 93, 142-3, 179 Trade Unions Confederation 142-3, 179 Trade Unions Federation 142-3 Trade Unions Law 142 True Path Party ix, 19, '159-60, 188-98; clientelism 189-93, 206; consenratism 196-8; continuation of JP 188, 193-4, 206; establishment 188, 206; characteristics 188 ff, 197-8; ideology 188, 193-8; in elections 159, 161-2, 192 if; intolerance 195; leadership 188 ff, 194-7; liberalism 196; membership 190; organization 188 ff, 192; parliamentarians 192; propaganda 190 ff, 194 ff, 206; programme 193 fi, 206; propaganda 190 fi, 194 fi, 206; statements 193 if; support 191, 193, 195 Tuncelil08 Turan, iIter vii, 125, 127, 183 Turgut, Halls 73 Turkey see by subject

Turkish Communist Party 196 Turkish Hearths 52 Turkish History Society 13 Turkish identity 34, 48, 52-3, 60 Turkish Language Society 13 Turkish RepUblic 11 ff, 35-6, 43, 45, 48-50, 69, 70-1, 76, 95, 106, 171, 202 Turkish Workers' Party ix, 108, 143 Turkism 11, 12, 95; see also Pan-Turkism Turko-Soviet Friendship Treaty 49 Tuscany 173 Turke§, Alparslan 18, 20, 137, 139 Ulerna 172 Ulu~, Burhanettin 139 Ulusu, Billend 189

Umma48 Umudumuz Ecevit (slogan) 109 Unat, Burhaneddin 87 Union and Progress Party 101; see also' Conuruttee of Union and Progress United Nations 15, 120 United States IS, 17, 20, 26, 143, 165,

177 Universities see education Urbanization 142, 159-60, 163 Urgtiplti, S. H. 144 Ustiindag; E. H. 87 Van 178 Varltk vergisi 120 Vatan (newspaper) 68, 71, 121 Violence 112-13, 143, 158, 163, 171, 185, 194; see also terrorism

War of Independence 12, 14, 26, 33, 45, 49. 52, 54-5, 60, 86, 122 Weiker, W. F. xi, 204 Weiner, Myron 100 Welfare programmes 140-1 Westernization 16, 104, 119, 122 Women 148 Workers 104, 125, 140, 142, 148, 172 Ya1<;m, H. C. 78, 147 Yaiman, A. E. ~8, 71-3

INDEX Ydmaz, Mesut 162 YorganclogIu, Mehmet 136-7, 139 Young Turks 10, 27, 28, 33, 37, 53, 170 Yurdakul, M. E. 86 , Yftregir, A. R. 87

Zincirbozan 190

225