Lawmakers Flee Leading Turkish Party

This country’s fragile coalition government teetered on the brink of collapse Monday after three Cabinet ministers and 20 lawmakers bolted from the party led by ailing Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit.

The defections are likely to undermine Turkey’s efforts to carry out wide-ranging reforms that the European Union has demanded as a precondition for launching membership talks and to stall efforts to end a crippling recession.

The wave of resignations from Ecevit’s Democratic Left Party began when Deputy Prime Minister Husamettin Ozkan, until recently the prime minister’s closest aide, said he was leaving the government and his party.

If more than 59 legislators leave Ecevit’s party, the three-way coalition would lose its parliamentary majority and the government would collapse.

Ozkan, who is widely credited with bridging differences within the fractious government, quit over growing differences with Ecevit and the prime minister’s highly influential wife, Rahsan. Ecevit was reportedly angered that Ozkan had given his tacit backing to a growing number of politicians, business leaders and commentators who have urged Ecevit to step down.

Ecevit’s Grip Weakens

Ecevit’s illnesses, which include an intestinal problem, blood clots in his legs and a neurological disorder, have steadily weakened his grip on the government and his party.

Late last month, during his most recent public appearance--the first in more than a month--the prime minister was at pains to form intelligible sentences.

Ecevit is widely blamed for the current political crisis because he has ignored calls to name a successor as party leader.

Economy Minister Kemal Dervis is seen by many as the best man for the job. The snag is that he isn’t a member of parliament, which rules him out as prime minister under the Turkish Constitution. Another contender is Ismail Cem, Turkey’s popular foreign minister.

Both men are seen as well positioned to steer the country out of its worst recession since 1945 and to help push through a deal on the divided island of Cyprus that would ease Turkey’s entry into the EU.

But Ecevit insists that he must lead the country until April 2004, when general elections are next scheduled. “The love of power overtook [his] love for Turkey,” said Hakan Tartan, one of the defecting lawmakers.

The Bush administration is watching the crisis in Turkey with mounting concern. The country is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s sole Muslim-majority member and Israel’s closest regional ally. With its embrace of secularism, Turkey’s strategic value has increased in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

In June, Turkey assumed command of the international peacekeeping force in Kabul, the Afghan capital, clinching its role as a committed U.S. ally.

“It is in Turkey’s interests and our interests that the country remains stable,” said a Western diplomat who declined to be identified.

The government, an awkward coalition of left- and right-wing parties, had until recently been praised by the International Monetary Fund and Western governments for enacting sweeping economic reforms.

But cracks began to emerge in recent months as the ultranationalist wing of the government opposed moves to lift existing bans on broadcasting and education in the Kurdish language and to abolish the death penalty in line with European Union demands.

Ultranationalists Gain

With Monday’s defections, the ultranationalists overtook Ecevit’s party to become the largest in the 550-member parliament, with 127 seats, and will play a key role in shaping any future government.

Ultranationalist leader Devlet Bahceli appeared to rule out forming a new government when he said last weekend that the country should go to the polls to clear the “prevailing atmosphere of uncertainty.” On Monday, the main opposition True Path Party presented a motion to parliament calling for elections Nov. 3.

“This government is unraveling as we speak,” Sevket Bulent Yahnici, a prominent ultranationalist lawmaker, said in a telephone interview. “Early elections have become inevitable.”

That prospect is as troubling for Turkey’s influential and fiercely secular military leaders as it is for the United States. According to recent polls, Istanbul’s Islamist former mayor, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and his party would bag the largest number of votes.

The same polls indicate that none of the ruling-coalition parties could individually muster the minimum 10% of the national vote needed to win seats in parliament.

Erdogan has faced a host of legal problems over claims that he incited religious fundamentalism during his term as mayor. In 1998, he was forced to quit his mayoral post over those charges and spent four months in jail for reciting a nationalist poem--taught in Turkish state schools--that was deemed as inciting religious hatred. Erdogan has since sought to portray himself as a moderate who doesn’t believe in mixing religion with politics. But he has failed to impress the generals, who say he cannot be trusted to lead the country.