Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday called on Turks to remain united in pursuing the country’s remarkable economic effort, but made no mention of the current crisis sparked by the presidential election.
Turkey was awaiting a key ruling by the Constitutional Court to see whether the presidential election would go to a second round in Parliament on Wednesday or whether the contry’s top tribunal would annul it, as requested by the main opposition party.
”My fellow citizens: union, unity and solidarity are our most important needs,” said Erdogan in his monthly address to the nation broadcast on radio and television.
”Turkey has a great need for this unity,” he said, stressing that a fraternal spirit would help ensure the country’s economic stability.
Turkey’s political crisis sparked jitters on the Istanbul stock exchange on Monday, which opened the week with a loss of 8%, but later recovered somewhat to close trading at only 4% down on Friday.
”We are carefully watching market developments,” Minister of State for the Economy Abdullatif Sener said, but gave assurances that ”the economic system is strong”.
Meanwhile, the executive of the Islamist-rooted governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) was meeting late into the night, but it was not known whether a statement would follow, as top party and government officials were confident that the crisis would be overcome.
”The National Assembly will successfully complete the [presidential election] process. There is no need for speculation,” Bulent Arinc, the influential parliamentary Speaker, told reporters in the southern town of Alanya.
The Turkish media widely blame Arinc, considered a hard-liner within the AKP, for sparking the crisis by insisting that the next president of Turkey be ”a religious person” — a statement that sent secularist hackles rising, including that of the army.
The main opposition party on Friday asked the Constitutional Court to rule on the legitimacy of the inconclusive first-round vote of the election, in which Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, a former Islamist, is the sole candidate.
The Republican People’s Party (CHP) based its request on an interpretation of a quorum rule in hopes of forcing early legislative elections.
The tensions around the election led to an unprecedented stand-off between the government and the army, which accused it of not doing enough to protect Turkey’s secular system and threatening to take action if it did not do so.
The government responded just as stiffly, telling the army to shape up and reminding it that it was under civilian orders.
The opposition and an overwhelming section of the media, NGOs and pressure groups — including the powerful Tusiad business association — have been clamouring for early general elections as the only way to end the crisis.
If the Constitutional Court rules in favour of the CHP, the likely outcome will be just that, sometime within 45 to 90 days.
Tulay Tugcu, the president of the Constitutional Court, said she hoped for a ruling by the court’s 11 judges on Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning at the latest, before a second round of the presidential vote scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.
The opposition and many secularist Turks believe the AKP is seeking to erode Muslim-majority Turkey’s fiercely guarded secular system, and suspicion of the AKP has resulted in two huge peaceful mass rallies in Istanbul and Ankara.
Up to 1,5-million people demonstrated peacefully against the AKP and in favour of secularism here on April 14 and more than one million did the same in Istanbul on Sunday.
If the court rules against the CHP, the second round of voting on Wednesday is likely to be inconclusive again.
But Gul is certain to be elected in the third round on May 9, when the required number of votes will drop to a simple majority of 276; he obtained 357 votes in the first round, 352 of them from his own party. — Sapa-AFP