FORCES OF REACTION

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 8, 10 January 1925, Page 13

FORCES OF REACTION

m NEW POLITICAL PARTY IN ANGORA DEMAND FOR DIRECT.ELECTIONS, Recriminations are" the order of the day at Angora, but throughout the country satisfaction is manifested at the new turn of events which has brought a real Opposition into-existence, sajs the" Constantinople correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian.'' "While the politicians insult one another—the word "'insult" is 'not too Btrong—the organs of public opinion voice a very general relief. The development has been as follows:—With the abolition: of the Sul,tanate and Khalifate, and the institution of a Turkish Republic, Kemal Pasha determined that no chance should be given for the forces of reaction, if any still existed, to show themselves.- Everyone who was to be a Seputy was to be an out-and-out Republican. With this end he organised the "People's Party," basing it upon very wide principles, such "as the safeguarding of the "national sovereignty.' With the foreign danger still in existence it was not the time to allow free rivalry to^ different political .piinciples. . The result of the elections held under such conditions' was natuiallv that all the deputies were People's Party nominees. In accordance with their primary principle,they were to defend the Republic and elaborate the new Constitution on Republican lines. Apart from that it was not veoy clear what they were to do or what amount of unity they were expected to show. Once/last year the party formed itself into a. sort ot court,, and sat formally upon the "Suspect opinions of ex-Premier Raouf Bey." Was he a Republican or not? He came out of the by-no-means soft impeachment with/ honours, and the party dropped back into its routine work. Nevertheless, it soon became evident that there were dissentient elements which.on almost .a\\ occasion were found trying to, trip up the Ismed Pasha Government.' A-number of concessions-w*e made to these elements, and certain Ministers were jettisoned to give place to personages more pleasing to the "Critical Group," as it began to be called. lhe party, however, could not help feeling that it was working clumsily, and that -it was continually meeting with annoying obstacles union eloggea its action. The worst of it was that the Press gave great prominence to the opposition tendencies and appealed to favour them. Of course these opposition tendencies showed no reactionary influence. There is almost no enlightened Turkish 'politician 'who wants back either the Sultanate or Khalifate. But it was easy for the People's Party, when annoyed, to level these stale old charges against the 'dissentients.- They were not true, but they made pretty ihetoric and brought^ the politicians' bloqd to boiling point. Meanwhile the X-snied Pasha Government was on many sides being, accused of maladministration, and the attempt to keep it in uncontrolled power at all costs, and to silence'its critics by taunts, met with general disapproval. Such was the position when the six months' vacation of the Assembly was over. When tho Assembly met again, it was 'treated to' a surprise. General Kiazim Kara Bekir Pcisha, the leading general of the War of Independence after Kemal • Pasha, entered tho House (though an active service general who is also adeputy was forbidden to do so), and sat down in mufti with the Oppositionists at Raouf, Bey's side. The Assembly President asked him what he was doing, and ho answered that he had resigned his army functions,, and was now a deputy. It was a bombshell for the People's Party The latter saw that the discontent, whether based on personal motives or not, had extended to very important army chiefs with the most honourable past. Three other generals followed, and when the party . looked ■ across to Raouf Bey's corner it saw a formidable array of politically irreproachable opponents—all tho Constantinople deputies, the Eastern Province deputies, men long entrusted with the most difficult diplomatic tasks like Adnan Bey, men of eloquence and practical ability like General Refet Pasha. It could do nothing but fume, and much of its exasperation again vented itself on ex-Premier Raouf Bey, who forsooth was now called a traitor for having been one of the signatories of the Mudros Armistice, as well_as for having joined Kemal Pasha somewhat later than others. " " - The new party, which is at present little more than a nucleus but which is expected to grow rapidly, claims to be more republican than everyone else— that is the fashion in modern Turkey— .and it puts forward certain planks which would really be valuable reforms. The most important of these is the institution of direct elections. The present system of elections in'two degrees works very satisfactorily for the Government party organisers, who can pracr tically ensure all their nominees getting in, but the last thing it does is to piovide representatives. It was in fact probably invented for this very reason by the reformist Sultans. In putting forward this plank the new Opposition has found a very apt answer to tho charges against it.