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Turkey Facts: [Introduction - Home Page] Turkish Cities: [Istanbul] [Ankara] Turkey Pictures: [Gallery 1] [Gallery 2] [Gallery 3]
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Turkey (Turkie)VI. Government A. Overview The Turkish Republic was proclaimed on October 29, 1923, after a nationalist movement led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was victorious in the Turkish War of Independence. The war was fought against the Allied powers, who had defeated the Ottoman Empire in World War I (1914-1918), and Greece, which sought to annex large portions of Anatolia. Atatürk envisioned Turkey as a modern, secular European state, and his principles of government, called Kemalism, remain central to political life in Turkey. Kemalism emphasized, among other things, the separation of religion and politics, a leading role for the state in the economy, the promotion of a national identity, and the importance of building modern institutions. Under Atatürk, Turkey acquired a highly centralized government that closely controlled economic and social life. By law, there was only one political party, the Republican People’s Party (Turkish acronym, CHP). Atatürk introduced sweeping reforms to modernize Turkey. Laws forbade men from wearing the fez, a traditional hat associated with Ottoman backwardness. Religious courts were abolished in 1924, and Islam lost its status as the state religion in 1928. Under Atatürk, Turkey adopted the Western Gregorian calendar in place of the Muslim lunar calendar, and a modified Latin alphabet took the place of Arabic letters, which had previously been used to write Turkish. Atatürk also introduced universal public education in Turkey. Women gained the right to inherit property, the right to divorce, and in 1934 the right to vote and serve in parliament. The era of multiparty democracy began in 1946, when the newly founded Democratic Party won 62 seats in parliament, joining the ruling CHP. In 1950, the Democratic Party won the national elections. However, increasing interparty tensions created a crisis, and a military junta seized power; the junta governed from 1960 to 1961. A new constitution was adopted in 1961, and general elections followed. No clear majority emerged, and a series of coalition governments ruled the country. The military intervened in the political process in 1970 and again in 1980, each time amid government paralysis and social agitation. The military remained in power for three years after the 1980 coup d’état, during which time it imposed martial law, dissolved political parties, and banned labor strikes. The military government also drew up a new constitution, which was approved by a national referendum in 1982. The constitution established a popularly elected unicameral (single-chamber) national assembly with full legislative powers, a prime minister and a cabinet responsible to the national assembly, and a constitutional court to review the constitutionality of legislation. It provided for a president, with extensive executive powers and the right to veto legislation, to be elected by the assembly for a term of seven years. The constitution also authorized the military, through the National Security Council, to advise the government and to impose emergency rule whenever it perceived a serious threat to the political system. Turkey has been under civilian rule since 1983. However, the military intervened in the political process in February 1997 and ordered the government to implement an 18-point list of measures to reinforce the secular establishment. Since then, Turkey’s civilian governments have been wary of further military intervention, and this concern has constrained governmental policy. B. Central Government Legislative power rests in the National Assembly, a 550-member unicameral body. Members are elected by popular vote to five-year terms under a system of proportional representation. Political parties must receive at least 10 percent of the vote to gain representation in the assembly. Extremist parties are banned, as are parties promoting religious causes. All citizens aged 18 or older are entitled to vote. The constitution divides executive power between the prime minister and the president. The head of government is the prime minister, who represents the majority party or coalition in parliament. The prime minister selects a cabinet, called the Council of Ministers, and is responsible for carrying out government policy. The president, as head of state, is chosen by parliament for a seven-year term. The president’s executive powers are substantial. They include the authority to dissolve parliament, to approve the prime minister, to veto legislation or to propose legislative changes, to ask the constitutional court to rule on the constitutionality of legislation, and to submit constitutional amendments to the people in popular referenda. C. Local Government For administrative purposes, Turkey is divided into 81 provinces, called vilayets. Each province is governed by a provincial governor, who is appointed by the central government and is responsible to the minister of the interior. The provinces are divided into counties, which are in turn divided into districts. There are also locally elected assemblies at the province, county, district levels. D. Judiciary The old Ottoman laws that were based on Islamic religious law, the Sharia, were gradually abolished in modern Turkey. The religious courts were suppressed in 1924, and the constitution announced that year guaranteed independence to Turkey’s remaining courts. The judicial system consists of courts of justices of the peace, with jurisdiction over some criminal and civil matters; courts of first instance, with wider powers; central criminal courts, which hear serious criminal cases; commercial courts; and a court of cassation, the highest court, which serves as a court of appeal. The 1982 constitution provided for a constitutional court to determine the constitutionality of laws passed by parliament; judges to the court are appointed by the president. Turkey’s legal codes are largely adapted from European codes, especially the Swiss civil, the Italian penal, and the German commercial codes. E. Political Parties Turkey has had multiparty competitive elections since 1946, although following the 1960 and 1980 military coups, existing political parties were banned and their leaders barred from political activities for various periods of times. Since 1960, three types of political parties have dominated the political landscape in Turkey: Kemalist parties; nationalist and ethnic parties; and religious parties. The Kemalist parties, which accept the principles of Kemalism, can be divided into two groups: center-right and center-left. The center-right parties tend to interpret the principles of Kemalism in a flexible spirit. Thus, they support limits on the government’s