The possibility of Turkey having to hold at least two general elections within the space of a few months is strong, writes Gareth Jenkins Turkey's month-long political crisis threatened to descend into farce last week after President Ahmet Necdet Sezer vetoed a series of constitutional reforms passed by the government of the moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party (JDP), including a proposal for the next president to be elected by popular vote. Under the existing constitution, the Turkish president is elected by parliament, which means that any government with a majority in the assembly can effectively appoint its own candidate. In late April the twin bastions of Turkey's secular establishment, the military and the Constitutional Court, combined to prevent the JDP from electing Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul to succeed Sezer, who was supposed to have stepped down on 16 May. Although he has very limited executive powers, the Turkish president is able to block both legislation and the appointment of government-nominated candidates to positions in the bureaucracy. Since the JDP came to power in November 2002, Sezer has blocked a series of laws to ease restrictions on religious education and the appointment of hundreds of JDP supporters to key positions in the bureaucracy on the grounds that they were suspected of harbouring anti-secularist sympathies. The fear in the Turkish establishment was that, with one of its own members in the presidential palace, the final restraints on the JDP would be removed and it would begin to erode the principle of secularism enshrined in the Turkish constitution. On 27 April the Turkish military issued a public warning to the JDP, implicitly threatening a coup unless it abandoned its attempt to appoint Gul to the presidency. A few days later, the Constitutional Court annulled the presidential election process, citing a hitherto unknown requirement that two thirds of the MPs had to be present in parliament in order for the voting to be valid; which effectively made it impossible for any government to appoint its own candidate for the presidency unless it had the support of two thirds of the assembly. In response, the JDP called an early general election for 22 July and pushed through a series of constitutional amendments to allow the president to be elected by popular vote for a maximum of two five-year terms. The government originally hoped that the amendments would be approved in time for the first election for the presidency to be held on the same day as the 22 July elections, when the JDP is widely expected to emerge once again as the largest party in parliament. Under Turkish law, if the constitutional amendments are passed again unchanged by parliament, the president cannot veto them a second time, only put them to a referendum. On Monday there was a mass brawl in parliament between deputies from the JDP and the main opposition Republican People's Party (RPP) as the government began the process of pushing through the constitutional amendment package again. The process was expected to take several days. But even if the government is successful, most analysts expect Sezer to put the amendments to a referendum, a process which usually takes a minimum of four months and thus makes it impossible for the presidential and the general election to be held at the same time on 22 July. The problem is that Sezer is now only acting president and the first task of any new parliament will be to elect his successor or dissolve itself and go to new elections. The JDP is insistent that it will once again put Gul forward as its candidate. But with the referendum on the constitutional amendments not expected to be held until the early autumn, Sezer's successor will be chosen under the existing system. The recent Constitutional Court ruling means that, unless the JDP secures two thirds of the seats in the 22 July elections, all the opposition has to do is to boycott parliament to prevent Gul being appointed. So, unless the JDP is prepared to back down on Gul's candidacy, Turkish electors could find themselves having to go to the polls not only on 22 July but also in early September; and, unless the system is changed or a compromise candidate found, every couple of months after that.
