After Turkey's election General displeasure

The army refuses to retreat


LESS than a fortnight ago, Sebahat Tuncel, a 32-year-old former nurse, was locked in an Istanbul jail, charged with membership of the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). But she jubilantly walked out after being elected to parliament on July 22nd along with 18 fellow members of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party. Ms Tuncel's newly-acquired parliamentary immunity protects her from further prosecution in a case that rested on her frequent trips to PKK camps in northern Iraq. Ms Tuncel says she was trying to find a missing brother.

It is the first time since the early 1990s that overtly nationalist Kurds have been represented in the 550-member legislature. Their presence incenses the far-right Nationalist Action Party, which took 71 seats (and whose campaign pledges include a promise to execute the captive PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan).

The Kurdish politicians, some of them lawyers who defended Mr Ocalan in court, have promised to behave. They say they will not address the inaugural session in Kurdish (their predecessors who dared to do so landed in jail). Yet some listed Turkish under “foreign languages” in résumés they submitted to parliament. Worse, none is ready publicly to condemn the PKK, even as the group intensifies its violent campaign in the predominantly Kurdish south-eastern provinces.

Turkey's meddlesome generals, who insist that those who refuse to call themselves Turks are “enemies of the state”, are not happy. Yet, the Kurdish MPs are only a minor irritant compared with the 341 members of the mildly Islamist Justice and Development (AK) Party who romped back to power. Indeed the generals' public accusation that the country was descending towards religious rule—and the implied threat of a coup—probably helped AK increase its share of the vote to 46.7%.

The generals' ire was provoked when the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, nominated his foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, to replace the strongly secular president, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, who was supposed to have stepped down in May. This sparked a wave of demonstrations by millions of secular Turks, who shared the army's aversion to Mr Gul's earlier flirtation with political Islam. Many also took issue with his wife's headscarf; the garment is banned in all government buildings and schools.

Mr Gul withdrew his candidacy, and Mr Erdogan called early elections, after the constitutional court upheld opposition claims that a first round of balloting for the presidency had been invalid because parliament lacked a quorum.

Parliament reconvenes on August 4th and must choose a new president by mid-September, or fresh elections will be held. Mr Gul is campaigning for the top post once again, backed by AK's Islamist rump. Mr Erdogan is in a bind. Endorsing Mr Gul puts his government back on a collision course with the army; General Yasar Buyukanit, the chief of general staff, said the army stood by its views (and thus its opposition to Mr Gul) “with conviction”. Yet, if Mr Erdogan bows to the army's demands, he risks splitting his own party.

“Erdogan can block Gul and lose a few MPs, or back him and lose power altogether,” says a seasoned Turkey-watcher. That is, unless Mr Gul bows out.