role in the economy, favor private capital, and are tolerant of some religious expression in public life. The main center-right Kemalist parties are Motherland (ANAP) and True Path (DYP). The founder of ANAP was Turgut Özal, who served as prime minister from 1983 to 1989 and as president of Turkey from 1989 to 1993. DYP is similar to ANAP in its basic philosophy and appeal. The DYP’s leader, Tansu Çiller, became Turkey’s first female prime minister in 1993. Both ANAP and DYP lost all of their parliamentary seats in the 2002 elections. Center-left Kemalist political parties generally support a strong role for the state in economic affairs and a doctrinaire interpretation of secularism that is hostile to groups suspected of supporting religious causes. However, these parties also back Turkey’s membership in the European Union (EU), and they have accepted greater privatization of state-owned industries as an inevitable price for becoming part of Europe. One of the leading parties is the Democratic Left (DSP), led by veteran politician Bülent Ecevit, who was prime minister from 1999 to 2002. Ecevit previously served as prime minister in coalition governments during the 1970s. In the 2002 elections, however, Ecevit’s party received less than 10 percent of the total vote and consequently lost all its seats in parliament. Other center-left Kemalist parties include the Republican People’s Party, which was formed in 1992 and claims to be the successor of the old Atatürk party of the same name, and the Social Democratic Populist Party (SHP). The nationalist and ethnic parties generally do not contest Kemalist principles, but neither do they incorporate them into their party platforms. The Nationalist Action Party (MHP), for example, is concerned primarily with defending Turkey’s territorial integrity. Thus, it is hostile to Kurdish efforts to assert a unique identity, which it interprets as a form of separatism. The MHP also opposes Turkey’s membership in the EU, which it believes will limit national sovereignty. Prior to the 1999 elections, neither the MHP nor its predecessors had attracted more than a small fraction of the vote in national elections. In 1999, however, it emerged from the elections as the second-largest party in parliament after the DSP. Three years later, in the 2002 elections, it did not receive enough votes to qualify for even one parliamentary seat. None of Turkey’s ethnic Kurdish parties identify themselves explicitly as such—apart from the banned Kurdistān Workers Party (PKK), which changed its name to the Kurdistān Freedom and Democracy Congress (KADEK) in 2002, and again in 2003 becoming the Kongra-Gel (KGK). The Kurdish parties support such causes as abolition of the death penalty, rescinding the law on broadcasting and publishing in prohibited languages (including Kurdish), freeing political prisoners, and Turkey’s membership in the EU. The Kurdish parties have experienced frequent forced dissolution by order of the constitutional court, and they subsequently reform under new names. The main such party currently is the People’s Democratic Party (HADEP), formed in 1994. The religious parties do not explicitly challenge Kemalism, although they are philosophically opposed to the principle of secularism. The parties advocate the right of religiously inclined people to participate openly in politics and society. A well-known religious politician, Necmettin Erbakan, has been active since the early 1970s and served as a junior partner in a government led by Ecevit in 1974. In the early 1990s, Erbaken developed the Refah Party (RP) into an effective political organization that won major municipal elections, including the positions of mayor of Ankara and İstanbul. In 1995 the RP won the largest number of seats in parliament, and the following year the DYP reluctantly agreed to form a coalition with Refah. Erbakan became prime minister, the first openly Islamic prime minister in the history of the republic. The military was hostile to the RP government; in February 1997 it submitted a list of demands to Erbakan that it expected the government to implement to preserve the secular character of the state. Erbakan tried to appease the military but found it increasingly difficult to do so. In June 1997 Erbakan resigned rather than accept further military demands. Subsequently, the constitutional court ordered the dissolution of RP. By the early 2000s, two religious parties had claimed the mantle of RP. The Justice and Development Party (AKP) is led by Tayyip Erdoğan, the former mayor of İstanbul. Erbakan is leader of the new Saadat party. Erdoğan is credited with organizing the electoral campaign that led to the AKP winning an absolute majority of seats in parliament in the 2002 elections. However, Erdoğan was barred from becoming prime minister due to a constitutional court ruling that he had violated the ban on separation of religion and state by reciting a religious poem at a public meeting. The AKP passed special legislation to lift the ban in early 2003, and, after winning a special by-election, he became prime minister in March 2003. F. Health and Welfare Turkey has a national health insurance program administered by the ministry of health. Medical services are free in government hospitals and clinics. However, these facilities are generally concentrated in urban areas, while rural areas, especially in eastern Anatolia, have relatively few hospitals and clinics. Private health care is readily available in large cities. People who can afford to do so tend to consult physicians in private practice and seek treatment in private hospitals. Turkey does not have a national social security system to cover retirement, unemployment compensation, or payments for disabling conditions that prevent working. A retirement system covers civil servants, career military personnel, and workers in state-owned enterprises. Some private companies have also established pension plans for their workers. All such schemes together, however, cover less than half of the country’s total labor force. G. Defense In 2004 Turkey’s armed forces included 514,850 people. In 2002 about 36,000 troops were deployed in the Turkish-controlled section of Cyprus, a Mediterranean island also occupied by Greece. All male citizens from the ages of 20 to 32 are required to serve from 1 to 16 months in the armed forces. H. International Organizations Turkey is a member of the United Nations (UN) and its various affiliated organizations. It is also a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Economic Cooperation Organization, and the European Parliament. Turkey entered a customs union with the EU in 1995 and is in the process of meeting specific economic and political criteria set by the EU so that it may become a full member of that body.
"Turkey," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2006 |
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