Behind Turkey's 'election' farce

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LAST Sunday's elections in Turkey were peculiar in that the result was of less importance than the poll actually taking place.

For, behind the ballot stood the harsiı complexities of three years of rule by military decree which, paradoxically, the election will serve to strengthen rather than replace with civilian government.

A simple reading of the competing parties' electoral achievements - and the eventual success of Turgut Ozal's Motherland Party over its Populist Party and Nationalist Democracy Party rivals - would provide little insight into the actual conditions in Turkey today.

Equally, any similarity with the electoral practices sanctioned by the generals and those normally associated with Parliamentary democracy would be purely coincidental, even down to casting a vote - something which was compulsory on pain of being fined.

Other pre-election precautions by the junta included the vetting of the political parties that were set up (all political organisations have been banned since the coup in 1980), with most failing to live up to the military's standards.

And, even with the three out of 15 that did, their candidates were still subject to scrutiny.

So all 400 members ultimately elected to the National Assembly will be there only with the approval of the ruling National Security Council.

Cautious

As if this were not enough, the ever-cautious generals have placed other constraints on the possibilities for independence of its puppet assembly.

Martial law stays and the latter-day Sultan, General Evren becomes President with dictatorial powers within the state.

It is reasonable to ask both why this exercise was necessary and how it was allowed to happen.

The answer to the second question is to be found in the prison camps and torture chambers. ''Politics" has been outlawed and the jails are full of tens of thousands of political prisoners, many presently involved in the marathon show trials for their activities in trade unions, socialist or Kurdish nationalist organisations.

Even the old bourgeois politicians cannot find a place in the Generals' Turkey.

Election victor Ozal, formerly a finance minister in the precoup government of Suleyman Demirel, is one of the very few New pamphlet, 50p; latest TSC bulletin, 30p, plus postage. From TSC, 1 ВМ Вож 5965, London WCIN 3XX.

PAT LALLY reports on the background to the bizarre elections staged last week by Turkey's military junta. to survive. His zealous advocacy of monetarist economics saw him coopted by the junta after their seizure of power - only for him to fall from grace through his involvement with a major bank which collapsed a year ago.

Meanwhile Demirel and other right wing leaders suffer vindictive banishment for their failure to impose "law and order" on the class struggle.

The army chiefs are adamant that there will be no repetition of the "anarchy" of the 1970s. Yet they are obliged to go through the motions of liberalising' their regime and appearing to tolerate political rights.

The constitution referendum last year was the first step, the election the second, in a circular which begins and ends with the Only three parties appeared on the electoral lists, after military vetting to assess their suitability. This means that almost all of Turkey's political leaders, and particularly working class parties, have been prevented from standing before the 19 million electorate.

Besides the Motherland Party, the Nationalist Democracy Party, led by former General Turgut Sunalp with the backing of the President, General Kenan Evren (and with the apparent favour of the Reagan administration) and the Populist Party, led by Necdet Calp, seemingly put up by sections of the military to give ar appearance of democracy, are contesting the election.

At the time of writing, it appears that since the party favoured by the military, the NDP, has received minority support, an emergency meeting of the five-man National Security Council headed by Evren has been called in Ankara to assess the situation.

However it is thought unlikely at least in the short term, that they would risk a confrontation with public opinion by trying to keep Ozal out of office.

military in power.

Much of this charade is played out for purposes of appeasing 'public opinion'; not, of course, at home but in Turkey's NATO and EEC partner-countries. Regrettably, for all its fraudulence, Turkey's elections will, at least in the short term, bolster the regime and perpetrate its crimes.

That means solidarity work remains important, especially within Western European countries where opposition to Turkey in the European Parliament has met with some success. in Britain that work has been taken up energetically both by Turkish exiles and sections of the labour movement.

But the divisions, and in the worst cases open rivalry, between expatriate solidarity organisations has not helped build the kind of support strong enough to have any real effect on Thatcher's pro-junta policy. However, an initiative from a group of Labour MPs has brought encouraging possibilities of at last minimising the bad effects of this disunity.

Around the elections a number of MPs, some of whom have recentiy visited Turkey, called together all three main solidarity committees.

A meeting took place last week of representatives from the Turkey Solidarity Campaign, the Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Trade Union Rights in Turkey and the Committee for the Defence of Democratic Rights in Turkey (plus sub-groups from these organisations) and Kurdistan Solidarity.

Predictably there was no instant solution forthcoming but a modest achievement was agreement on a protest picket of the Turkish embassy later in the week.

All three Turkish solidarity organisations responded on the A recall meeting is due to take A recall meeting is due to take place next month when a stiffer ace next month when a stiffer test of intentions will be discus- st of intentions will be discussion on a labour movement on on a labour movement conference on Turkey in early inference on Turkey in early 1984. 184. SA22

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