Ambition for All Seasons: Tansu Ciller* - GLORIA Center

Ambition for All Seasons: Tansu Ciller+
By Ustun Reinart*
Tansu Ciller, leader of the True Path party, is one of Turkey's most powerful politicians.
As Turkey prepares for its coming elections, she is a key powerbroker for forming the next
government. Yet she has constantly walked the edge of disaster, through both her political
decisions and personal choices.
A blonde, stylish woman stood
"She is probably the most
behind a microphone at the Turkish Machiavellian politican Turkey has seen for
Parliament in Ankara, on January 6, 1999. a long time," said Professor Kemal Kirisci, a
"In order to prevent a sabotage of the political scientist at Bosphorus University in
democratic system, we have taken control of Istanbul. "For the sake of her goal she'll do
the situation," she announced. Tansu Ciller, anything. Part and parcel of her
had surprised the country by offering Machiavellianism is that while she has a lot
support for a minority government to be of dirty linen herself, she has dirty linen on
formed by Bulent Ecevit, leader of the other politicians, and does not hesitate to use
Democratic Left Party.
it."
Thus, Turkey's current government
This year, a book entitled Maskeli
was dependent on the same woman who has Lady (The Masked Lady), an impeccably
dominated Turkish politics since 1990. researched self-described "thriller" about
Ecevit may be prime minister but Tansu Ciller written by Faruk Bildirici, a columnist
Ciller can make or break his government. with the daily newspaper Hurriyet, is a
After scandals, blunders, and after her phenomenal best-seller in Turkey. It
political career was apparently in shambles, documents her family background,
Ciller is once more poised to hold the reigns childhood, rise to power, accumulation of
of power.
wealth and changes of political position. The
Tansu Ciller enthralled Turkish "mask" refers to the winning smile on
politicians and voters early in this decade Ciller's face at each public appearance.
and became the darling of Turkey's Western Ciller's unsuccessful bid to have the book
allies. Yet only weeks before her latest stunt, banned has only increased its popularity.
Ciller had narrowly escaped a parliamentary
Tansu Ciller was the daughter of a
inquiry into an enormous fortune she had modest middle class family. Her father had
acquired during her years in political office. unfulfilled political ambitions which he
In the last three years she has been accused invested in her daughter. For Tansu's
of abusing the government's slush fund in parents, it was a sacrifice to send their only
her term as prime minister, and her name daughter to Robert College, a private
has been associated with criminal leaders. American school in Istanbul. There, Tansu
Many journalists and political analysts have was known for her ambition, admiration of
called disastrous her latest stint in American culture, and for concealing the
government as coalition partner of the fact that her parents were less wealthy than
Islamist Refah party.
the parents of most of the other students.
Middle East Review of International Affairs Vol. 3, No. 1 (March 1999) 80

She married Ozer Ciller, another graduate of
Robert College. The couple went to the
United States for Tansu's Master's and her
Ph.D. They had a son there and in 1970,
became American citizens. Tansu's intimate
friends told Bildirici that she was never even
mildly religious.
During the mid-1970s, Ozer received
an attractive job offer from a large company
in Turkey and the couple returned. Tansu
began to teach economics at Bosphorus
University (formerly Robert College).
Bildirici says Tansu Ciller's former
colleagues all described her as fiercely
ambitious but with a very effective personal
style.
In 1990, she told her friends that she
was entering politics to prevent the spread of
Islamic fundamentalism in Turkey,
defending Turkish laicism. Under the
mentorship of Suleyman Demirel, then
leader of the True Path Party, (now
president), many believed the charismatic
woman was just what Turkey needed to
boost its contemporary image. She
immediately rose to the rank of assistant to
the party leader.
After Ciller's entry into politics, the
couple began to accumulate real estate in
Turkey and in the United States. Ciller
started the 1991 election campaign with a
declaration of her wealth -- a false one. She
had neglected to list her possessions in the
United States: 4 houses, a boat, some land
and a car.
In 1991, she was elected and shared
the responsibility for the ministry of the
economy in the coalition government. Soon
the economics professor began to surprise
her party colleagues with her careless
figures and unusual requests. Early in 1992,
she proposed to forego the civil servants'
salaries for a month, as a budgetary
measure. Her alarmed advisors had to
inform Demirel who prevented the measure.
Some of Ciller's press releases were
fictional. When World Bank official
81
Ambition for All Seasons: Tansu Ciller
Michael Wieken sent Turkey a letter
spelling out the conditions his organization
required from Turkey, Ciller announced that
the World Bank had offered Turkey
unconditional support.
But despite such blunders, Tansu
Ciller was riding high in 1992. She was
elected as woman of the year in Turkey.
Other women imitated her flowing, colorful
neck scarves and bought her perfume
(Beautiful by Estee Lauder). That year,
Ciller even impressed Libya's leader
Muammar Qadhafi, called her a model for
all Islamic women. Reporting her successful
visits abroad, Turkish newspaper headlines
were euphoric: "Our minister has charmed
the Europeans!"
The Cillers were increasing their
investments in the United States. They
founded two separate companies and bought
a large apartment block, a luxury house, a
shopping center, and a hotel, with a total
value of $4.5 million worth of real estate.
Tansu Ciller hinted to Turkish
journalists that she was on her way to the
"top." She took a leadership course in New
York and began to say that Turkey was
ready for a woman prime minister. But
already, opposition parties were giving her a
hard time, saying that her personal expenses
for travel, coffee, flowers, etc., were being
paid from government funds.
When then President Turgut Ozal
died in 1993, Demirel became president.
Ciller's moment had come. She went after
the prime minister's job. Her public relation
consultants had told her she should change
her style: Wear white for a look of
innocence. Walk fast for a look of
dynamism. Put one of your hands on your
waist during speeches for a look of
authority.
Ciller personally lobbied media
outlets and won their support. In June 1993,
she won the party leadership and became
prime minister. European newspapers called
her, "The symbol of Modern Turkey."
Middle East Review of International Affairs Vol. 3, No. 1 (March 1999)

