As the 'Coup' Turns: The Army's Real Target

ISTANBUL — Following the recent "coup by briefing" mounted by the Turkish military, in collusion with the secular opposition parties, against Islamist Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan and his Welfare Party, a purge of Islamists is underway. Hundreds of Welfare-associated bureaucratic appointees in a dozen ministries have been removed, and millions of dollars in government funds earmarked for Welfare-controlled municipal governments, such as Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, have been slashed.

But, increasingly, the main target appears not to have been Erbakan and Welfare, but his coalition partner, Turkey's first female prime minister and, until June 30, foreign minister, Tansu Ciller. Not only does her political future hang in the balance, but also her personal reputation. Within days of falling from power, Ciller lost her influence over judicial inquiries into her and her husband's financial activities and her alleged association with murderers.

Ciller certainly didn't seem the intended target when the military began its media blitz against the reputed threat of Muslim fundamentalism to the secular state. But when Erbakan quit, Ciller, the leader of the minority partner of the Welfare-led coalition, which still appeared to maintain an absolute majority in the 550-seat Turkish Parliament, was not invited to form a new government. Instead, Turkish President Suleyman Demirel asked the main opposition leader, Mesut Yilmaz of the Motherland Party, to try his hand at scraping together a parliamentary majority.

Following a week of horse-trading, Yilmaz assembled an unwieldy coalition of three parliamentary parties, ranging from the political left to center-right, and a clutch of independents and former members of Ciller's party, the True Path Party. The only unifying factor seemed to be an irrational distrust of Erbakan--and a nearly psychotic loathing of Ciller.

Although Ciller is striving to recreate herself as the defender of democracy ("The vote of a general has no more value than that of a peasant in my book"), the defections from her sinking political ship appear to have hit critical mass; few from the rank and file are shedding real tears over her eminent demise. As foreign minister, she was criticized for devoting too much time to domestic politics. When she first partnered with Welfare, she was accused of the ultimate opportunism of trying to stop an investigation into alleged financial malfeasance committed by herself and her husband.