Turkey: Islamist-leaning party gets a new lease on life

Turkey just saved its democracy, said Ismail Kucukkaya in the Istanbul Aksam. The Constitutional Court, which is dominated by secularists, chose not to dissolve the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP as it is known by its Turkish acronym. State prosecutors were trying to close down the AKP on charges that the party had improperly introduced religion into public life by overturning a ban on women wearing head scarves at universities. “A large part of society had and still has genuine concerns” about the AKP, largely because of its “propaganda appealing to religious populism.” Still, the party, which was voted into power democratically, hasn’t actually acted on some of its more extreme positions—it did not, for example, criminalize adultery. Had the court banned the party, the European Union would certainly have said that Turkey had failed to honor the wishes of its electorate and was not sufficiently democratic to ever become an E.U. member. Instead, the court made the right decision, allowing the AKP to continue in power while warning it to avoid promoting Islam.

I can hardly believe the court reached “such a reasonable decision,” said Mehmet Ali Birand in the Ankara Turkish Daily News. Our usually “hotheaded” country “found the logical and sensible way” through a crisis. “For the first time, we did not act like Turks.” Almost everyone expected the court to close the AKP. After all, the secular court closed the AKP’s predecessors, similarly Islamist-leaning parties, twice in the past. But this time, it was thinking globally. The judges not only were influenced by “what the decision could do to Turkey’s relations with the E.U., but also how America would react and the possible loss of prestige in the Middle East.”

Still, the court’s ruling was practically a draw, said Semih Idiz, also in the Turkish Daily News. Six of the 11 justices voted against the ruling party; just one shy of the seven votes required to shut it down. The close ruling gives the AKP’s opponents a reason to argue “that this party is not as innocent as it makes itself out to be.” Indeed, from now on, the AKP “will be even more under the watchful eyes of the hard-line secularists.” It won’t be able to pass any laws that seem to follow “any secret Islamic agenda.”

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Let’s hope Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan got the message, said Tufan Turenc in the Istanbul Hurriyet. He may still be in power, but the court did punish him, cutting in half the party’s public financing for the next election. In leveling that penalty, 10 of the 11 justices held that the AKP “had become the focus of anti-secular activities” and warned “that if it continued down this path, it would be closed.” The AKP won a large plurality in the last election, with 45 percent of the vote. But that is not a license “to reshape social life to fit its own preferences.” Erdogan is sticking to his slogan “We won’t stop.” Fine. But the court has warned him to “change direction.”