New Chance for Turkish Democracy

...This is not a task which can be performed without foreign help...

...This was not a prospect Opposition leader and former President Ismet Inonu, Kemal Ataturk's comrade-in-arms in the War of Independence, was prepared to accept...

...The Menderes Government left a legacy of demagogy...

...the latter and, to a lesser extent, the former are sincerely attached to Western democracy...

...Finally, after the student demonstrations at the end of April, martial law was declared in Ankara and Istanbul, the press was completely silenced and a warning was given that further demonstrations would be fired on...

...And the Opposition enjoyed the almost unanimous support of the educated classes: of the student youth, the civil servants, the army officers, the professional classes...

...In the countryside, the Democrats enjoyed considerable support, although that had decreased as the agricultural subsidies with which the peasantry was won were overtaken by inflation, the result of the over-ambitious program of industrialization and public works carried out by the Menderes Administration...

...there was interference with the Opposition leaders' freedom of movement in the country...

...He did so before the last general elections in 1957 and, thanks to an amended electoral law forbidding party coalitions, effectively split the Opposition vote and got himself elected on a minority vote...

...It will also almost certainly guarantee the independence of the judiciary and the freedom of the press...

...AUSTIN W. FRANKLIN is the pseudonym of a leading European journalist and specialist in Turkish affairs...

...The formation of the Commission showed clearly that the Democrats intended to perpetuate themselves in power...

...Worse still, there seemed to be no legal means left to dislodge the Government...

...The urban proletariat, the destitute refugees from Bulgaria, the dwellers in the ugly shanty towns which surround Istanbul and Ankara were perhaps an exception...

...Any new government will, therefore, be judged by them not only on its democratic record, but also by its success or failure in raising the standard of living in the shortest possible time...

...It is unlikely that Menderes and his associates will be released before the elections and they may well be purged from the party, which would then be taken over by the many moderates who had in the past unsuccessfully sought to restrain him...

...But such support as Menderes retained among the peasants could not compensate for the general hostility of the country's natural leaders...

...The cooperation of the country's leading intellectuals with General Cemal Gursel and his military National Unity Committee shows that the Committee's pledge to hold free and fair elections is believed...

...But they will need help from the outside world if they are to succeed in their task—not help in devising democratic forms of government, but economic help...

...A Democratic party reformed on these lines is naturally very unlikely to win elections promised in the near future, but it could provide some sort of Opposition and would have a good chance of staging a subsequent comeback...

...The press was hamstrung: public meetings were made subject to special authorization: the Opposition was allowed fewer and fewer opportunities to criticize the Administration in Parliament...

...It has convinced the poorer sections of the community that with luck they can come to enjoy a West European standard of living, a standard which the country's economy cannot at present sustain...

...The Turkish Parliament, the Grand National Assembly, is completely sovereign and can pass any laws it wishes...

...The extent of that hostility has been demonstrated both by the immediate success of the army coup d'etat and by the enthusiasm with which distinguished professors and civil servants agreed to cooperate with the Army in forming a caretaker administration and in preparing a revised constitution...

...The larger towns were solidly behind the Opposition...

...There was nothing to stop Menderes from changing the rules of the political game as he went along...

...The Army coup has given Turkish democracy another chance...

...the radio was completely taken over as an instrument of Government propaganda: and uncooperative judges were transferred or pensioned off...

...The student demonstrations were, in fact, sparked by the formation of a Parliamentary Investigation Commission with extraordinary powers, which, it was thought, was a prelude to the formal banning of the Opposition Republican People's party or, at least, the arrest or exclusion from politics of its most active members...

...At present there is little doubt that Inonu's Republicans will score an overwhelming victory...

...In fact, it is not certain that they will have any opponents worthy of notice: The other former Opposition parties have never made any impact, while the Democrats may not have time to reorganize their forces after the debacle...

...The Army coup has put in power an alliance sincerely attached to Western government NEW CHANCE FOR TURKISH DEMOCRACY By Austin W. Franklin ANKARA IT is DIFFICULT to think of a coup more predictable than that successfully staged by the Army in Turkey on Friday, May 27...

...It aims to make the recurrence of one-party dictatorship impossible...

...For years Democratic party leader Adnan Menderes closed one safety valve after another...

...They had been organized by the Democrats who distributed well-calculated bribes among them before the elections and used them to pack political meetings or to break up meetings of their opponents...

...Turkey is now being ruled by an alliance of the Army and the professional classes...

...The new constitution, being worked out by a team headed by the distinguished Rector of Istanbul University, Professor Siddik Sami Onar, will provide for a Senate and a Constitutional Court...