By IPS Correspondents
ISTANBUL, Aug 6 2008 (IPS)

Turkey has barely managed to avoid a ‘judicial coup’ to overthrow its elected government, but others may be in the offing.

In a 10-1 decision, the Constitutional Court found the Islamic-rooted governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) guilty as charged by the chief prosecutor of becoming “a centre for anti-secular activities” bent on replacing the secular regime with an Islamic one, including introduction of Islamic Sharia laws.

But the high tribunal shied away from shutting down the party. Six of the 11 judges voted for closure – a single vote short of the required seven. Instead, a fine was slapped, and the party’s annual state funding halved to 23 million lira (about 20 million dollars).

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and many senior party members hail from a banned Islamist party, but they deny pursuing any Islamic agenda, calling themselves “conservative” and faithful to the secular order of the 85-year-old republic.

The single vote spared Erdogan and 69 senior party officials from a five-year political ban demanded by the prosecutor.

In the aftermath of the decision, neither the secularists nor the devout in the AKP have been jubilant. The judges went for a compromise, giving all something to be content with – and something to think about.

As it turned out, the Chief Prosecutor, initiating an unprecedented move against a party that polled 47 percent of the vote in general elections last year, got his conviction, although he was rebuffed in his closure plea. Judges have shut down 24 parties in the past 40 years, including Islamist ones in 1998 and 2001.

The secularists -incorporating opposition parties as well as the judiciary, academia and much of the media – can now freely brand AKP a party found legally guilty of undermining the established secular regime.

And the party itself, almost resigned to be being shut down, hangs on to life, and still singly controls the legislative and executive branches – even if its wings have been clipped to make it something of a lame duck.

Chief Judge Hasim Kilic, who voted against closing the party, issued a stern warning to AKP. “Today the court did not reach the required number of votes for a party closure…but this decision is a warning to the party,” he said while announcing the verdict. “A serious warning.”

The message is that a party that gets 47 percent of the vote cannot do whatever it wants, and broader consensus is needed for major decisions, with the active involvement of opposition as well as civil society.

The spectre that the Chief Prosecutor can ask for closure again exists if the party is seen as continuing its drive to what secularists consider introducing religion into public life in violation of the established principle of mosque-state separation.

The party’s dream of lifting the ban on headscarves at universities seems out of question now. It was the attempt to lift the ban through a constitutional amendment that led Chief Prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya to file charges against AKP, claiming that headscarves are symbols of political Islam in the party’s agenda to Islamise society. The party portrayed lifting the ban as an expansion of freedom and individual rights.

The Constitutional Court eventually ruled against legislative changes rammed through Parliament by AKP.

So far, the party is abstaining from any definitive comment, awaiting the elaborate reasoning behind the Court’s decision expected in some weeks. It could agree to operate within restricted parameters and involve other actors in key decision-making, or go for early elections in hope of mustering an even larger majority that would enable it to change the Constitution.

Columnist Cuneyt Ulsever of the national daily Hurriyet expects the party to lie low for some months and then move to change the make-up of the Constitutional Court and place its own men in the bureaucracy. “Then, they will run the county in their own way.”

If things go that far, there may be a say – if not a move – by the final arbiter, the military. The armour still regards itself as an independent force above politics, and the ultimate guardian of the secular order. It has toppled four elected governments since 1950.

Even now, while the brass keeps a low profile, it makes it known repeatedly that it remains an active and interested player in national security issues at home and abroad.

With the ‘judicial’ coup out of the way, attention is now focused on a real one. Prosecutors say a widespread plot was in progress by a secret group that reportedly included two top retired generals, newspaper editors and some prominent businessmen. All have been hauled in for questioning.

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