COUNTRIES AT THE CROSSROADS GOVERNANCE BLOG

The Struggle for Turkey's Identity: A Dark Turn?

The number of people arrested in Turkey in connection with the activities of the violent, ultranationalist group Ergenekon has risen to over 150, of whom 95 have been charged with conducting and planning acts of terror designed to destabilize the populist ruling party and trigger a secular, military takeover. Ergenekon allegedly draws its membership from the traditional, conservative elite: the police, the military, and the urban aristocracy. The opposition of these groups to the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, is well-known: it stems from the weakening of their power and their fears that the AKP will do away with Turkey’s vaunted secularism.

The government claims that members of Ergenekon were responsible for two acts of terror in 2006: a grenade attack against the newspaper Cumhuriyet, and the assassination of a judge. It also claims to have found two arms caches, one in June 2007 and another earlier this month near Ankara. The 2007 cache was located in the basement of a retired Turkish army officer and contained grenades which allegedly matched those used in Cumhuriyet attack. The prosecutor’s case regarding the current arrests is that Ergenekon was planning further acts of terror and assassination, including the targeting of Prime Minister Recap Erdogan and Nobel-Prize winning author – and convicted critic of the Turkish government – Orhan Pamuk. The alleged purpose of the attacks was to trigger chaos and a collapse in public confidence in the current government, after which the army would intervene to save Turkey from itself.

While Ergenekon’s existence is real, the validity of the charges is widely questioned: many feel that the case is a political maneuver by the AKP against its most vocal and powerful opponents. Many of those so far imprisoned have not been charged, and no evidence has been shown against them, although ten people were released over the weekend. Long pretrial detentions, long trials, and dubious support for the constitutional principal of presumed innocence are areas where Turkey’s legal system has long been in desperate need of improvement. The use of the courts as a political tool is an old story in Turkey, although in general opposition secularists are considered to maintain strong influence. Indeed, the most recent row was started last year by the military establishment, whose leadership publically asked the Constitutional Court to rule that the AKP was actively undermining the state’s constitutional secularism. The AK party’s roots are clearly religious, as it maintains the leadership structure of three parties dissolved on similar grounds, but the court fell one vote short of the number required to dissolve the AKP. While the AKP tried – and failed – to remove a few restrictions on public expressions of religiosity, its policies have focused largely on the economy and pro-EU reforms. Although the party lost much of its public funding, it felt that the ruling was a decisive victory against the military. Now, some say that the AKP is pursuing its advantage in the courts to undemocratically undermine its opponents even further.

Tension between the military and elected government is nothing new in Turkey, which underwent military coups in 1960, 1971, 1980 and 1997. The most recent coup, achieved via published threat instead of direct action, deposed Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, who led the AKP’s three predecessor parties. The military has also pressured the constitutional court into dissolving 24 parties over the past 50 years, including all of Erbakan’s. However, the military has been extensively defanged in recent years, and in 2007 failed to deliver on a public and thinly veiled threat to remove president Abdullah Gul – banned many times for his Islamist views – if he were elected. The military has had its executive powers removed and been subjected to greater government oversight, something it fears will result in the armed forces becoming more religious. Although the AK party surely intended to protect itself against the military with these reforms, many were also made at the behest of the European Union, which has explicit standards for democratic control of the armed forces.

Support among elites for a coup seems extreme on the face of things; Turkey is a partly-free democracy with free and fair elections that cares about its international image, making a political solution preferable. However, the primary opposition party– the Republican People’s Party, or CHP – is not seen as credible. Its leader has clung to power for almost two decades, and although deeply unpopular within the party, he cannot be unseated under rules he himself has written. New parties that entered parliament for the first time in 2007 do not represent promising alternatives for democratic, non-Kurdish secularists. Of course, while the need to expand political pluralism is clear, conservative dissatisfaction with CHP is no excuse for murdering a judge, attacking a newspaper with grenades, or stockpiling arms.

Elites’ open discontent with the AKP is a constant in Turkey’s recent history. This polarization makes the version of the Ergenekon story in which Gul is taking revenge on those who criticized him a compelling one. On the other, the wealthy and military classes have publically allied against the democratically elected government. Faced with the AKP’s populism and the opposition party’s perceived fecklessness, they may be willing to take drastic steps to have another constitutional “reform” handed down by men in uniform. In the end, a real commitment to judicial independence and respect for democratic government may force Turkey to accept a loosening of its rigorous secular laws, while improving overall tolerance and pluralism. In the meantime, the endless battle between political parties and Ataturk’s secular guardians continues in its politicized, polarizing course.

