By Rahim ElKishky
The long over-due confrontation between the political Islamic forces and the military has just started. The events Turkey has seen since its 1980 military coup seem to have reemerged in Egypt today. Turkey’s 1980 constitution written by the military and Egypt’s much debated constitutional principles proposed by the SCAF; the role of Turkey’s army as the ‘guardian of the Turkish Constitution’ and Egypt’s army defining itself as the ‘defender of constitutional legitimacy’ as mentioned in article 9 in its suggested principles; Turkey’s military-dominated ‘National Security Council’ and Egypt’s ‘National Defense Council’ mentioned in article 10 of the draft principles; the Islamist roots of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Muslim Brothers’ Freedom and Justice Party. The similarities are endless.
There is also much enthusiasm for the Turkish model among Egyptians and especially among the Muslim Brothers. So why do the MBs admire the Turkish model so much? And why is a Turkey-like parliamentary system among the first goals mentioned in the Freedom and Justice Party’s program? Is it because Turkey appears to be the first successful model of Islamic democracy with international appeal and acceptance and a flourishing economy? Perhaps. Or is it because of the way Erdogan’s AKP took control of Turkey’s presidency, government, the constitutional court, and most importantly its military? Surely.
The current conflict between the Islamists and the military on supra-constitutional principles is just the beginning of a long power struggle between the two main forces. Despite four military coups that have occurred in Turkey’s modern history, the military has still always managed to transfer rule to civilians within a considerably short time. Military intervention has always happened either to establish stability during times of chaos or to overthrow an Islamic government that was allegedly attempting to undermine the secular principles of Turkey’s constitution.
Pre- Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party
The history of the struggle between the military and Islamist forces goes way back to the times of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk since 1923. His successful quest to establish a strict secular version of Islamic society is still under attack by Islamic fundamentalists to this day. However, the period in Turkish history that is quite relevant to Egypt’s current situation started in the 1980s, right after the 1980 military coup that followed a series of violent political clashes and assassinations and a death toll of 5000. In 1982 the military forced a secular constitution on Turkey and gave itself more powers via the National Security Council, the military’s political arm. The military made sure that items like the defense budget, declaration of war, sending troops to foreign countries, emergency laws, and martial law, lay outside the control of the government and the parliament and reasserted that it would guarantee the continuation of Kemalist reforms and secular ideology. A year later the military held parliamentary elections and banned Islamist parties from participating in the elections.
At that time, the most powerful political Islamic figure was Necmettin Erbakan. In 1970, he established The National Order Party, and a year later, it was banned based on violations of secular articles in the constitution. In 1971, he established the National Salvation Party, but it closed in the wake of the 1980 coup. His Welfare Party was then established in 1983 with the hope that it would be able to join the parliamentary elections. Once again, this party was banned immediately after its inception. The ban was lifted in 1987, and Erbakan managed to rise to power and be the first Islamic Prime Minister in 1996 after his party won 21 percent of the vote.
Erbakan’s first oversees trips were to Libya and Iran, and he called on Muslim countries to form an EU-like club with their own currency, and challenge the long time Ataturkian symbol of secularism by calling for a lift of the ban on wearing headscarves in state schools and buildings. The army-controlled National Security Council warned Erbakan against undermining Turkey’s secular characteristics. A year later, Erbakan was forced to step down and once again banned from politics for five years. His party members regrouped, however, and formed the Virtue Party in 1998 after which Islamic principles were again found to be unconstitutional and banned in 2001. During that period, the army effectively kept away any pro Islamic movements attempting to undermine Turkey’s strict secularism and notably, without directly getting involved in politics itself.
The Rise of Erdogan
In 2001, Islamists led by RecepTayyip Erdogan, who had been briefly imprisoned for publicly reciting an old poem that supposedly incited religious hatred, formed the Justice and Development Party, known also as the AKP. In the 2002 elections, almost half of those eligible to vote decided to boycott the elections due to a mix of corruption scandals and worsening economic conditions. This circumstance led to Erdogan’s party gaining power with 34 percent of the vote, and eventually allowed his party to grab 363 seats of the total 550 seats and form the first single party government in 11 years. The Kemalist Republican People’s Party, or the CHP, was the only other party out of 17 parties that managed to exceed the 10 percent threshold rule (the minimum for any party to enter Parliament). They came in second with 19% of the vote and grabbed 178 seats.
