Turkey's New Reformer

...The extent of Boyner's willingness to acknowledge Turkey's 12 million Kurds (a fifth of the population) as a distinct group contrasts starkly with the rare, carefully guarded statements on the subject by other politicians...

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...Having now met those conditions, Betil says, the party will compete in the next by-election, possibly to be held as soon as November...

...At the same time, as a laissez-faire champion he wants to reduce the government's pervasive presence by privatizing scores of bloated state-owned enterprises, further integrating Turkey into the world economy, and reducing state involvement in health care and education...

...ONE OF ITS serious problems is that Boyner's personality transcends the party...

...He explains that he opted to take the unprecedented step of trading in control of his family's Altinyildiz group of textile companies for a life in politics because, "It's not fun anymore to do business in a country that's in such a lousy, unpredictable state...

...Our goal," he says, "is to get people more involved in politics...

...That "our," of course, refers to the New Democracy Movement...

...Using television talk shows and political rallies as his main means of communication, the telegenic reformer blasts "the morally bankrupt mega-state...

...Boyner blames Army abuses in Kurdish areas for helping to expand a marginal group of 200 activists into 20,000 guerrillas, but takes pains to back the military's struggle against the PKK...

...The war heated up again this summer, however, lending credence to Boyner's view that, "The military can achieve some of its objectives but not all...

...Not least among Boyner's assets is his forceful public speaking style, first honed when he was captain of his university debating team...

...Similarly, although he refers to the PKK as "terrorists" and maintains that they represent a small minority of Kurds, he offers to meet with Ocalan to negotiate an end to the war...

...The longer the conflict drags on, he argues, "the more it will encourage other restive minorities like the Alawites to challenge Ankara's authority...

...Not so the 40-year-old YDH leader, who was a prominent member of the Istanbul business establishment before entering politics...

...One thing seems clear, though: Boyner is not about to disappear...

...Some even saw it as the heir to the late President Turgut Ozal's Motherland Party (ANAP...

...a previous NL contributor, is a freelance journalist in Turkey...

...Western diplomats and policy makers agree...

...The established parties have tried to capitalize on such concerns...

...It was not eligible to participate in a June 4 by-election because Turkish law does not permit a party to compete in elections until six months after it has opened offices in one third of the nation's provinces and half of the cities...

...Unfortunately, winning the sparsely populated southeast would not mean much in a national contest...

...Now De-mirel, the country's President since May 1993, says there is no such thing as "Kurdish rights...

...We have broken the backbone of terror," Ciller said in May...

...Interestingly, the more politically sophisticated Turks give its reformist platform generally favorable reviews...

...Turkey's foremost leaders continue to insist they will never negotiate with the PKK...

...To win over voters in western cities, they add, Boyner has to complement his populist rhetoric with detailed answers to specific questions...

...Ibrahim Be-til, a well-known banker who is the YDH's Istanbul chief, has gone so far as to charge that a recent poll commissioned by the conservative DYP—which did not even mention the YDH—was rigged to show the Welfare Party as the leading vote-getter.This, he said, was a DYP scare-tactic aimed at voters considering the YDH...

...But so far the YDH has made its presence felt only in the overwhelmingly Kurdish southeast, where it is currently challenging the RP for supremacy...

...His evenhanded approach to such thorny problems as the Kurdish crisis and human rights violations has drawn approval from Kurds and top-level Turks alike—reportedly including PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan and Turkish Army Chief of Staff Ismail Karadayi...

...But its messenger, party Chairman Cem Boyner, has won national attention...

...Any politician should be willing to meet with even the devil if he deems it to be for the good of his people," he says...

...MAGNATE WITH A CAUSE Turkey's New Reformer BY JOHN DOXEY ISTANBUL WHEN THE two-year-old New Democracy Movement (YDH) became Turkey's 23rd officially registered political party last December, pundits predicted it would quickly rise to the upper reaches of the list...

...delay ratification of a free-trade agreement signed last March until the Turkish government takes measurable steps to end human rights abuses stemming largely from the war...

...He has denounced the arrest of Kurdish parliamentary deputies as well as the "terror lobby" allegedly behind thousands of unexplained murders and disappearances in recent years...

...To succeed in the next general election, set for the fall of 1996, the YDH has to catch on with the masses of working- and middle-class voters in the western cities...

...So when a celebrity bursts upon the political scene, that is essentially what they tend to notice...

...But when we became a political party, it became clear that he saw himself as the sole and uncontested leader...

...According to Cengiz Candar, a journalist and founding member who quit the party in January, Boyner's dominance angers many of its adherents: "When the movement began in 1993, Boyner was first among equals...

...Prime Minister Tansu Ciller has led efforts to rescind the notorious Article 8 of the Prevention of Terrorism Act, used tojail hundreds of antiwar writers and activists up to five years for "undermining the integrity of the state...

...Boyner himself says, "I hope my role will get smaller as the party gets bigger...

...Centered in the mountains to the east and southeast, the conflict has taken over 16,000 lives, turned at least a million villagers into refugees, stunted the economy, and strained relations with allies and international institutions...

