With the recent political agreement between Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its newfound ally, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Turkey is quite close to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s much-aspired presidential system. Most likely, the parliament will vote for a major constitutional amendment in early 2017. A subsequent referendum, probably in April or May, will give the people the final say. Nothing is certain, but given Erdogan’s broad popularity, a “yes” vote in such a referendum seems likely.
The technicalities of such a major transformation are a story in itself. For outside observers, however, a more curious question may be the historical meaning of this major change. Given Erdogan’s roots in political Islam and the Islamist themes he has increasingly used in recent years, many would wonder whether the presidential system would be the end of the secular Turkish Republic. They would wonder, in other words, whether Turkey would become an Islamic Republic.
The answer is more complex than it may seem. On the one hand, there is no reason to think that the principle of secularism, which has existed in the Turkish Constitution since 1937, can be taken out and Islam introduced as a state religion. The AKP never advocated such a radical revolution, and when its parliament speaker suggested it in passing last year, Erdogan disapproved of the idea, defending a religion-friendly interpretation of secularism.
Moreover, the presence of the MHP in the constitution-making process further guarantees that the principle of secularism will remain in its place. The MHP is a party that appeals to Turkey’s conservative Sunni masses, but it has had fewer problems with secularism. In fact, the leader of the party, Devlet Bahceli, made it a precondition for talks with the AKP that the republic’s founding principles enshrined in the first three articles of the constitution, which include secularism and “Mustafa Ataturk’s nationalism,” would remain untouched. Current reports show this precondition has been observed.
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