Monday was the anniversary of the controversial 2007 “e-memorandum” by the Turkish army against the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government. The party hailed how its stand against the memorandum, amounting to a coup attempt, paved the way to a stronger reaction to decades of military tutelage that had taken captive the Turkish democracy.
The AK Party spokesperson Ömer Çelik told Anadolu Agency (AA) on Monday that the e-memorandum failed due to resistance by then prime minister, incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the AK Party, the national will and support by civic society to this resistance. He added that, combined with support to the resistance by some political parties derailed plans their opponents aimed through the e-memorandum.
The memorandum, published on the website of the Office of the Chief of General Staff, stands out among many others in the brief history of the Republic of Türkiye. It was the first attempt by the powerful military in the 2000s to intervene in political affairs. Though similar to a 1997 coup where an army memorandum paved the way for government collapse, it was the first time it took place online. Also, it was the first time a government actively resisted such an attempt and succeeded. The memorandum, released at 23:20 on April 27, 2007, during the first round of presidential elections, was a thinly veiled attempt to stop Parliament’s vote for presidential candidate Abdullah Gül. According to the memorandum, exclusively published online, the army was concerned about the “erosion of basic values, primarily secularism,” and tied the activities of the conservative population permitted by the government, such as the recitation of the Quran at public events, to mark national holidays, to a reactionary movement “against the state.”
The statement targeted Gül, viewed as “reactionary,” a derogatory term for anyone with a conservative background. Indeed, it was not different than the motive of the 1997 coup for the army, which has long promoted itself as a self-styled defender of “secularism,” a concept exploited to stamp out the participation of practicing Muslims in social life, for instance, joining the public sector or pursuing political office.
Türkiye was heading to presidential elections with Abdullah Gül as a potential ruling AK Party candidate long before the memorandum. Gül was a controversial figure for secularists due to his background, and even his status as the husband of a headscarf-wearing woman was a point of contention for secular extremists. For them, having such a man in the republic's highest office was unprecedented and against their rigid interpretation of secularism. Then Chief of General Staff Yaşar Büyükanıt openly voiced the army’s opposition to the next president when he said that the president should be “truly adhering to (values) of the republic,” on April 12, 2007, to the chagrin of the government.
“Republic” rallies, where crowds of hardline secularists convened in big cities, followed Büyükanıt’s controversial remarks in the following days. The pressure was on the Erdoğan-led government, which did not step back from the nomination of Gül. In the first round of the election, Gül won 357 out of 361 votes in Parliament, while the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) objected to the result. The CHP took the election to the Constitutional Court, claiming that the president should win 367 votes or a majority under an interpretation of a Constitutional article.
The Constitutional Court annulled the first round of elections upon appeal by the CHP on May 1. The AK Party then proposed a parliamentary election on July 22. Constitutional amendments followed the proposal. After the AK Party’s victory in the elections, Abdullah Gül once again ran for election on an Aug. 20 vote, and at the end of a three-round election, he was elected as the 11th president of Türkiye on Aug. 28.
Çelik said on Monday that the days leading to the memorandum were “times of darkness inflicted by military and judiciary tutelage over Ankara.”
“Just as people looked up to the government and the decisions at the Cabinet meetings, National Security Council (MGK) meetings of those days were closely watched. This was where the military tutelage demonstrated its influence on politics,” he said. “Regardless of the decisions of the elected government, the MGK (controlled by powerful generals) was able to steer politics. The memorandum was a reflection of this ‘tradition,’” he said.
Çelik stated that no government resisted such moves. “This is why April 27 is an important date, in terms of resistance,” he underlined. Çelik, then a lawmaker for the Adana province, said the evening of April 27, 2007, was not “a relaxing evening” for them. “Nobody knew what would happen. But the resolve demonstrated by Erdoğan and the party showed that we were ready to pay the price. It was a turning point for civilian politics, for democracy,” he said.
Çelik recalled that the government sought to go to the Office of the Chief of General Staff to confront them, but the army’s headquarters were silent. “They did not return the calls for hours. This was not because they ignored the government. It was because they became aware that the government would respond to them this time,” he said.
Efkan Ala, the AK Party’s deputy chair, said in a social media post on Monday that the democratic reaction to the memorandum launched a new era in Turkish political history. “The resolute stand against it proved that the national will truly governed the country. This strong will, indeed, is the underlying reason for the achievements we have come to have in the country and abroad since then,” he said.
