Gül’s Presidency and the CHP’s Thirst for Crisis

After days of debate and uncertainty, Abdullah Gül is finally a presidential candidate. Now Gül is busy trying to garner support for his nomination and, all being well, will be elected by the end of this month. What kind of a president will he be? And will his presidency provoke another political crisis in Turkey? These two questions will dominate the agenda for months to come. However the developments so far already provide some clues. By nominating Gül again, the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) read the election results in the way their constituents read them — Gül’s presidency was part of the election campaign from the very beginning. It would be wrong to reduce the AK Party’s victory to Gül alone, but the AK Party’s record over the last four-and-a-half years and what happened during Gül’s candidacy was a complete package for the vast majority of those who voted for the AK Party on July 22.

When the election results came in and the AK Party got 341 seats in Parliament, it became impossible for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan not to re-nominate Gül. This was further confirmed when the leadership of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), with 70 seats in Parliament, said they would attend the session but may not vote for Gül. Other smaller parties and independents, as well as civil society institutions and business communities, have also been expressing support for Gül’s nomination.

All of this indicates that a political crisis is very unlikely. The current Parliament represents about 85 percent of Turkish voters and thus has the ability to elect a new president with full confidence and legitimacy. The military is quiet about Gül’s re-nomination, but it is very unlikely the military will do anything directly or indirectly to influence the process because they too have seen the election results. If there is one thing the Turkish military defends jealously it is its credibility in the eyes of the people. Any intervention would mean the military would lose face and they will avoid that even if they may not be cheering about Gül’s candidacy.

As for the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), its position came as no surprise. They had opposed Gül’s nomination before on the same ideological grounds and, given the CHP’s priorities, this is understandable. They have not been an effective opposition party. They have failed to capitalize on the Republic rallies and they did miserably in the elections, losing almost half of their seats in Parliament. At the moment, they are the most isolated political party in Turkey.

A political crisis over Gül’s candidacy is exactly what the CHP leadership needed to divert attention from their election defeat. Their radical and belligerent statement about Gül and the decision not to give him an appointment shows how much they were looking for something like this to change the agenda. The reason for such an irrational attitude is clear — the current CHP leadership is under immense pressure from CHP supporters. If Mustafa Sarıgül, Deniz Baykal’s archrival, cannot overthrow him in September, he and his friends are likely to form a new party. We will see if the artificial crisis Baykal and his comrades are trying to shore up will help them to save their not-so-comfortable seats in the CHP.

But there is one more thing the current CHP leadership is doing which is also not surprising. They are provoking the military generals to meddle in politics again. Their calls for “state institutions” to do something are a sad declaration of political impotence, but they know what kind of weight it has in the Turkish political system. By declaring Gül unfit for the presidency, the CHP is talking not to their voters or other political parties, but to the army generals who they hope will do something to save the CHP from its dismal position of weakness. In essence, the CHP’s political tactic is