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Pressure Mounts For Government Change In Turkey
ANKARA, April 12 (News Agencies) - Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, under attack from all sides for the government's handling of a grave economic crisis, was under mounting pressure to resign Thursday in the wake of violent street protests.
The veteran politician has refused to step down, on the grounds that a change of power would weaken the country when it is struggling to tackle a financial shake-up.
Ecevit's rejection coincided with unprecedented clashes Wednesday between furious tradesmen and police in Ankara, which saw riot-police use tear gas and water cannon to disperse stone-throwing demonstrators among a 70,000 crowd.
The clash forced the city's governor to impose a one-month ban on all demonstrations in the Turkish capital.
But Ecevit could be making a big mistake by ignoring the demands of the public and not agreeing to at least a cabinet reshuffle, observers said Thursday.
While Ecevit has not completely ruled out replacing ministers, his two coalition partners seem less enthusiastic to undertake such a move.
"There can be no change by force or imposition," Devlet Bahceli, the leader of the far-right Nationalistic Action Party (MHP) said.
Mesut Yilmaz, the chairman of the center-right Motherland Party (ANAP) said the time was not right to sack ministers.
"There can't be a cabinet revision now, but maybe a month's time," he said.
Ecevit has come under increasing pressure to step down since February 22nd when the government floated the lira to contain a serious liquidity squeeze, triggered by fears of political instability after a fierce row at the top echelons of the state.
Since then, the lira has lost some 47% against the dollar, forcing the government to introduce a series of price hikes on basic goods and pushing inflation up.
And this is where the financial turmoil turned into a serious political crisis as the public, already burdened under a strict disinflation program, lost patience and turned against those in power.
Columnist Gungor Mengi said in the mass-circulation Sabah newspaper that a cabinet reshuffle was necessary to calm and win the public's confidence, and warned that the country would head for more serious trouble if the demands were not met.
"Past governments which ignored the street protests brought about emergency rule through their heedlessness and all periods of emergency rule have ended with the collapse of the democratic regime", he wrote in reference to the three military coups in Turkey's 78-year history.
Turkey's army remains influential but has stayed outside the political and economic row.
Other observers, meanwhile, noted that lack of support for the government could also affect a new economic program prepared by Economy Minister Kemal Dervis after the February 22nd move disrupted the IMF-backed disinflation drive.
"It is not possible for a government that bickers with the public to drive the country towards stability and welfare. And the current government already has a criminal record for dooming the country to its worst economic crisis in its history," economist Asaf Savas Akat wrote in Sabah.
"The government jeopardizes the new economic program as long as it resists on keeping in office those ministers responsible for the failure of the old economic program," he added.
The government is already lagging behind in passing 15 vital bills through parliament, which are essential for its plans to secure up to $12 billion in emergency funds from abroad.
Only two bills have been adopted so far.
Dervis, brought in last month to lead the economic recovery efforts, is expected to announce the new program within days, but only time will tell if the measures will help to cool the political crisis rocking Ankara.
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