Photo credit: Flickr user serdar

The Dragon's Surprisingly Ambivalent Reform

Thirty years ago, land reforms in China launched the country’s economic rise, initiating a process that enriched urban dwellers at the expense of the rural peasantry. Nowadays China is one of the most unequal countries in the world, and urban-rural divides are at the core of many institutional bottlenecks that hinder the attainment of broad, equitable progress. In fact, land issues encapsulate one of modern China’s major contradictions: while the market is now king in most economic spheres, land is still collectively owned and its usage heavily restricted by the state. Urban land can be traded with very long leases that are, in practical terms, as good as outright ownership (manifold state abuses such as forced dislocation aside), whereas rural land is still owned by village committees that rent small plots to peasants on 30-year leases. Land cannot be mortgaged and selling usage rights or building can be legally problematic. As peasants cannot own land or use it as collateral, credit is all but impossible to obtain and little incentive exists to improve the lots, let alone consolidate them. This creates productive inefficiencies and jeopardizes China’s food security.

Furthermore, the village collective-state-corporation alliance makes the system prone to corruption and clientelism. Illegal, and often violent, land seizures by local officials and developers remain endemic. In numerous instances, farmland is seized for urban expansion and industrialization without sufficient compensation given to farmers, while local officials siphon off profits further fueling resentment. Thus, according to the East Asia Forum “illegal land requisitions take place in the order of tens of thousands a year,” causing an increasing number of peasant protests. In other instances and despite technically being illegal, plot sizes are reallocated among villagers based on family size, even in cases where leases have not expired. Divorced and widowed women are especially vulnerable to these practices.

Because land issues encompass so many of China’s major economic, social, political, institutional and environmental challenges, land reform is urgent. Thus, the Communist Party’s announcement of land reform attracted much media coverage. The reform hinges on two major features: first, to allow peasants to engage in unrestricted trade, purchase, and sale of land-use contracts within regulated markets; and second, to extend those contracts to up to 70 years. Combined with other measures, this is intended to increase income in the countryside. However, the reform is much more modest than the celebrated ‘breakthrough’  language accompanying the agreement implies. The basic principle of ownership will remain unchanged. Village committees, controlled by party  cadres, will still own the land and direct its usage rights. Further, the transfer of usage rights is already allowed legally (with some limitations) and has become a common practice in recent years.

After the initial media hype, quiet enveloped the reforms, suggesting hints of discord within the top echelons of the Communist Party. Opponents of the reform had argued that moving closer to land ownership would solidify Western capitalism and thus undermine the party’s authority, while proponents had stressed that improved property rights could improve rural-urban income disparities, appease social unrest, and stem the waves of peasants migrating to the cities.

But even if the party could agree on enhanced  land rights, this would only be a first step. As the Countries at the Crossroads report stated in 2007, those rights would need to be protected by a more independent legal system that can combat governmental corruption and hold police accountable when they use excessive force. Without a reformed legal system, after all, the principles of stability and predictability that the reform hopes to encourage will not develop. Further, village elections – the only level where Chinese citizens can directly vote for their representatives – would need to be more competitive and less influenced by the Communist Party’s control to secure a fair distribution of the land. Reforming the legal system and improving governmental transparency would not only appease 800 million Chinese farmers, but would help this potentially transformative reform move from word to deed.

Photo Credit: Flickr user rentonr

THE LEADER FOR LIFE, CONTINUED

In March of this year, we posted on the subject of presidential succession (The Leader for Life), noting the absence of a meaningful rotation of power in a number of strategically important countries and its negative impact on democratic governance.  Among other things, these countries exhibit exceedingly high levels of corruption. A chart detailing time in office for leaders in 20 states indicated that none of these politically managed systems could perform better than 105 (out of 179 countries examined) in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index. Egypt came in at 105; the next best were Yemen and Iran at 131.

Since that time, several critical countries have made news by virtue of their leaderships’ determined effort to extend their term in office.

In Zimbabwe, discredited President Robert Mugabe said on December 19 that he would “never surrender”.  To emphasize the point, Mugabe added that “Zimbabwe is mine”.  Meanwhile, his beleaguered and impoverished country is suffering from a growing list of severe problems, including an outbreak of cholera that has killed hundreds of people. A BBC video clip explains in horrifying detail the devastating price cholera is exacting on ordinary Zimbabweans.

In Russia, CNN reported that the country’s upper house of parliament on December 22 approved an extension of the presidential term from four years to six, a step that could presage former President Vladimir Putin’s return to the nation's top office. Putin now serves as prime minister but is viewed by many as the country’s paramount leader.  The speedy move to amend the constitution comes at a time when low energy prices are putting increasing pressure on the Russian leadership’s ability to maintain the social and economic model that has been forged under Putin.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is also working diligently to remove institutional checks on his power.  On December 22, Chavez suggested that a referendum could be held on February 15, 2009 that would among other measures lift term limits. A December 2007 referendum that included a host of measures that would have removed checks on presidential power was narrowly defeated. Like Russia’s leadership, Chavez confronts a rapidly shifting and less predictable political landscape, as the energy resources that have been integral to his power dwindle.

A December 19 Washington Post editorial observes that while democracy advocates might welcome a vote of this sort in Venezuela, it carries real risks because:

"elections in Venezuela are no longer free and fair. Mr. Chavez has turned national television into a state propaganda outlet, and the Miami Herald reported [on December 14] that the government spent tens of millions of dollars to buy votes in the recent state and local elections. The state election authority, which is controlled by Mr. Chavez's loyalists, delayed the announcement of his defeat in last year's referendum; reliable sources say the president conceded only after he was told by military commanders that they would not put down protests against a falsified result. The official results, showing the margin of Mr. Chavez's loss, have not been released".

