Two Turkish Parties Sign Coalition Deal

In something of a shotgun marriage, the two leaders of Turkey’s rival center-right parties signed a pledge of loyalty Sunday to a new coalition intended to keep a pro-Islamic party from power.

One television news program played an upbeat wedding march as it showed footage of the signing ceremony. The Turkish establishment and its Western allies also have greeted with relief the end of a lengthy search for a new government in this strategic North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally straddling Europe and the Middle East.

Under the agreement, acting Prime Minister Tansu Ciller of the True Path Party ceded the first year of a rotating premiership to her bitter rival, Motherland Party leader Mesut Yilmaz. The two had failed to put together a coalition immediately after December elections when each refused to let the other be prime minister first.

“I have made this sacrifice because I did not think the [Islamic] Welfare Party would be good for the state. We thought this would be better for political stability,” Ciller said.

Necmettin Erbakan, the leader of the Welfare Party--which with 21% of the vote in the December elections came in first but did not have enough to govern alone--angrily denounced the Yilmaz-Ciller alliance. “This coalition will do nothing but ruin the country. Welfare will come to power--if not today, then tomorrow,” he told his party’s executive body.

Senior Welfare Party officials have hinted that the fiercely secularist Turkish military conspired against them. With the biggest and best-organized block of deputies in parliament, they have vowed to be merciless in opposition.

Many Turks, however, hope that at last the personal rivalries that have plagued the center-right parties are at an end. For more than a decade, key projects such as privatization, human rights reforms and reduction of the state payroll have been hamstrung by the conflict.

The struggle also has alienated voters, and the center-right no longer commands a majority in parliament. Ciller and Yilmaz are going to have to trust Democratic Left Party leader Bulent Ecevit’s word that he will not vote against them.

If all goes well, Yilmaz will rule in 1996 and 1999, with Ciller taking the helm in 1997 and 1998. A member of the True Path Party will lead the coalition into new elections in the 2000.

Ciller has decided not to join the 33-person Cabinet for Yilmaz’s first term as prime minister. The True Path Party will control the Treasury and the justice, education and foreign affairs ministries.

Yilmaz’s Motherland Party will control the defense, interior and finance ministries. The remaining political booty of government posts, reaching down to appointments in the state tea factories and the soccer federation, have been divided up in 70 days of talks.