Court saves Turkey's ruling party from extinction
Turkey's ruling party escapes permanent ban
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Wednesday, 30, Jul 2008 08:11
Turkey's constitutional court has saved the country's governing party from abolition.
Instead financial sanctions have been imposed on the Justice and Development party (AKP), which could have been disbanded and its politicians banned from political activity had the court ruled otherwise.
The party will reportedly lose half of its government funding.
A petition from chief prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya listing the ways in which the party was breaking Turkey's secular foundations had led to the legal challenge.
According to initial reports the AKP narrowly avoided being banned, however. Six of the court's 11 judges voted in favour of such a move. Seven were required for the ban to be approved.
The AKP won a landslide victory in snap general elections last year after the Turkish parliament backed its choice of president, Abdullah Gul, on grounds of their religious policies.
Critics, including many within Turkey's secular elite, have voiced concerns about the popular Islamic policies followed by the AKP since that victory.
Its support for the removal of a ban on headscarves for women at university earlier this year was seen as clear evidence of its preference for reintroducing an Islamist agenda into mainstream politics.
Such tensions led to the current case, which the constitutional court began considering on Monday. Had a ban been approved 71 party officials including Mr Gul and prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, would have been barred from public office for a five-year period.
Fadi Hakura, associate fellow at Chatham House, told inthenews the party had fundamentally changed its direction since the 2007 victory.
"The clash with the secular establishment was inevitable," Mr Hakura argues. "And therefore you see now the political mess emerge and that's where Turkey is now."
Commenting on the announcement, foreign secretary David Miliband described it as a "cause for celebration for Turkey's friends".
"The fact the court chose not to close the AKP means Turkey can follow a more democratic and European path," he added.
"This case has been a distraction from the political, economic and constitutional reforms that Turkey needs to modernise for EU membership. The priority now should be to focus on these reforms."