...It's a bit like when Ross Perot jumped into the last Presidential race and was able to turn balancing the budget and protecting American jobs into major campaign issues," observes one analyst...

...trim, wealthy, and charismatic, Boyner is today Turkey's most conspicuous critic of the state's human rights record and of Kurdish policies...

...Whether or not Betil's conspiracy theory has any validity, at the moment it does appear that most Turks are inclined to stick with the established political forces come election time...

...Party leaders assert that at this stage the YDH needs an identifiable face at the helm...

...They are also impressed with Boyner's handling of the Muslim issue: He avoids the virulent animosity of the older generation of secularists, yet he directly challenges the pro-Islamic Welfare Party (RP)—Turkey's fastest-growing political force—by declaring that he would cut state financing for mosques and end compulsory religious education...

...Seven months later, the YDH's reformist message has yet to make it a significant, let alone major, political player...

...Reporters who have been attempting to pin him down on a variety of issues lately say they find him disturbingly vague...

...They don't see him as some radical peacenik...

...Relatively few Turks follow politics closely, but most recognize the names and faces of the rich and famous...

...Given his stature and Turkey's thirst for bold reformers, Boyner will probably be approached by more than one major party searching for new blood...

...Boyner is also the first mainstream pol itician since Ozal to suggest an immediate political solution to Ankara's 11-year-old war with the separatist Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK...

...Nothing will change in Turkey until the people get rid of the idea that the state is boss...

...He warns that granting special freedoms to the Kurds will inevitably lead to similar demands from other minorities...

...For if the RP were seen as gaining strength, secularist voters would become alarmed and flock to the old-line conservative parties like the DYP...

...Finally, and perhaps most important, YDH leaders have to restore harmony in the party's ranks—a disparate mix of ex-Communists, young businessmen, academics, Kurds, Islamists, and secularists...

...Because of who he is, the media and the ruling circles listen to Boyner and take him seriously...

...The YDH holds a single seat, thanks to a formerly independent MP from eastern Turkey who joined it early this year...

...During the October 1991 election campaign Siileyman De-mirel, then leader of the True Path Party (DYP), made headlines for merely mentioning "the Kurdish reality...

...With opinion polls showing public support for his party stalled at about 5 per cent, Boyner's bold predictions of victory in next year's general election sound rather dubious...

...Turkish political observers expect him to jump ship if his party continues to sputter, probably to an established conservative party like ANAP...

...What uniquely sets Boyner apart from other reformers, and enables him to provoke national debate on matters most politicians studiously sidestep, is his status as one of Turkey's richest men...

...While he readily concedes that he is "the existing order by definition," and opposes an autonomous Kurdish state, Boyner goes on to stress: "I thirst for change...

...Over half the new party's 40,000 members are Kurds...

...It is still too early to tell how the YDH story will play out...

...In fairness, though, one should point out that the YDH has yet to be tested in the electoral arena...

...Ankara's conviction that the conflict can be won on the battlefield was bolstered by the heavy casualties the Army's spring invasion of northern Iraq inflicted upon the insurgents...

...At last count, 10 of the country's 23 registered political parties were represented in the 450-seat unicameral Parliament...

...A second problem has to do with the perception of the YDH's chances...

...Tall...

...In a striking turnaround, too, Mesut Yilmaz, chairman of the main opposition ANAP, told a Washington gathering in March that his party would back proposals to allow Kurdish language schools and television channels?though he still contends that the lifting of Article 8 would "reward" Kurdish terrorists...

...The European Parliament, for example, has indicated it will John Doxey...

...Breaking sharply with the refusal of Kemalist ideology to accommodate ethnic differences in an officially nonsectarian society, he calls for "constitutional recognition of Kurdish identity" and laws to permit the use of Kurdish in schools and in radio and television programming...

...When you lose meaning, you feel you must do something for your country, not just your own company...

...Most analysts here believe that if the New Democracy Movement hopes to gain momentum, it must begin to spread its message with the same kind of house-to-house campaigning the RP's Islamic supporters have employed very effectively...

...Boyner's calls for an end to the eight-year-old state of emergency in 10 southeastern provinces, plus the abolition of the government's anti-PKK "village guards," have been joined by the heads of Turkey's biggest Leftist formations, Deputy Prime Minister Hikmet Cetm of the Republican People's Party (CHP) and Biilent Ecevit of the Democratic Left Party (DSP...

...Ever the populist, he urges a "revolution in mentality" on the part of the Turks...

...IN RESPONSE to mounting international pressure, government and opposition leaders have begun targeting some of the more repressive human rights pol icies...

...Nevertheless, they express a reluctance to support a list headed by Boyner because they are uncertain about the pulling power of the others who would round it out and do not want to "waste" their vote...

...The majority of human rights champions can be offhandedly dismissed by the country's conservative elite as Leftist bleeding-hearts—or even traitors...

...Even though Boyner voices no concrete solution to their plight, Kurds are happy just to hear someone speaking in their name," notes a localjournalist...

...By that, he makes clear, he means not simply the Ciller Administration but the entire "rotten-smelling political class in Ankara that doesn't believe in anything except stuffing their pockets...