Players in place, we now learn the game
Güncelleme Tarihi:
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Mayıs 04, 2009 00:00
Just as all journalists in Turkey, most of us spent much of the weekend trying to read the coffee cup of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, speculating about the cabinet reshuffle announced Friday night.
We might have spoken too strongly in our first analysis on our Internet site, which spoke of the cabinet as being "radicalized." Former Speaker Bülent Arınç, unquestionably a radical, to the post of vice-premier with a seat on the National Security Council, prompted the assessment. A former acolyte to Turkey’s symbol of political Islam, Necmettin Erbakan, will now sit in the main body for joint decisions with the military. And this step alone may justify our use of the word "radical."
But Nimet Çubukçu as the pick to head the education ministry, some of us have argued, runs counter to this theme. There is very little in Çubukçu’s background as families minister that suggests she will be a great education minister. There is enough, however, to suggest she will be merely good, and probably less resistent than her predecessor to put religion into is appropriate place and context in Turkey’s classrooms.
On the economy, personalities aside, the reorganization of a series of contrived ministries under a single commander makes perfect sense to us at this time of multi-faceted crisis. And the fact the finance ministry, leaderless for months, now has a known entity in charge is heartening. In our experience, the markets generally liked Ali Babacan back when he had the economics post and regretted his departure to foreign affairs. And the take on the street about Mehmet Şimşek has always been that his background as a Merrill Lynch numbers cruncher was poor preparation for dealing with such challenges as productivity in industrial output. Moving him from a general economy portfolio to the finance ministry is astute.
Our main disappointment with THE big ticket change is simply an internal one. As the Daily News was the first newspaper in Turkey to report that Ahmet Davutoğlu had a lock on the foreign ministry, the fact confirmation came after our deadline Friday for the Weekend paper depressed us. But this appointment prompts us to quote poet Robert Frost who famously praised the virtues of, "the road less travelled by." Davutoğlu has certainly taken that path, from his studies in Malaysia to his mastery of Arabic. Whether this will, as Frost suggested, "make all the difference," is a matter which remains to be seen. We await.
Our main worry will not be the composition of the cabinet, but the risk of the arrogance of power. Majority governments have many virtues over coalition governments. That they tend, over time, to become increasingly authoritarian is a fact proven by history throughout the world. At last we know the team’s players. Now we will learn the true game.
But Nimet Çubukçu as the pick to head the education ministry, some of us have argued, runs counter to this theme. There is very little in Çubukçu’s background as families minister that suggests she will be a great education minister. There is enough, however, to suggest she will be merely good, and probably less resistent than her predecessor to put religion into is appropriate place and context in Turkey’s classrooms.
On the economy, personalities aside, the reorganization of a series of contrived ministries under a single commander makes perfect sense to us at this time of multi-faceted crisis. And the fact the finance ministry, leaderless for months, now has a known entity in charge is heartening. In our experience, the markets generally liked Ali Babacan back when he had the economics post and regretted his departure to foreign affairs. And the take on the street about Mehmet Şimşek has always been that his background as a Merrill Lynch numbers cruncher was poor preparation for dealing with such challenges as productivity in industrial output. Moving him from a general economy portfolio to the finance ministry is astute.
Our main disappointment with THE big ticket change is simply an internal one. As the Daily News was the first newspaper in Turkey to report that Ahmet Davutoğlu had a lock on the foreign ministry, the fact confirmation came after our deadline Friday for the Weekend paper depressed us. But this appointment prompts us to quote poet Robert Frost who famously praised the virtues of, "the road less travelled by." Davutoğlu has certainly taken that path, from his studies in Malaysia to his mastery of Arabic. Whether this will, as Frost suggested, "make all the difference," is a matter which remains to be seen. We await.
Our main worry will not be the composition of the cabinet, but the risk of the arrogance of power. Majority governments have many virtues over coalition governments. That they tend, over time, to become increasingly authoritarian is a fact proven by history throughout the world. At last we know the team’s players. Now we will learn the true game.