Turkey's Constitutional Court narrowly allows the ruling party in government to continue functioning, but Turkey's woes are not over, writes Gareth Jenkins Last week, Turkey's Constitutional Court narrowly ruled by six to five to allow the ruling Justice and Development Party (JDP) to continue functioning but nonetheless handed out a $20 million fine after finding it guilty of attempting to erode the principle of secularism enshrined in the Turkish constitution. The decision was greeted with relief both inside Turkey and in the international community. In March, after the JDP had amended the constitution to lift the ban that prevents women wearing headscarves from attending university, Public Prosecutor Abdul-Rahman Yalcinkaya applied to the Constitutional Court for the JDP's closure on the grounds that it had become a "focus for anti-secular activity". He also called for 71 members of the JDP, including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and 38 other members of parliament, to be banned from membership of a political party for a period of five years. In June, the same court annulled the JDP's constitutional amendments, increasing speculation that it would also accede to Yalcinkaya's demand that the party be closed. No one doubted that the banning of a party that had won 46.6 per cent of the popular vote in the last general election in July 2007 would plunge Turkey into its worst political crisis in a generation. Perhaps most worryingly, in a country that is now deeply polarised over the role of religion in public life, there was no indication of when the crisis would end. But if the court's decision to allow the JDP to continue brought the country back from the edge of chaos, the fact that 10 of its 11 judges ruled that the government had been attempting to erode secularism was both a demonstration of the continuing strength of Turkey's secular establishment and a serious blow to the JDP's vigorous denials that it is a religious party. Speaking after the verdict was announced, a clearly chastened but defiant Erdogan declared that the government would "continue as before". In reality, everyone knows -- for the short-term at least -- that this is impossible. As soon as the court had announced its decision, Erdogan sent parliament into its delayed summer recess. It is currently scheduled to reconvene 1 October. With no possibility of any potentially controversial laws being passed, tensions that have dominated Turkish politics for the last five months are expected to subside. But it is likely to be only a temporary respite. Between 60 and 70 per cent of adult Turkish women are believed to veil themselves. Since the JDP first took office in November 2002 it has been under intense pressure from its mostly conservative supporters to lift the ban that prevents veiled women from receiving university education. Although the fact that it tried -- and failed -- to lift the headscarf ban will ease pressure on the JDP in the run-up to local elections in March 2009, the issue is not going to go away. The better the JDP performs in local elections, the more intense the pressure will be for it to try again to lift the ban. If it does so, it will again risk closure. Even Constitutional Court President Hasim Kilic, a known conservative and the only member of the court to vote against punishing the JDP, publicly warned the government that the verdict was "a serious warning" as to its future conduct. None of the 11 members of the court is due to retire for at least two years. Even if the JDP replaces each retiring judge with one of its own supporters, it will be another five years before it can be sure of having a majority in the court, which is well after the next general election due 2011. Yet many of the JDP's conservative supporters already believe that they have waited too long for the chance to give their daughters a university education. For tens of thousands, it is already too late. "While the JDP was facing closure, we supported it and were prepared to wait," said Neslihan Akbulut of Ak-Der, one of leading NGOs formed to protest the headscarf ban. "But now that the case has finished and it has been allowed to stay open, we believe that we have the right to begin criticising it again for not trying hard enough to lift the ban." In the short-term, Erdogan is expected to concentrate on reshuffling his cabinet and beginning preparations for the drafting of a new constitution that will make it impossible to close down political parties. But, in addition to having to operate under the shadow of the Constitutional Court's ruling, he now faces a more formidable opponent at the head of the other bastion of Turkey's secular establishment, namely its still- powerful military. On Monday, President Abdullah Gul formally approved the appointment of General Ilker Basbug as the Turkish chief of staff to replace General Yasar Buyukanit, who will retire at the end of August. Buyukanit's reputation was damaged by his ultimately unsuccessful attempt to prevent Gul -- whose wife is veiled -- from becoming president in August 2007. Basbug and Buyukanit are both committed secularists. Where they differ is in their personalities and management styles. Buyukanit is emotional and often impulsive, Basbug is calculating and cerebral. Although the Constitutional Court's decision was initially hailed as a triumph for the JDP, there is little doubt that the verdict and the message it sent to the government was a victory for the secularists. If nothing else, it was an unequivocal signal that, regardless of how many votes it won, the elected government did not have complete freedom of action. Many secularists will now look to Basbug, who is widely regarded as one of the ablest officers of his generation, to follow up by ensuring that the JDP's room for manoeuvre remains circumscribed.
