Turkey and Democracy
This article was originally written on 14 June 2007 and published on blog.luxzenburg.org. It is republished here as a historical document and reflects the author’s ideas at the time of writing. A debate is currently raging about the secular republic of Turkey. A new president is being chosen by parliament, in which the religious AK Party holds an absolute majority. In the first round, Gül, the AK Party’s candidate, won. But the constitutional court has declared the elections invalid. The military has already stated it will defend the secular republic by all available means — and last weekend hundreds of thousands of Turks protested against the election of a ‘religious’ president. His wife even wears a headscarf. ...