Turk’s Bid for Office a Relief to Secularists

A popular former economy minister will run for parliament this fall as a member of a leading center-left party, boosting the faction’s hopes of challenging the Islamic-leaning forces that have been widely expected to top the polls.

Kemal Dervis, who was brought home from the World Bank in Washington last year to pull Turkey out of its worst financial crisis since World War II, said he would join the Republican People’s Party today.

The decision, announced Wednesday night, triggered widespread relief among secular Turks and the country’s industrial elite. Many of them see the Princeton-trained economist’s bid as crucial to boosting the party’s fortunes against the conservative Justice and Development Party in the Nov. 3 elections.

More important, Dervis is seen by many Turks and Western governments as one of the few figures who could keep the nation’s fragile economy on track.

Descended from an illustrious line of Ottoman Empire generals, the 53-year-old Dervis is widely credited with ramming through a series of radical reforms that helped Turkey secure about $31 billion in international loans, which are expected to finance its economic recovery.

Dervis repeatedly has said that he sees himself as a technocrat, not a politician, and would prefer to be in charge of the economy in any new government rather than serve as prime minister.

A die-hard social democrat admired for his modesty, industriousness and probity, Dervis kept the nation guessing as to his plans after resigning Aug. 10 from Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit’s three-party coalition. He was the eighth Cabinet minister to quit in a month.

Dervis initially was expected to join a new party created by former Foreign Minister Ismail Cem, another of the scores of lawmakers to break recently with the ailing Ecevit over his refusal to relinquish power to a younger and healthier successor. The rebellion paralyzed Ecevit’s coalition, prompting parliament to call elections about 18 months ahead of schedule.

Dervis tried instead to bring together what he termed in a recent interview with The Times “forces on the center-left that would achieve the conditions under which Turkey can overcome its economic difficulties and pursue our road toward Europe and a modern and free society.”

The economy and Turkey’s desire to join the European Union are major issues in the current campaign.

Dervis argued that such a broad alliance would serve as a credible alternative to the Justice and Development Party and its leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a former pro-Islamist and ex-mayor of Istanbul. For all Erdogan’s efforts to distance himself from his Islamist past, he has failed to persuade many pro-secular Turks, including the country’s powerful military leaders, of his conversion. They fear he would steer Turkey away from its pro-Western course.

Analysts say Dervis failed at organizing such an alliance in part because of personality clashes between Turkey’s fragmented center-left politicians. His decision to join the Republican People’s Party was prompted in part by Cem’s strident refusal to take part in any alliance.

Western governments and lending institutions generally regard Dervis as someone they can work with and trust. Close cooperation between the West and Turkey, Israel’s strongest regional ally and the sole member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization with a majority Muslim population, is seen as more crucial than ever on several fronts.

Some analysts, however, doubt that Dervis and Deniz Baykal, leader of the center-left party, can counter the charismatic Erdogan’s popularity.

“There are a lot of people out there who have lost their jobs, who can barely feed their kids, and blame the IMF [International Monetary Fund] and Dervis for their plight,” said a European diplomat in Ankara, the capital, who requested anonymity.