Turkey’s constitution full of anomalies

Press, 13 November 1982, Page 14

Turkey’s constitution full of anomalies

From RALPH JOSEPH, in Athens

The referendum in Turkey to legalise the Junta's constitution does not appear to have convinced knowledgeable observers. either in Turkey or abroad, that the Head of State. General Kenan Evren, is genuinely returning his country to democracy. An 80 per cent “Yes" vote to the constitution was predicted well before the November 7 polling was due to start, but the conditions under which the referendum was planned leave it wide open to subsequent charges of “rigging,” and are unlikely to remove the stigma of “dictator” from the general. Returns from the poll are still being counted, but by the beginning of this week, with 40 per cent of the votes counted, the Junta said that 91.8 per cent of the voters were in favour of the constitution.

The constitution, Turkey's fourth since 1908, has been written in haste and rushed through a hand-picked “Consultative Assembly” of 160 members, without sufficient debate on controversial articles, particularly those pertaining to the excessive powers given to the President and the restrictions being imposed on freedom of the press and expression.

The Junta appear to have been prodded into haste by the barrage of criticism levelled against them by the European democracies. There have been threats of ousting Turkey from the 21-nation Council of Europe, and economic assistance to Ankara was suspended a year ago by the European Economic Community. Under this pressure, General

Evren last year announced a “timetable for a return to democracy." General elections for a new Parliament were promised for autumn 1983 or spring 1984 at the latest. For this to be possible the constitution had to be ready by September or October this year — and indeed the generals saw* to it that it was. The remaining year was needed to give the Consultative Assembly sufficient time to draff a new political parties law and a new electoral law, and to allow campaigning time for the newpolitical parties proposed to be brought into being. It is probably a saving grace that the Turkish generals have always been somewhat sensitive to criticism from their European allies about restrictions to democracy. Similar criticism influenced the 1971 Junta to hand power back to the civilians.

General Evren now charges, however, that during the past decade when the politicians were allowed to hold power, they were unable to keep control. In clashes between supporters of the extreme Right and Left, an average of 20 people died every day, many of them innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire. The Parliament was unable to function because no single party had a large enough majority to break the deadlock on controversial bills, and the Government was ineffective because it was never strong enough to assert its authority.

The Turkish President was unable to intervene because the 1961 constitution left him only a figurehead. Indeed, says General Evren, the political

parties were unable even to elect a new President for several months. The 1961 constitution was simply unworkable. Because of this, the economy was in ruins and the country was heading for civil war.

Much of what General Evren says is true, but he has omitted to mention that it was the military which foisted the 1961 constitution on the Turks in the first place, and that if the civilians have been unable to function under it during the past two decades, the blame should not be laid entirely at their door.

For all their shortcomings, the civilian leaders, particularly the two former Prime Ministers, Suleyman Demirel and Bulent Ecevit, do have considerable public support — if the last Parliamentary elections are anything to go by. By attempting to destroy them through a campaign of denigration, where imprisonment and other harsh methods have failed, it is clear General Evren wishes to create a political vacuum in which he can take over as undisputed leader for at least 10 years. In doing so he has departed from the pattern of military intervention seen in Turkey over the last two decades.

To make it doubly sure for himself, General Evren has included a clause in the present constitution banning the leaders of the main political parties from participating in the affairs of the country for the next 10 years. Apart from his verbal assurance, hammered home in his public addresses and a controlled press, there is little guarantee that General Evren’s constitution is going to work any better than the constitution

of 1961. or that it is going to be any more acceptable to politi-cally-conscious Turks. The Junta have not even attempted to remove the glaring inconsistencies in the new constitution.

It calls for a “strong President." but the Head of State is to be elected, not by a direct popular vote as in France for instance, but by a Parliamentary vote — in other words, indirectly. Strangely enough, it was also through a Parliamentary vote that the “weak" Turkish Presidents were elected under the outgoing constitution.

The Junta have seen no contradiction in the ruling that while the Parliament is to be elected for a five-year term, the President elected by the Parliament will hold office for seven years. They have also failed to see anything strange in the ruling that while it is the Parliament that elects the new President, he will have the power to dissolve the Parliament whenever he pleases. The President will appoint a Prime Minister and Cabinet from wherever he chooses, even outside the Parliament, and will head Cabinet meetings, but there is no explanation why the office of “Prime Minister” is needed at all. under a system such as this. An “inner cabinet” of five Junta members will also be set up. In an “I-am-special" clause, General Evren has provided that the referendum on the constitution will automatically also elect him President 'for seven years. This at least may entitle him to the claim that he is a legitimately “elected” president, without him having to go through the inconvenience of facing a rival in an election campaign. General Evren’s experiment

is not without precedent. A little over two decades ago another Third World military dictator, General Ayub Khan of Pakistan, created a similar fiction of democracy and ruled undisputed for about 10 years. He gave himself a special place in his own constitution, provided for a “strong Presi-

dent." who was however elected indirectly, barred the politicians from participation even though they had considerable public backing, and suppressed human rights and press freedom.

After 10 years of this. Pakistan exploded in a revolution.