Turkish Election Results: More or Less Stability?

On July 23, 2007, Soner Cagaptay, Matthew Bryza, and Alan Makovsky addressed a Policy Forum at The Washington Institute. The following is a rapporteur's summary of Mr. Cagaptay's remarks.

The results of the July 22 election have short-, medium-, and longer-term implications for Turkey and its relations with the United States. For short-term political stability, the results are the best possible outcome. The AKP has emerged with a greatly increased share of the vote (47 percent) and a comfortable majority (340 seats in the 550-seat parliament). This gives it a mandate to form the government while forcing it to seek consensus to muster the 367 votes needed to elect a president.

Beyond the next few weeks, however, the picture is not so promising, with increasing internal division to blame. Coming from one of Turkey's major political currents -- the Milli Gorus (national outlook) movement of the Islamist Welfare Party -- the AKP has engulfed another major current: the center-right. Emboldened, the AKP now opposes two other currents in Turkish politics: nationalists and leftists. Judging from the election results, the country is split in the middle between a greatly strengthened AKP and the leftists and nationalists, who together received 37 percent of the vote.

A more alarming divide is the one emerging between secular and Muslim Turks. In the past, the opposite of "secular" in Turkey was "Islamist" -- a perception that benefited secularism but which is now disappearing. The AKP has cast this spring's botched presidential elections -- when secular Turks blocked the AKP-dominated legislature from nominating Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul -- as a case of secular forces opposing "a religious president." This image has replaced the secular-Islamist divide with a secular-Muslim divide. In turn, that has boosted support for the AKP on the Muslim side. In a winning development for the AKP, the long-lived coexistence of Islam and secularism in Turkey is coming apart. The elections were an identity referendum, and about half of the populace chose Muslim.

Interestingly, the AKP's vote tally has increased by 12 percent since the 2002 elections; according to a 2006 poll conducted by TESEV, an Istanbul-based think tank, the number of Turks who identify themselves as "Muslim only" increased by 10 percent over the same period. Should this new divide persist, secular Turks will become a marginal force. In a post-September 11 world, with U.S. policy working to prevent a clash of civilizations, the changes in Turkish identification have grave implications for the United States.

Washington should also be concerned that the AKP, despite benefiting from good ties with the United States on many levels, does not stand behind or explain these ties to a populace that has become predominantly anti-American. One way out of this conundrum would be for the AKP to heed the words of the medieval poet Rumi: "Act the way you are or be the way you act." That is, the AKP's public discourse should reflect Turkey's actual and positive relationship with the United States. Washington can help by taking adequate steps to counter the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which continues to launch terrorist attacks in Turkey from northern Iraq -- the key issue driving anti-Americanism among Turks.

This rapporteur's summary was prepared by H. Akin Unver.

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Turkish Election Results: More or Less Stability?