From: senel@vuse.vanderbilt.edu (Hakan)
Subject: News/haber    (forwarding from TRKNWS-L)
Originator: senel@irlsp
Organization: Takanumi University of Technology, Tokyo, Japan
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 13:57:38 GMT



> From: Haluk DEMIRBAG <TEX5HAD@CMS1.LEEDS.AC.UK>
> Subject:      ATATURK ARROWS MAY SOON MAKE DEMIREL QUIVER

ATATURK ARROWS MAY SOON MAKE DEMIREL QUIVER

>From Hugh POPE in Istanbul

The  sleeping  beauty  of   the  Turkish  left,  Kemal  Ataturk's
Republican  Populist Party,  has  awoken after  11  years with  a
rumble  sure  to  shake   the  fragile  foundations  of  Turkey's
coalition government.

Nearly 12 years  after the 1980 military coup  that crushed party
politics and still weighs heavily on Turkish democracy, more than
1,300 party delegates met in  Ankara this week to vote themselves
back  into  existence with  a  new  leader, Deniz  Baykal.  Their
freedom to meet  was thanks to one of the  few successful reforms
of  Prime  Minister   Suleyman  Demirel's  coalition  government.
However, Mr Demirel's True Path  Party and its coalition partner,
the Social Democrat Populist Party, may soon regret their success
in pushing the reform through.

Mr Baykal, 54, youthful,  cleanshaven and fiercely ambitious, has
made no secret of his plan to carve out a new parliamentary group
of 20 deputies. That would leave the coalition with a majority of
half-a-dozen  at  most.  Diplomats  say  the  centre-right  Prime
Minister,  with  his  right-wing   rivals  in  disarray  and  his
popularity high despite stalled reforms and near-war with Kurdish
rebels, may  be considering  a preemptive  general election  - he
does not have to go to the  polls until 1996. But eyes are now on
the  left,  where  Mr  Baykal  is   a  rare  fresh  face  in  the
paternalistic world of Turkish politics.

"There  is a  new  leader on  the left  ...  bringing touches  of
liberalism to progressiveness.  At last there is a  start to real
renewal," wrote Hurriyet newspaper's  editor, Ertugrul  Ozkok. Mr
Uzkok noted,  however, that no  Turk could remain unmoved  by the
reappearance of  the six-arrow symbol of  the Republican Populist
Party,  founded in  1923  as a  vehicle  for Ataturk's  one-party
state, and whose emblem hung in his mind "beside the swastika and
the hammer and sickle".

The six  arrows have  flown in  different directions  since then,
raising the question of whether the party can realy reunite as Mr
Baykal  wants. "The  party is  like a  sleeping beauty  waking up
after a decade ...  but it is just a myth  that the prince's kiss
alone  brings beauty,"  wrote  the  left-wing commentator  Mumtaz
Soysal.  He said  it was  impossible for  Mr Baykal  to reconcile
commitment to  free markets  with the  1920s platform  the arrows
represented:  revolutionsim, republicanism,  secularism, statism,
populism and nationalism.

Hangovers from  the 1970s  still appear  on the  political stage,
most colourfully represented by  the ex-Maoist Dogu Perincek, who
founds new parties as fast as government can find excuses to shut
them down. But the left-wing  intellectuals from the 1970s rarely
muddy their hands with day-to-day Turkish politics.

Many on the left became disillusioned by the terrorism of extreme
left-wing  groups  and  Kurdish  rebels, as  well  as  by  1989's
Istanbul   demonstrations   condemning   "reactionary"   Romanian
revolution against Nicolae Ceausescu. Once-dedicated Maoists have
drifted into computer programming, business or banking.

THE INDEPENDENT, 12 September 1992
            _
|-| /-\ |_ |_| |< {"I believe that all of us ought to retire
                   relatively young." Fidel Castro, Jan. 1967}