Ecevit Finds Little Support in Seeking to Delay Turkish Polls
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Recent opinion polls have indicated that Ecevit’s Democratic Left Party (DSP) will fail to pass the 10% threshold to enter parliament.
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ANKARA,
July 21 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Turkey’s ailing Prime
Minister Bulent Ecevit has failed to garner support to delay snap
polls until next year from his two coalition partners and major
opposition parties.
In
a stunning about-face, Ecevit said Saturday, July 20, he favored
delaying elections despite a decision by his coalition government to
bring elections forward to November 3 from April 2004.
“Ecevit
cannot swallow it,” the Turkish daily newspaper, Sabah,
said Sunday, July 21.
Recent
opinion polls have indicated that Ecevit’s Democratic Left Party
(DSP), which lost almost half of its 128 legislators in the past two
weeks amid mass defections, will fail to pass the 10 percent threshold
to enter parliament.
Ecevit’s
two coalition partners, the far-right Nationalist Action Party (MHP)
and the center-right Motherland Party (ANAP) immediately rejected the
prime minister’s demand on Saturday.
“The
election date is clear. The process has started and there cannot be a
return from it,” said MHP chairman Devlet Bahceli, whose party is
now the biggest political force in parliament.
ANAP
leader Mesut Yilmaz said instead of delaying polls, the parliament
should come back from recess and pass democracy reforms urgently
needed under Turkey’s struggling bid to join the European Union
before the November election.
Ecevit’s
aides met representatives of other parties late Saturday but failed to
garner support for their efforts to delay elections.
“We
place importance on holding elections as soon as possible. Demands
like this have now lost their meaning,” Salih Kapusuz from the
Islamist-leaning opposition Justice and Development Party said after
meeting with DSP members, according to Anatolia news agency.
The
chairwoman of the main opposition center-right True Path Party, Tansu
Ciller, accused Ecevit of making a “U-turn” and said “Turkey has
no time to waste.”
Sabah
quoted a member of the third major opposition group, the Islamist
Saadet (Felicity) Party, as saying they would “evaluate Ecevit’s
proposal.”
Meanwhile,
Ecevit warned Sunday that Islamist and pro-Kurdish political forces
pose a “very serious” problem to the officially secular country.
Ecevit,
who is trying to delay early elections called after his majority in
parliament collapsed, said the two movements could do well at the
polls and that such a result would endanger the nation.
“The
Turkish system may face very serious problems,” the prime minister
told TRT state television.
Ecevit
was referring to the opposition Justice and Development Party (AK), a
rising political force which opinion polls last week said would come
in first if elections were held now.
The
polls also showed the pro-Kurdish People’s Democracy Party (HADEP),
which the government claims is linked to Kurdish rebels who waged a
15-year armed campaign for self-rule, would get enough votes to enter
the parliament.
The
77-year-old embattled leader has opposed early polls ever since
turmoil erupted in May owing to his failing health and a government
rift over basic democratic reforms required under Turkey’s European
Union membership bid.
He
has argued snap polls would actually delay the E.U.-demanded reforms
and damage an economic recovery program, backed by
multi-billion-dollar loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Ecevit
yielded to pressure from his partners and the opposition on Tuesday,
July 16, when the three coalition leaders announced an agreement to
call snap polls on November 3 to end the political tensions that have
caused massive losses at the stock exchange and in the value of the
Turkish currency.
The
country’s fragile financial markets rallied on the prospect of early
polls.
Ecevit’s
insistence not to step down despite his ill health has triggered an
exodus from his party, which is now the fourth largest force in
parliament with just 65 seats.
The
defections also ended the parliament majority of the government, which
fell to 271 seats in the 550-member house.
Turkey
is overwhelmingly Muslim but officially secular, and the army has in
the past intervened to nudge Islamic parties out of office and clamp
down on Muslim political movements.
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