Turkish Effort for Coalition Ends in Failure

Prime Minister-designate Bulent Ecevit said Saturday that he had given up the attempt to form a government he began three weeks ago after the fall of Turkey’s conservative-led coalition amid accusations of corruption.

The state-run Anatolian news agency said veteran leftist Ecevit announced that he would hand back the mandate to President Suleyman Demirel on Monday after Tansu Ciller’s conservatives told him that they definitely would not back his efforts.

“After that I telephoned the president. I told him if he wanted, I could visit him to give up the mandate tonight or on Monday. . . . I will tell him on Monday that I cannot continue the duty any further,” the agency quoted Ecevit as saying.

Ecevit had tried to form a minority coalition with conservative caretaker Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz, whose government was toppled last month in a censure vote.

But Yilmaz’s archrival Ciller and another leftist party refused to give Ecevit the backing he needed.

Any coalition formed is in any case likely to be short-lived and last only until the general election, which is scheduled for April 18.

If, by Jan. 10, no government has been formed, the president is empowered to appoint a prime minister, and ministerial posts would be parceled out according to parties’ respective parliamentary strengths until the election.

Turkey has been marked by instability since Ciller’s rightist-led government fell from power in 1995. Coalitions have run the country since then.

Personal rivalries and long-standing squabbles between leaders have led to fragmentation on both the left and right, hampering efforts to form a stable administration.

Demirel must decide who next to appoint as prime minister-designate. He broke with tradition in charging Ecevit with the task and not giving the largest group in parliament, the Islamist party Virtue, the chance to form a coalition.

Virtue is strongly opposed by the powerful, secularist military, which turned Virtue’s predecessor party out of power after a stormy year at the head of the country’s first Islamist-led government.