Turkey\u2019s politics<\/p>\n
Dec 11th 2008 | ISTANBUL FOR two decades, the leader of Turkey\u2019s opposition Republican People\u2019s Party (CHP) has cast himself as the sole politician who can defend Ataturk\u2019s secular republic against creeping Islam. So the sight of Deniz Baykal recruiting a woman in a full black chador at a CHP gathering and saying, \u201cWe must show respect for people\u2019s [choice of] dress,\u201d has rocked the country\u2019s secular establishment. \u201cWe will never get used to this,\u201d quavered Necla Arat, a CHP deputy.<\/p>\n Mr Baykal has consistently opposed moves to let girls who wear the Islamic-style headscarf go to public universities. It was he who successfully asked the Constitutional Court to throw out a law passed by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) to relax the headscarf ban. He also said Abdullah Gul was unfit to be president because his wife covers her head, and egged on the generals when they threatened a coup to stop Mr Gul. So why the change of heart?<\/p>\n Most believe that Mr Baykal\u2019s new tolerance is linked to Turkey\u2019s local elections next March. Since he took charge of the CHP in 1992, Mr Baykal, who is now 70, has not won a single election. His ideas are old, his officials are out of touch. <\/strong><\/p>\n The lack of a credible secular opposition is widely seen as the biggest failing in Turkey\u2019s democracy. Even some generals are said to want Mr Baykal out. The maze of party rules that he has devised has made Mr Baykal almost impossible to unseat, but discontent is brewing. Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a CHP deputy who has exposed corruption inside the AKP, is a rising star. If in March the CHP fails to improve on the 21% it took in the 2007 general election (against the AKP\u2019s 47%), Mr Baykal\u2019s days may yet be over.<\/p>\n This prospect seems to have galvanised him into embracing his pious sisters. But Mr Baykal\u2019s last-minute manoeuvres are unlikely to sway voters. Their big worry now is not secularism but the economy. After much wobbling, the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has at last agreed to renew a standby agreement with the IMF that expired in May. The final touches will exclude the sort of pre-electoral spending spree that an increasingly truculent Mr Erdogan had hoped for. His erratic performance of recent months is beginning to take its toll. Yet so long as Mr Baykal remains his chief opponent, Mr Erdogan will have little to fear at home.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Turkey\u2019s politics Dec 11th 2008 | ISTANBUL From The Economist print edition FOR two decades, the leader of Turkey\u2019s opposition Republican People\u2019s Party (CHP) has cast himself as the sole politician who can defend Ataturk\u2019s secular republic against creeping Islam. So the sight of Deniz Baykal recruiting a woman in a full black chador at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":45977,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[200],"class_list":["post-8089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-democracy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nFrom The Economist<\/em> print edition<\/p>\n