ANKARA - The veteran leader of Turkey's main secular opposition party resigned on Monday, saying he was the victim of a conspiracy following the release of a videotape on the Internet purporting to show him and a woman in a bedroom.
ANKARA – The veteran leader of Turkey’s main secular opposition party resigned on Monday, saying he was the victim of a conspiracy following the release of a videotape on the Internet purporting to show him and a woman in a bedroom.
The resignation of Deniz Baykal, a fierce critic of the ruling Islamist-leaning AK Party, comes as his secularist Republican People’s Party (CHP) has pledged to block plans by the government to hold a referendum on constitutional reforms.
Baykal accused the AK Party, whose roots lie in political Islam, of having knowledge of the videotape, which has been widely circulated on the Internet.
"This kind of illegal activity carried out on the leader of the main opposition party could not have been done without the knowledge of the government," Baykal told a news conference.
"If this has a price, and that price is the resignation from CHP leadership, I am ready to pay it. My resignation does not mean running away, or giving in," Baykal said. "On the contrary, it means that I’m fighting it."
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s government is preparing to call a national referendum on constitutional reforms to overhaul the judiciary and make the army answerable to civilian courts, changes he says are needed to meet European Union entry demands.
Secularist critics say the reforms are a furtive attempt by the AK Party to seize control of all levers of state and undermine Turkey’s secularist constitution.
Baykal had said the CHP will appeal to the Constitutional Court to block any referendum, which Erdogan wants to hold in July after winning parliamentary approval last week.
The videotape, posted on YouTube late last week, shows a man who looks like Baykal in his underwear getting dressed in a bedroom with a woman who also appears half-naked.
Baykal is married. Turkish media says the woman in the tape looks like a married lawmaker and former aide to Baykal.
CHANGE OF THE OLD GUARD
Turkish share prices, bonds and the lira currency enjoyed a big bounce on Monday thanks to a $1 trillion EU and IMF rescue package for neighbouring Greece, announced over the weekend and designed to lessen the risk of debt crisis contagion in Europe.
Investors however are watching any hint of a political crisis developing in Turkey in the run up to the referendum. There was no reaction to Baykal’s resignation, though it reinforced a sense of uncertainty over Turkey’s politics.
Baykal, 71, had led the CHP since 1992.
Founded by Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, the CHP is the voice of the urban secularist elite that includes judges, generals and state bureaucrats.
Accused of being out of touch with a changing Turkey, it has often blocked EU-driven reforms and accuses the AK Party of having a hidden Islamist agenda.
The AK Party swept traditional parties tainted by allegations of graft and mismanagement from power in 2002. It denies harbouring Islamist ambitions.
Critics say Baykal’s domination of the CHP had stifled chances for younger politicians who could have made the party more progressive and appealing to Turkish voters.
Analysts said his departure could energise the CHP ahead of the country’s next general election, due by July 2011, when the AK Party will seek a third term in power.
"A common complaint in Turkey has been that the ruling AK party’s main strength has been the absence of a credible opposition," Timothy Ash, from RBS, said in a note.
"The hope (amongst moderate secularists at least) now is that with Baykal’s departure, the party will see a younger, more energised and reformist leadership emerge which will capture the electorate’s imagination and give the ruling AK party a real run for its money."
The CHP is due to hold a national congress this month, and some political analysts did not rule out the chance of Baykal seeking re-selection, despite the public’s yearning for change.
"People want to see new faces at CHP leadership… A change of leadership will add dynamism to the party," Adnan Celik, 23, a cashier at an Istanbul bookstore, said.
