The Pakistani Spectator

The visit of the Prime Minister of Turkey Tayyib Erdogan  to Pakistan at the moment when the waves of terrorism has threatened us  is of significant importance and honor for us.   Being the head of the government of a nation-state with whom Pakistan has an endurable bilateralism with unlimited ties of  friendship and cooperation is also a charismatic and popular leader whose leadership traits serve as a model for the rulers of the Muslim World.    Being a supporter of party politics with respect for the secular values of Turkish Republic Ataturk founded in 1924, he is a moderate Islamist who rose to power from a humble position  at local bodies to the Mayor of Istanbul, and later on the founder of the AK Party which since 2002  has brought notable political and economic development change in the Turkish state and society.

He began his political career under the leadership of Necibudin Erbakan, the founder of the Rafah Party.    Erbakan was disqualified and debarred from politics along with a number of other party MPs and party banned in June 1997. It was in the wake of  banning Rafah Erdogan appeared on national scene   and was elected   as the Mayor of Istanbul, the largest province with a stronger role of Mayorship.   The Mayor of Istanbul is an important office as the city constitutes 40 percent of country’s population and economy.  Erbakan was ousted of power by the army via National Security Council (NSC)  for Islamic principles he adhered along with a large number of MPs under the Paragraph 6 of the Article 69 of the 1981 Constitution.   He was elected on Fazilat Party platform the MPs of the banned Rafah founded two months later.

Being a native of Istanbul, he was soon found a popular and competent Mayor by accelerating development works the city had been  long deprived under his predecessors.   Soon after his election he visited the areas where he was shown resistance and fetched fewer votes by assuring them their welfare as the priority.  It was a leadership gesture and democratic patience by winning his opponents.

He was a man behind the growing  popularity of Fazilat Party which provided Islamists a moderate and charismatic touch of leadership.  “Only slogans and empty dogmas don’t work in politics, but principles and adherence once in politics” he said in one of his speeches.   His addresses mobilized huge crowds and were liked in public.  He showed his desire to immerse into the teaching of Ziya Gokalp (1876-1924),  a professor of sociology at Istanbul University whose ideas for secularism and nationalism influenced Atatürk and his contemporaries by alignment of  modern leadership Islam provided.   His growing popularity was intolerable for secular establishment.

Erdogan was himself removed from his office of Mayor of Istanbul and banned from politics in 1999 for narrating a verse in a public address by a Turk poet, designed to provoke political Islamic against Turkish interests.  The verse said  “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers”.   He was sentenced to 10 months imprisonment which he partially served.  He appealed to the Constitutional Court, the final court of appeal, but was declined.  Few months after his dismissal the Fazilat Party was banned   under the Paragraph 6 of the Article 69 of the 1981 Constitution by the Constitutional Court. The Constitutional Court, actually established under the 1961 Constitution, comprises 15 members (11 regular and 4 substitute) is the final court of appeal in constitutional and political matters.   The Court in practice since 28 August. 1962 exercises a number of powers regarding the political and constitutional matters, particularly the banning of a  political leader or group if its existence is deemed against the integrity of state and society based on the secular principles of Kemalism.

The founding of AK Party was his brain child which he exercised in confidence of his contemporaries, a size number of whom came out of banned Rafah and Fazilat Party.  In an article published in June 2001 he highlighted the new platform for his party under the title Eski Erdogan degilim (I am not the old Erdogan) by showing his willingness to return to politics under a rather liberal and moderate role provided the Constitutional Court to serve his people.   The party won landmark victory in 2002 and 2007 general elections for the 550 member Turkish Grand National Assembly (TGNA), a unicameral powerful legislature.   It was due to popular support and party performance during the first tenor the secular establishment realized the leadership qualities of Erdogan under the new challenges Turkey was faced with.  He was anyhow playing a King Maker role.   His pending appeal for the removal of his ban on politics was accepted by the Constitutional Court and he joined Turkish Grand National Assembly  as MP in March 2003.   He was later on elected as Prime Minister.

He is a popular leader with his team work and party platform having brought considerable improvement in political and economic development for the Turkish Republic.  He has risen the Turkish image in world affairs.  It was bravo of him   to have walked out of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland  on 29 January 2002 in retaliation for not allowing him sufficiently  by the moderator to answer to the speech of Israeli President Shimon Peres.   He stood up in anger and left the avenue by saying  and starring at Shimon Peres that he would not come to Davos, a place being over for him where one cannot adequately respond to the aggressiveness Israel has been committing against innocent people.  Shimon spoke for 25 minutes justifying his country’s military atrocities in Gaza. “You know very well how to kill people.”    The Muslim World need leadership like him.