Military, mosques battle for Turkey- by Mitch Potter
These are topsy-turvy days for the unfinished business that is Turkish democracy, where the struggle for crucial parliamentary elections in eight days boils down to a contest of mosque versus military. On one side is Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP), which is widely expected to earn a fresh mandate after a dichotomous four years in power.
Lining up in opposition are parties loyal to Turkey's omnipresent military establishment, which hovers in the background as the self-appointed guarantor of the secular system of governance founded from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire 84 years ago. Make no mistake that, in this election, size very much matters.
A dramatic AKP landslide will be difficult for traditionally pro-Western army brass and senior judiciary, which has a long and undemocratic history of dismissing governments it deems a threat to the strictly secular principles set down by the beloved founder of the republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
"It is worrying because the situation today is not a political crisis, it is an historical crisis," said Mehmet Altan, a professor of economics at the University of Istanbul. "We live in a military republic and it needs to become a democratic republic. This is an obligation. The struggle between military and mosque is the defining characteristic of power in Turkey. And we need to get over it, get past it somehow. "But in making this transition, Turkey is vulnerable to threat and that's why I am concerned. For me, the soldiers are dangerous and an Islamic state is dangerous. Both extremes make me uncomfortable."Going into these elections, however, Erdogan's AKP has turned that political equation upside down, coming off a four-year run of impressive reforms and fiscal belt-tightening that have earned the blessings of the business community, triggering an unprecedented surge of foreign investment. No one doubts the party's Islamist roots, or its social conservatism, but in opening Turkey to the global economy the AKP has won friends in unlikely places.
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