banned the Welfare Party and prohibited seven of its leaders, including Erbakan, from
engaging in political activity for seven years.
The military’s intervention restored secular politicians to office but did not suc-
ceed in making them any more effective in dealing with the country’s problems. After
another period of indecisive leadership, Turkish politics experienced one of its most
revolutionary moments in 2002, when a new Islamic party, the Justice and Develop-
ment Party (AKP), finished first in that year’s parliamentary elections and swept into
power (Rise of the Justice and Development Party, p. 647).
Pressure via Internet
Led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the charismatic former mayor of Istanbul, the AKP
governed effectively and maintained broad public support. In 2007, however, Turkey’s
generals argued that the party had overstepped what they viewed as a significant bound-
ary between religion and politics. With the term of President Ahmet Necdet Sezer
about to expire, Erdogan negotiated with other political leaders on a successor, even-
tually settling on his closest political ally, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul. A U.S.-
educated economist, Gul was one of the most sophisticated leaders in the AKP, but
the military viewed an Islamist party leader as too divisive a figure to be president.
On April 27, the military high command posted a notice on its Web site, com-
plaining about recent incidents that it said endangered the country’s secularist under-
pinnings and indirectly warning the parliament not to appoint Gul as president. “It
must not be forgotten that the Turkish Armed Forces do take sides in this debate and
are the sure and certain defenders of secularism,” the statement read. It continued,
“Moreover, the Turkish Armed Forces are definitely on the receiving end of the debates
being argued and the negative commentary, and they will make their position and
stance perfectly clear if needs be. Let nobody have any doubt about this.”
Gul withdrew his candidacy amid large demonstrations, some favoring the mili-
tary’s intervention on behalf of secularism and others opposing it. Prime Minister
Erdogan sought to override the generals by putting the final decision on Turkey’s next
president into the hands of the public. He therefore called for early parliamentary elec-
tions in July 2007, and at his request, the parliament passed legislation calling for the
popular election of the president. Outgoing president Sezer vetoed the legislation, but
parliament overrode the veto. In this case, however, the voters, rather than the gener-
als, had the ultimate say in the dispute. In the elections held on July 22, 2007, Erdo-
gan’s party scored an impressive victory, winning 47 percent of the vote—an unusu-
ally high percentage for any party in modern Turkish elections—and retaining its large
majority in parliament.
These events of 2007 had the potential to affect Turkey’s pending application for
membership in the European Union (EU). After decades of knocking at Europe’s door,
Turkey won an invitation to negotiate the terms for its membership in the EU in
- Even under the best of circumstances, it was likely that Turkey would not win
actual admission for another ten or fifteen years. The military’s political intervention
in 2007 at first appeared to hand ammunition to those in Europe opposed to allow-
ing Turkey into the EU. The election in July, however, was widely seen as a setback
for the military and a major step toward the consolidation of democracy in Turkey—
possibly boosting Turkey’s long-delayed quest for a seat at the EU table.
642 TURKEY