Unlike the Russian petrostate, where opposition has tended to be muted, in Venezuela opposing voices still make themselves heard.

Conflict in the Niger Delta Simmers on and Flares Up

When President Umaru Yar’Adua came to power a year and a half ago in Nigeria, a country with 140m people speaking some 250 languages, he detailed a seven-point agenda (energy, security, wealth creation, education, land reform, mass transit, and the execution the Niger Delta plan) to propel development via good governance. Topping President Yar’Adua’s agenda was achieving progress in the Niger Delta Region, where 23 percent of Nigerians reside and where instability reigns, with frequent inter-ethnic clashes over the allocation of oil wealth and resources. The Delta has always been a source of conflict: since initial oil deposits were founded in 1956, residents have been paid pittances, lost their lands, and suffered environmental degradation. Though there have been a few encouraging signs of incremental decreases in tensions, the complexity of the problem means that there is still little hope of an imminent resolution.

Bangladesh's Fizzled Makeover

Bangladesh’s current government is an interim regime installed by the military in a January 2007 coup. The government was supposed to direct the country away from its entrenched politics based on patronage and personality to a cleaner, more democratic form of governance. The primary goal was to create an alternative to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), led by Khaleda Zia, and the Awami League, led by Sheikh Hasina. The two parties, bitter rivals, have long dominated Bangladeshi politics: Zia was prime minister from 1991-1996 and 2001-2006, and Hasina was prime minister from 1996-2001. They are known as the two “begums” – Muslim women of high rank – and each of their administrations was characterized by rampant corruption and a cult of personality centered on the respective leader. Since the coup, the army has tried to push the begums aside, jailing them and splitting their parties. However, by calling elections that will likely include both begums, the military has implicitly admitted that its mission has been less than successful.

Schemes and Dreams Confront Libya's Sobering Realities

The Financial Times recently carried an extensive article on Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi’s plans to radically alter the structure of Libya’s government. The longtime dictator’s plan would eliminate the majority of Libya’s ministries and substitute direct payment of oil wealth to Libya’s citizens in lieu of channeling it through the country’s bloated and wasteful bureaucracies. This is hardly the first time that the enigmatic leader has announced grand transformative plans, but given Libya’s recent re-entry into the “community of nations,” it is worth taking a look at the country’s major governance issues and what Qadhafi’s plan might change.

Taking the Wheel in Nepal, Maoists Face a Rocky Road

Former rebel leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal, better known by the nom de guerre Prachanda, was sworn in as Nepal’s prime minister on August 18, confirming his status as the country’s most powerful political leader. While the achievement sealed the victory of his Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) in its long struggle with the now-defunct monarchy, it came at the cost of a grueling 1996–2006 insurgency and some 13,000 lives. The new government will have to address the simmering instability and institutional wreckage left in the wake of the conflict, all while managing an uncertain political coalition and coping with urgent problems like food shortages and rising fuel prices.

Civics Lessons May Be Lacking in Algerian Schools Overhaul

A New York Times article this week explored the choices faced by young Algerians as the government attempts to reform the education system and prepare them for a changing economy. The overhaul is aimed not just at reducing the high dropout and unemployment rates, but also at curbing the appeal of Islamist militancy. Unfortunately, the effort may be doomed to failure if it neglects broader governance problems that continue to stifle public debate, block democratic accountability, and deter private investment.

Malaysia's Ruling Party on the Ropes

The United Malays National Organization (UMNO) has governed Malaysia since independence from Britain in 1957, maintaining its hold on power with a blend of authoritarianism, macroeconomic growth, and race-based patronage. However, UMNO and its coalition of more than a dozen smaller parties, the National Front, suffered what may prove to be a mortal blow in the March 8 parliamentary elections, losing their two-thirds majority in the Dewan Rakyat, the lower house of Parliament, for the first time despite control over the media and other advantages. Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi’s government now hangs on a 30-seat margin in the 222-seat chamber, and the opposition People’s Alliance, a coalition that rode to victory in five of federal Malaysia’s 13 states on a platform of racial harmony and reform, has vowed to woo away defectors. The weakened administration has already been forced to adopt elements of the opposition’s program, which could have positive and lasting effects on the country’s beleaguered institutions.

Armenia Awaits Judgment on Postelection Reforms

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) will meet next week to discuss Armenia’s progress on a set of reforms prescribed by the international body in an April 17 resolution. The document came in response to the country’s flawed February 19 presidential election and the government’s deadly March 1 crackdown on the subsequent opposition protests. If PACE deems the government’s progress insufficient, it could revoke Armenia’s voting privileges, a humiliating blow for a country that relies on fairly close relations with the European Union (EU) and the United States. However, if Armenia is given a pass, it would not be the first time. Armenian officials have previously managed to placate international observers, only to fall back under the spotlight when the same unresolved governance problems reappear at the next elections.