Countries at the crossroads 2005: Turkey

This report on Turkey by Sarah Repucci,
to be featured in Freedom House‘s forthcoming
“Countries at the Crossroads 2005” survey, finds that genuine
democratic progress has taken place as a result of a recent wave of
constitutional and legal reforms. The report also highlights
remaining deficiencies, especially in civil liberties, corruption,
transparency, judicial reform and media freedom, and recommends
ways to improve these areas.

Executive summary

The current Turkish government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan has
pursued a vigorous reform agenda in preparation for the December
2004 meeting of European Union (EU) leaders, at which the EU has
promised to consider whether Turkey can begin membership
negotiations. Turkey has passed a string of constitutional
amendments and reform packages in recent years, and the government
has taken serious steps toward ensuring their implementation.
Turkey hopes that a positive response in December will help
consolidate and expand reforms and improve business investment as
well. 

The modern Turkish republic was founded by Kemal Mustafa Ataturk
in 1923. Ataturk was a visionary who wanted to form a modern state.
He separated Islam from the state and banned such external signs of
religion as the fez and the headscarf. He also created a Turkish
identity and a nationalism that had not existed under the Ottoman
Empire. Although his party ruled uninterrupted for more than 25
years, an important legacy of his rule is the republican
institutions that he helped put in place. 

In 1980 Turkey experienced the most recent of three military
coups that temporarily took power from the elected civilian
government. The military-led government wrote a new constitution
that Turkey’s citizens approved in a 1982 referendum. This
constitution strengthened the role of the military and restricted
many fundamental freedoms. Soon afterward, fighting began in the
southeast that ultimately developed into a 15-year guerrilla war
between Turkish forces and Kurdish separatists. 

A ceasefire was declared after the capture of separatist leader
Abdullah Ocalan in 1999. In the same year, the EU accepted Turkey
as an official candidate in response to its initial application in
1987. As a final turning point, Turkey’s financial system collapsed
in 2001 and the IMF stepped in to help with restructuring. These
three events combined to spark a new era of rights and reforms in
Turkey. 

In November 2002 elections, the new Justice and Development
Party (AKP) came to power. AKP had grown out of the remnants of the
Welfare Party—an Islamic-oriented party that had been banned after
it was pressured out of power by the military in a soft coup (the
military did not subsequently assume power) in 1997—but AKP had
publicly renounced any intentions to change Turkey’s secular
orientation, and many of their supporters voted for change, not
religion. Because Erdogan, AKP’s leader, had been banned from
politics due to a prior conviction for reading an allegedly Islamic
poem in public, he was not permitted to become a member of
parliament. After AKP won a majority of parliamentary seats (a rare
event in a country that has almost always been led by fragile
coalitions), Abdullah Gul served as prime minister until the party
used its majority to change the constitution and pave the way for
Erdogan’s leadership. Erdogan became prime minister in March
2003. 

Despite the amendments, Turkey’s constitution lacks the
inclusiveness, the clearly defined rights, and the limitation on
state power that are crucial for democracy in a multicultural
society. The reforms thus far have been largely imposed from the
outside, with little grassroots effort from Turkey itself. Turks
have great faith in the state’s ability to serve their best
interests, and a culture of freedom and democracy has yet to be
fully instilled throughout the population. Education reform is
required to improve opportunities for the poor and develop the
popular basis for the full consolidation of reforms. With time,
Turkey will ultimately need to draft an up-todate civil
constitution as well. 

To read the article in full, visit the Freedom House website.