Extraordinary meetings

The first extraordinary meeting came on June 16 amid publication in a newspaper of an alleged "military plan" aimed at stopping the advance of the AKP and the Islamist Fethullah Gülen brotherhood organization. Last week the meeting was held Thursday as scheduled. This week, however, the two came together Monday, this time ahead of the scheduled meeting of the National Security Council, or MGK, to be held at Çankaya Palace today and where Başbuğ disclosed last week he would raise the military’s frustration regarding what he described as a systematic and asymmetric psychological campaign against the Turkish Armed Forces. Başbuğ, who after coming to office last August declared that he would not appear in front of the media frequently and that he was planning to have only an annual media event, has started hosting a news conference almost once a month to counter the increasing attacks on the military, particularly in the media allegiant to the government. At the last press conference the top general had condemned as "a piece of paper" the alleged "military plan" to get rid of the AKP and the Gülen group and underlined that military prosecutors concluded there was no reason to prosecute a colonel serving in his office, the alleged author of the plan.

But, he said, if new evidence were found against the colonel, the military prosecutors would obviously look into the matter once again as the colonel could only be judged at a military tribunal. Some 10 hours before the top commander spoke, however, the AKP parliamentary majority made a midnight operation, and with an addition to a draft under debate, stripped the power of military courts and empowered civilian courts to judge officers charged with coup or coup attempt or crimes that require heavy penalty. Hours after the top commander spoke, on the other hand, in a manner as if he was responding to Başbuğ, Erdoğan reiterated that his government considered the alleged document as a "plan" not just a "piece of paper" and that the military would cleanse itself of coup plotters. The top general stated he would take the issue to the MGK meeting, and the prime minister continued the offensive. Naturally, ahead of the MGK meeting it was only normal for the prime minister and the top general to review the situation.

April 2010

Yet, the meeting will most likely not succeed in diffusing the tension because the AKP might not have any such intention if what we have started to hear from deep throats in politics are indeed reflect the present mindset of the premier and his top aides in the AKP. According to "unverified" rumors, Erdoğan has asked his vice chairmen in the AKP to get prepared for snap polls, as early as April 2010.

In the last local polls held on March 29, the ruling AKP lost more than eight percentage points compared to 2007 parliamentary elections. The decrease in the vote share was seen the first time in the history of the AKP, which was established less than one year before the 2002 parliamentary elections. However, while few months before the 2007 vote public opinion polls were indicating a sharp decrease in the AKP’s vote share, but after a campaign heavily dominated by a secularism, religious rights and the right of the "religious Turks" to send a "religious president" to the Çankaya presidential office, the AKP vote share skyrocketed to 47 percent. But, in the 2009 local polls, after a campaign dominated mostly by the economy, the vote share of the ruling party depreciated to 38 percent. With economic-political pundits claiming that a stronger wave of the economic crisis was likely to hit Turkey next spring and political deep throats claiming snap polls might come as early as April 2010 and with the conviction in the AKP that in a highly polarized society engulfed in a serious "counter revolution" paranoia help the ruling party win more in elections, is there logic in waiting for the prime minister and the AKP to try to diffuse tension in the country?