Future uncertain for Refah party

LONDON: On Jan. 16, 1998, Turkey's Constitutional Court announced the closure of the pro-Islamic Refah (Welfare) Party on the grounds that it had violated the Constitution's secularist provisions. The Court also dismissed Refah's 71-year-old chairman, Necmettin Erbakan, and five other party deputies from parliament, prohibiting them from leading a political party for five years.

The ruling, the latest attempt by Turkey's secular establishment to curb the growth of political Islam, is likely to provide the secularists with only a temporary respite. In late January 1998, Erbakan announced that a new party would be formed to replace Refah. Unless measures are taken to address the economic, political and social factors that have increased support for Refah, the Islamists are likely to re-emerge stronger than before under a younger, more radical leadership. Banning Refah is set to complicate Turkey's external relations, both with the European Union (EU) and its more Islamic neighbours to the east.

Religion has always been a sensitive issue in Turkey. Kemal Ataturk, founder of the modern Turkish republic in 1923, associated the Islam practised in the late Ottoman Empire with medievalism. He abolished the Caliphate -- the spiritual leadership of Islam -- and expunged Islam from public life. The young republic was ideologically underpinned by a collection of Ataturk's teachings -- 'Kemalism' -- which were inculcated through government-controlled schools and the state-run media. As a result, Kemalism rapidly became predominant among the urban, educated classes, but was less successful in penetrating rural areas, where the population remained wedded to traditional, religious values.

The Turkish judiciary has closed 21 political parties since the 1960s. Refah is the third pro-Islamic party founded by Erbakan to be banned. He formed the country's first explicitly pro-Islamic party, the National Order Party (MNP), in 1970; it was banned by the military in 1971 before it could participate in elections. The MNP's successor, the National Salvation Party (MSP), won 11.8 percent and 8.5 percent of the vote in general elections in 1973 and 1977 respectively before it too was suppressed following a coup in 1980.

Following the 1980 coup, Erbakan was forbidden to engage in politics, a ban which was only lifted in 1987. In 1983, however, he formed Refah using a surrogate as the official founder. In local elections in 1984, Refah won 4.4 percent of the vote, rising to 7.2 percent in general elections in 1987. Over the next eight years, Refah's electoral support tripled. In general elections in December 1995, Refah emerged as the largest party with 21.4 percent of the vote, capturing 158 of the 550 parliamentary seats. In June 1996, Refah took power in a coalition with the centre-right True Path Party (DYP), and Erbakan became Turkey's first avowedly Islamist Prime Minister.

As Turkey's only explicitly Islamist party, Refah draws its votes from a broad spectrum embracing pious conservatives and hardline proponents of sharia law. Party activists range from the Moslem equivalent of European Christian Democrats to radicals with close links to Islamist fundamentalist organisations.

Social and economic factors played a key role in the growth of the Islamist movement. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, persistently high inflation eroded the real purchasing power of most of the population. By December 1995, annual inflation had remained at over 60 percent for more than a decade. Rapid urbanisation resulted in the rise of shanty towns around major cities, where economic hardship was accompanied by a sense of social dislocation and alienation.

Refah was the main beneficiary of growing public disillusion with other political parties in Turkey. Accusations of corruption were rife and, despite their rhetoric when in opposition, once in office no party delivered on its promises. Refah campaigned on a platform of honesty, piety, populist economic policies and a nationalistic nostalgia for the Ottoman Empire. Refah promised its voters not only a more equitable society based on religious values, but also a vision of Turkey turning its back on the West and leading a commonwealth of independent Islamic states.

Erbakan's own commitment to the democratic process has never been clear. Public declarations of support for parliamentary democracy have often sat uneasily with speeches at private functions where he has referred to the need for a jihad (holy war) and promised once in power to introduce a system 'better than democracy'. In the early 1990s, other party leaders went further and threatened to spill blood in order to introduce sharia.

Turkey's secular establishment has two components:

* the civil establishment, including the judiciary and much of the bureaucracy; and

* the military, which regards itself as the guardian of Ataturk's legacy.

Ironically, it was the armed forces that provided the initial impetus for the dramatic growth in Refah's support. In the 1980s, the Army became more relaxed about the prominence of Islam in Turkish society, encouraging it as an ideological bulwark against communism, and making religious education compulsory in schools. It also chose to ignore a huge increase in the number of religious schools and private Koranic courses.

Even though inciting the overthrow of secularism is forbidden by Turkish law, it was not until Refah came to power in June 1996 that the secular establishment began to mobilise. Over the next six months, the military issued a series of increasingly strongly worded statements reaffirming its commitment to secularism. On Feb. 4, 1997, the military sent a column of tanks through the Ankara suburb of Sincan after the local Refah mayor, Bekir Yildiz, had made a speech defending sharia law.

On Feb. 28, 1997, at a meeting of the country's supreme advisory body, the National Security Council (NSC), the military presented the government with reforms of the education system that would have led to the closure of many religious schools. While the government prevaricated, the military increased the pressure, discreetly lobbying DYP members to withdraw their support from the government. In May, the Public Prosecutor applied to the Constitutional Court for Refah's closure. In June, his parliamentary majority eroded by defections, Erbakan resigned.

Almost all of the specific charges -- mostly references to speeches made by Refah leaders -- presented to the Constitutional Court referred to incidents that had taken place before Refah came to power. But, once the case had been filed, there was little doubt as to the outcome. Privately, high-ranking military sources supported the case, commenting that it would take Refah ten years to recover from closure.

However, there are indications that, even before the decision was announced, the case may have bolstered support for Refah. During the last six months of the Refah-DYP coalition, there were signs of growing restlessness in the party. Many were frustrated that it had proved no better at solving Turkey's economic problems than its predecessors; others were growing impatient with the party's failure to introduce a system more in keeping with sharia law.

In the aftermath of the court's decision, Erbakan declared that Refah would appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. But, since the effective rejection of Turkey's attempts to join the EU at the Luxembourg summit in December 1997, Ankara has increasingly been alienated from the Union. At the same time, Refah's suppression -- and Ankara's increasingly close military and political ties with Israel -- is likely to estrange Turkey's Arab neighbours and Iran.

The long-term domestic consequences of the Refah episode remain unclear. Although Erbakan has been banned from political leadership, party officials expect him to retain control of Refah's successor through a surrogate from his own generation.

Privately, many of the younger generation of activists even welcomed the closure of Refah, believing that it would accelerate their accession to the party leadership. The political culture of the Refah electorate, which accords considerable respect to age and experience and is unforgiving of disloyalty, makes it difficult to initiate a direct challenge to Erbakan. However, the realisation that he will never again be Prime Minister will increase the pressure on him at least to be seen to be preparing for the future by anointing one of the younger generation as his successor.

While the Constitutional Court's decision is likely to strengthen the hand of extremists both in Turkey and abroad who argue that Islamism is incompatible with parliamentary democracy, violence similar to that seen in Algeria is improbable. Although violent incidents may increase, Turkish Islamist groups remain relatively small in number and still do not command widespread support in the Islamist movement as a whole.

Islamists will need time to regroup and organise a new party machine, but it is unlikely to take the decade foreseen by the military for them to do so. During the 1990s, the extent of Refah's support and the increasingly high political profile of the Turkish military were symptoms of the political system's failure either to provide stable government or to solve the country's economic and social problems.

If the mainstream political parties fail to provide solutions for Turkey's social and economic ills, the secular establishment may face a successor to the Refah party which not only enjoys increased electoral support but is also led by a younger, more radical generation that is less inclined to compromise with the system.

-- IISS