Crisis-Weary Turks May Back New Party

03/11/2002| IslamWeb

Voters weary of economic crises looked ready to abandon the ruling coalition in elections Sunday and back a new party with Islamic roots that prosecutors have tried to shut down. Many parties now in parliament, including all three in Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit's coalition, may not even get the necessary 10 percent of votes to make it back in. The 77-year-old prime minister has signaled he will quit politics after the elections.

Polls show the new Justice and Development party will get about 30 percent of the vote. The party has its origins in Turkey's pro-Islamic movement, but says it is not pushing an Islamic agenda.

Suffering under the country's worst recession since World War II, many Turks appear to support the party because of its emphasis on social welfare rather than religion.

"I voted for Justice because we have no trust left in the other parties," said Hatice Bilal, a 43-year old civil servant. "We want an end to poverty, we want some peace of mind."

Justice has survived prosecutors' attempts to shut it down so far, though the case continues, and the party's popular leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was banned from running in the election.

Erdogan is banned because of a jail sentence in 1999 for publicly reading a poem that a court ruled incited religious hatred. A prosecutor also says the party must close because Erdogan is ineligible to lead it.

Some Turks, afraid of its intentions, are rallying around the center-left Republican People's Party, which is polling at around 20 percent.

Turkish secularists fear Justice may try to undermine the foundations of the pro-Western secular regime and might bring tensions with the military, which considers itself the guardian of secularism. The military has carried out three coups.

The election comes as Washington considers military action in neighboring Iraq and has promoted Turkey as a democratic model for other Muslim countries. Turkey is also eager to join the European Union , and the 15-nation bloc is carefully monitoring the election results.

"I really don't like any of the parties ... but I'm going to vote for the (Republicans) because I'm afraid of Justice and Development. I think they support Islamic law," said Arzu Cetinbas, a 27-year-old Ankara shopkeeper.

To avert trouble on election day, authorities banned the sale and consumption of spirits. Carrying licensed weapons was also prohibited. Police officers stood guard outside each of the some 172,000 balloting stations.

Security was stricter in the predominantly Kurdish southeast of Turkey, the scene of 15 years of fighting between troops and autonomy-seeking Kurdish rebels. About 1,500 police officers were posted in the regional capital, Diyarbakir, and voters were searched before entering polling stations.

A pro-Kurdish party was expected to sweep votes in the southeast but not get enough votes nationwide to enter Parliament - as happened during the last elections in 1999.

Police detained 15 people in a village in southeastern Batman province, where Justice supporters brawled with supporters of the Republican party. Five people were slightly injured in the fight. Four others were injured in another brawl in a village in neighboring Siirt province.

Erdogan, the former mayor of Istanbul, dismisses the Islamic label and says Justice is a conservative, democratic party. His party supports Turkey's bid to enter the European Union and has pledged to back an International Monetary Fund austerity program in Turkey.

"We are all suffering from the hardship. I cannot find money to even buy pencils for my child," said Abdullah Dogan, a Justice party voter who runs a small business in Istanbul. "I voted for Erdogan because I believe he can run the country properly - if only they would let him," he added in reference to the ban.

The party has not specified who will serve as prime minister if it forms the next government.

Justice was founded last year, mainly by lawmakers from a banned pro-Islamic party.

Parliament set the November election date - which came 18 months ahead of schedule - amid a crisis in the government after Ecevit fell ill earlier this year. Ecevit, 77, has indicated he will quit politics after the elections.

PHOTO CAPTION

A Turkish woman casts her vote at a polling station in Ankara early Sunday, Nov. 3, 2002, in a nationwide election in which more than 40 million voters are expected to participate. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici)