Happy New Year to you all and may you be blessed with the fulfillment of most of your wishes in 2007. Hope is the lighthouse that illuminates our dark routes. Let us pray that we never lose our hope for better days ahead.
At the end of each year it is customary to right estimates of the past year and expectations of the next. Since I have written al lot on 2006. Let me share a few expectations for 2007.
1- Economically Turkey will feel the brunt a serious current deficit that it has downplayed its destabilizing effects. An over-valued Lira may be deflated at a certain juncture to overcome the exportation bottleneck. Turkey will be more preoccupied with the assiduous combination of unemployment and low income (read this as wide-spread poverty) exacerbated by a very skewed income distribution. Economic difficulties will reflect on organized and unorganized politics. This means radicalization at the societal level coupled with increasing criminality as a way of economic survival of the unfit.
2- Turkey will search for its soul within and without. The Kurdish problem will force Turkey to reconsider the meanings of citizenship and nationhood that are so far based (explicitly) on ethnicity and (implicitly) on faith. Pressures for a more realistic definition of the problem aside from labeling it as mere terrorism and productive ways of solution will mount up and the civil society will pick up more momentum in this regard given the inertia of the political institutions and bureaucratic cadres.
The nation will reconsider its relations with the EU, its neighbors, the USA given its own resources and expectations. Turkey will feel the urgency of redefining whom it is, what it wants to be and what role(s) it wants to play at the international theater. All of Turkey’s declared projects and alliances seem to be precarious because they lack effective and lasting strategies to sustain them. EU membership is a case in point. Turkey wants to be a member of the Union but quarrels with its rules and regulations. This is indicative of an identity crisis that becomes a vicious circle with the reluctance of most EU countries.
Turkey’s possible membership has led Europe to search for its own soul as well. Is it a political entity as much as it is an economic reality? Is it exclusively an alliance of Christian societies or not? Does it have a global perspective or is it a regional phenomenon? All of these questions have been provoked by Turkey’s possible membership. So Turkey will never be a member when soul searching on both ends of the equation is not resolved to be mutually inclusive. But then Turkey’s level of development will always play a slowing role. It has been my sincere conviction that Europe (EU) must take on the responsibility of Turkey’s development for her own stability and global stature if her leaders have visionary capacity. Europe’s decision will shape Turkey’s new choices that will be clearer just as it will shape EU’s future prospects in 2007.
3- On the domestic front the New Year is pregnant to political races and frictions. Residential and general elections will follow each other. However these two phenomena are interconnected and will reflect the balance (or better imbalance) of powers. There will be two forces at work: the bureaucracy or the unelected power group that does not want to let go of the presidency as the lynchpin of the state apparatus that they have so far wielded and the victorious party or the elected power group. The existing election law is so anti-democratic and exclusive that millions of voters are unrepresented by victorious parties. Whoever wins 30% of the national votes dominate the parliament and politics. This is not only unfair but it is also inherently destabilizing. It evokes arguments of legitimacy. Considering that the next elections will not yield drastically different outcomes, anti-AKP forces will not allow the AKP to snatch away the presidency. In the lack of an effective opposition in the parliament, the Presidency will play the role of opposition as well as the ombudsman in the name of the bureaucracy (not necessarily the people).
My expectations was that as long as the present Prime Minister Mr.R.T. Erdogan remains a candidate for the presidency, nasty dossiers and video-tapes will surface about him and family members until his reputation and credibility is shredded to pieces. But the bureaucracy together with its best ally the academia found a more effective instrument or better the noose for any AKP presidential hopeful. Funny the main opposition party (CHP) was not nearly as creative although it will be the main actor in this game. Here is the deal: In order to elect the President in the Parliament, there is a constitutional obligation that the first two rounds of elections have to be attended by two thirds of the parliamentarians that add up to 367. Presently the number of AKP deputies in the Parliament is 354. If at least 367 or more parliamentarians take part in the first two rounds of elections but can not elect anyone, the third round may take place with the absolute majority and whoever takes more than half of the votes is elected as the next president. But if 367 deputies do not attend the first two rounds there can be no third round. Hence, if the CHP abstains from taking part in the elections, the presidential elections can not be consummated. Any election with only AKP votes or the absolute majority will be annulled by the Constitutional Court. Wow! What a discovery! There is more: If the Parliament can not elect the President, general elections must be called within less that 30 days…
This is an amazing country. It rarely produces solutions to its problems but it is so innovative in producing puzzles and surprises. What about satisfaction? That is another issue!