Unlike his Islamist predecessor, Erdogan quickly announced that his first official trips would be to several European countries, and he reiterated that joining the EU was his top priority. He also declared that the headscarf issue was not among his government priorities. However, Erdogan’s feud with the military started just a few months after he settled into his new position. He pushed for a set of EU ‘harmonization packages’ that would, rightly so, increase Turkey’s chances to join the European Union. However, the reforms would also conveniently limit the military’s powers and turned its political arm, The National Security Council, into a mere advisory body. In 2003, the bills were presented and approved by parliament, totally bypassing the military’s National Security Council. (A procedure that Egypt’s military is currently trying to block by enforcing Article 9 of the fundamental principles). The Turkish military was helpless at this point as the majority of Turks wanted to join the EU, especially the secularists. In addition, Erdogan did so little to promote any Islamic agenda that the military had no justification to intervene as it had earlier
The 2007 Elections
Right before the 2007 elections, Erdogan was eying the position of Ahmed Sezer, the fiercely secular President of Turkey whose term was about to end and he nominated his Foreign Minister, Abdullah Gul, for the job. After getting the parliament’s blessing, the army threatened to intervene on its official website. This threat was known later as the Army’s ‘e-coup’. A few days later, as many as 1 million secular demonstrators took to the streets of Istanbul, and police had to fire teargas to disperse the crowd. Later on, the Constitutional Court supported the case against Gul’s candidacy and forced the AKP to withdraw it. Erdogan called for earlier elections, and in them the AKP won 46.6 percent of the parliament majority with 341 seats. Immediately afterwards, Abdullah Gul became Turkey’s president, becoming the first openly pious Muslim president in Turkey’s modern history. As president, Gul also became the Commander-in-Chief of Turkey’s armed forces.
In 2008, the Constitutional Court accepted a case presented by the chief prosecutor to ban Erdogan’s AKP and President Gul on accusations that they were undermining Ataturk’s secular characteristics of Turkey. Both escaped this ‘judicial coup’ by a very thin margin, with 10 out of 11 judges agreeing that the AKP was promoting anti-secular activities, but only 6 voting for the ban; 7 were needed for such a ruling. And only a fine was imposed.
In 2009, new bills allowing senior Army officers to be prosecuted in civilian courts were introduced by the AKP and approved by parliament. AKP officials repeatedly declared that these new set of laws to produce a more democratic Turkey.
In the same year, the Constitutional Court again defied the AKP and blocked a law approved by parliament to lift the ban on headscarves worn in public institutions. Two years later, the AKP introduced a new set of laws requiring parliamentary approval for banning parties and giving the president the power to choose 14 of the 17 members of the Constitutional Court. The president also gets to choose the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors, the body that chooses court officials, giving the AKP an unprecedented control over the judiciary.
2011 Elections: The End of a Nine-Year Battle
After a sweeping victory by the AKP with 54 percent of the vote in the 2011 elections, the offensive on the army continued with the detention of over 200 serving and retired military personnel on charges they were attempting to overthrow the AKP. This alleged coup was known as Operation Sledgehammer. Beaten and powerless, the senior commanders had no choice but to resign in July of 2011. Handpicked, pro-Erdogan generals replaced them all.
Erdogan’s next challenge, as publicly stated, was to rewrite the whole Constitution written by the military after the 1980 coup. He would have done it unilaterally had he won 65 percent of the vote, but now he has to seek the support of other parties. He also mentioned that he would like to replace the parliamentary system with a French-like presidential one. Since he cannot now run for a fourth term, it is suggested that he is eyeing a Putin-style position swap with Gul but with more powers as president. The Turkish tale is not over yet, however. Now that the AKP’s popularity is still on the rise, the economy is stronger than ever, and the army is finally under AKP’s control, we have yet to see how Turkey’s story will finally evolve.
