AKP puts on the ’national shirt’

Now, there is a consensus within the AKP and the opposition parties, as well as among most political observers, that with last Friday evening’s major cabinet reshuffle the ruling party has put on the old National View shirt in hopes of winning back the conservative religious electorate it partly lost in the March 29 local elections to the Islamist Saadet (Felicity) Party the only other successor of the Refah (Welfare) Party of Erbakan who immediately after restoration of his political rights last month ignored his advanced age (83), grabbed a suitcase of pills and travelled to Tehran for a visit at the invitation of the Hizbollah.

With the reshuffle, Erdoğan promoted his top foreign policy advisor Professor Ahmet Davutoğlu, who has shifted Turkish foreign policy toward a greater focus on the Middle East, as the foreign minister of the country while Ali Babacan was shifted to an enforced seat of economy minister. While all together eight ministers lost their portfolios, Erdoğan appointed nine new ministers, including Davutoğlu and former parliamentary speaker Bülent Arınç, a former confidant of Erbakan and a personality who has been often at odds with the military.

Evaluating the names left out of the cabinet, as well as those who assumed ministerial posts in the reshuffle, many AKP deputies lamented that the new cabinet was contradicting the claim of Erdoğan that the AKP has become the new "center party" of the country because the new cabinet has become a far more conservative one, more in conformity with the National View doctrine. Naturally, these complaints were partly a product of disillusionment among ministerial seat aspiring deputies or a natural psychological outburst by some of those who lost their seats in the reshuffle. Yet, there are evidences that indeed such comments reflect the bitter high probability that in the new period the AKP government will be far more conservative.

The most important and perhaps the most contagious new element of confrontation was the "return of the myth", as Bülent Arınç’s becoming the deputy premier in the new cabinet was reported by some newspapers. Given the fact that Arınç has the habit of confrontation with the military and his outspoken Islamist views, there were serious fears that the government will eventually land into some serious problems in its relations with the powerful military of the country. Will he be able to avoid some new confrontation and further polarization in the country?

Return of Arınç
Furthermore, Arınç is not the only prominent National View representative in the new cabinet. New Labor Minister Ömer Dinçer, who was much opposed when he was undersecretary of the prime ministry because of his fundamentalist views, new Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin, new Industry and Trade Minister Nihat Ergün, and new Energy and Natural Resources Minister Taner Yıldız are as well considered to be from the National View flank of the AKP. Of course rather than labeling the new ministers with their professed world view, their actions in office must be watched and an evaluation should be made accordingly. However, these assessments made inside the AKP are apparently shared to a great extend by the opposition groups in Parliament.

Still, for the time being, the greatest allergy in Parliament was on Davutoğlu, a non-parliamentarian, assuming the Foreign Ministry portfolio. Both the AKP deputies and the opposition were asking whether of the 312 deputies AKP has apart from those in cabinet, there was no one eligible to become the foreign minister and Erdoğan was compelled to appoint someone from outside of Parliament in such an important portfolio.

With the Hamas fiasco, Davos theatrical show, Armenia road map and the "one step ahead" adventure on Cyprus in mind, it becomes obvious that with Davutoğlu as foreign minister and a cabinet more in tune with National View of Erbakan there will hardly be any dull day in Ankara in the period ahead.