‘Simultaneous Extremes’
Erdogan is surely one of the most brilliant political minds around. He is a one-of-a-kind man of ‘simultaneous extremes’. Domestically, he appeals to Westerners and liberals through market openness, a liberal lifestyle, and what seem to be serious attempts to join the EU. At the same time he appeals to Islamists by easing the ban on headscarves at schools, opening government jobs to the clergies, appointing a former head of an Islamic bank as head of the Central Bank, establishing ties with Hamas and Iran, and taking sometimes extreme action, according to The Economist, like reopening an old church as a mosque, and a Taliban-style decapitation of an old statue on the Armenian border. Even internationally, his strategy is the same. He has managed to become Israel’s Number 1 trading partner while still considered a hero among anti-Israel Arabs and Muslims. The much talked about Davos ‘walk out’ that protested the 2009 Gaza events, was actually followed by arms and trade agreements with Israel a few months later. Turko-Israeli trade indeed then soared by 30 percent after the May 2010 flotilla events, and a year after those events, Erdogan cut all diplomatic ties with Israel. This pattern did not seem to make him less of a hero in the eyes of both Arabs and Muslims.
Whether or not Erdogan has an Islamist agenda is not really the subject of debate in this article. It is rather the balance of power that has turned 180 degrees from the military to the AKP in only a few years. That change could not have happened without the steady increase in popularity of the AKP over three consecutive elections from 2002 to 2011.
The general Turkish population seems to be shrugging off AKP’s sporadic pro-Islamist actions, harsh reaction to criticism, and jailed journalists, and decided to be more interested in a prospering economy and a growing global and regional influence. If there are any elements of fundamentalism in Turkey, then it is in the fiercely secular constitution established by Ataturk.
In all fairness, women should be free to wear headscarves if they choose, and if they do, then they should have the right to be permitted inside government buildings and universities. After nine years in power, and aside from any conspiracy theories or possible hidden Islamist agendas; it seems that the government actions in general were more towards easing restriction on pious Muslims than adding restrictions on seculars.
The Turkish population is definitely much richer with per capita income more than tripling since the AKP took control; and whether Erdogan really ever intended to join the European Union or not, Turkey is much closer to EU membership today than it was in 2002. In short, his growing power was earned, well-orchestrated and well-deserved.
Egypt 2011
In Egypt, the army should never give up its powers, not yet. Egypt could well become another Turkey, but it could also become another Afghanistan or Iran. The coming Islamist powers have no precedence, and are giving no guarantees about which direction they will take the country. The army’s hand should be lifted gradually while it will still be able to intervene in case characteristics of civil states are undermined or minorities are threatened.
At the same time, the army should understand that most segments of society have valid reasons not to trust it. It has promised to transfer power to civilians since 1952, but that has never happened. So the general lack of trust that exists is understandable. The army should work harder, let go of the prior regime’s favorite ‘keep people guessing’ approach, and give clear guarantees that it’s only goal is to protect the country and establish a democratic civil state. It should also keep all the necessary powers needed to specifically guarantee these goals.
The MBs will need to understand that power comes from the people through achievements and gaining of trust. It does not derive from threats to take to the streets if their demands are not met. They also have to understand that real democracy will not be established in a day. Only fake democracy is established by taking advantage of the uneducated masses living in poverty and who are very gullible to religious slogans. Any vote has to be free from all of the above influences.
Real democracy will also not be established by banning 3 million old opponents by calling them ‘remnants’ of the past regime, or by swiftly seizing power due to unprepared and inexperienced new opponents.
A face-off between the MBs and the military is not in anyone’s interest. Conspiracy theories aside, especially the ones circulating after the recent violent events and sectarian clashes, stability is what both should be pursuing. Their current gains were simply unimaginable just a year ago, and a clash could have disastrous consequences for them and also on an already deteriorating economy. (See article: “It’s the economy, first”).
As for the liberal revolutionaries, who are surprisingly siding with the MBs on such issues as, attempting to ban all remnants (the only single force that can stand up against the MBs) forcing earlier elections before the constitution, and immediate trimming of the military powers — these liberals will have to discard the self-deceiving power trip they are on and quickly.
They will need to understand their real size and influence over the 80 million Egyptians, and acquire a real understanding of the threats lying around them. If they don’t understand these issues today and then act on them with due speed, they surely will after the elections. But it just might be too late.
Rahim ElKishky is the CEO of Information Technology & Services CO. He sits on the board of several other companies, including EMS-International Herald Tribune/Daily News Egypt. ElKishky holds an MBA in General Management from Boston University and a BA in Political Science from the American University in Cairo. Follow author on twitter @relkishky