But she continued to walk along the
edge of danger. Her assistants learned to be
on their toes to protect her from her own
blunders. She often forgot the names of
foreign heads of state. On the way to a
NATO summit in Brussels where the
question of Russia's membership was on the
agenda, she surprised journalists by asking
"Isn't Russia already a Nato member"
She also spent state money
prodigiously on her private requirements,
exceeding past norms. It wasn't unusual for
a government plane to make a return trip to
Argentina to purchase a special ingredient
for a meal, or to fly in a particular type of
ice cream for the prime minister.
By the 1993 elections, Tansu Ciller
had abandoned her urban, liberal image and
embraced a nationalist, traditionalist one.
Suddenly, she took a hard line towards the
Kurdish separatists in southeastTurkey. The
ties between her, the police department and
the secret service grew closer. In the spring
of 1994, there was a sudden increase in
political murders. Ciller ordered the lifting
of the parliamentary immunity of Kurdish
members of Parliament belonging to the
party DEP. One afternoon in spring, the
DEP MPs were shoved into police vans in
front of the parliament building.
By the summer of 1994, the Cillers'
wealth was beginning to make headlines.
The real estate in the United States which
she hadn't declared, somehow became
known. Opposition parties proposed a
parliamentary investigation into the prime
minister's wealth. Ciller bargained
individually with party leaders to organize a
defeat of the motion. She also announced
she would donate a large portion of her
wealth to charity before the 1995 general
elections.
Chiller campaigned on a platform of
Turkey's membership in the European
Community, battling against Kurdish
separatism, and the fight against the Islamist
party which she called "the murderous
Ustun Reinart
merchants of religion." The elections on
December 24, 1995 yielded no winner. The
Islamists had received the highest number of
votes (21%), but no party had a majority.
When Mesut Yilmaz, the leader of the
Motherland party, started to negotiate with
the Islamist leader, Ciller accused him of
"pushing Turkey to darkness." Yilmaz ended
up forming a coalition government with
Ciller instead.
Meanwhile, the Islamist Party was
investigating Ciller's wealth and asking
questions about the disappearance of a large
amount of money from the secret slush fund
the day before she had left the prime
minister's office. With three different
parliamentary investigations against her,
Ciller was forced to leave the government.
The coalition collapsed in the spring of
1996.
The Islamists had collected thick
files against her. After the June elections,
she began to negotiate with them. When she
agreed for form a coalition with them, they
stopped pursuing her. They also blocked the
Social Democratic Party's motion related to
the missing slush fund money. On June 28,
1996, the new coalition was formed. The
Islamist leader became the prime minister
and Ciller became his assistant and minister
of external affairs. Once more, she changed
her image. Now, she was being seen praying
in public, carrying prayer beads, covering
her head.
In the fall of 1996, when a Turkish
mafia leader, a police chief and a politician
from Ciller's party were found to have been
travelling together in the same car after a
traffic accident, one of Ciller's close
associates, Internal Affairs minister Mehmet
Agar, had to resign because of his ties to
organized crime and to right-wing death
squad killings. Many seasoned politicians
began to leave Ciller's party. It looked as if
her career was collapsing.
Today, as Turkey heads toward
general elections in April 1999, Ciller's
Middle East Review of International Affairs Vol. 3, No. 1 (March 1999) 82

campaign posters flaunt a religious image of
herself. A couple of MPs from the Islamist
party have even jumped ship and joined her
group. "Don't leave your sister dependent on
people from other parties in order to form a
government. Show me your clear support!"
she told a rally at Bursa in Western
Anatolia.
Once more, Ciller is riding high in
Turkish politics, though some have
nicknamed her "Saibe," which means tainted
or stained. Many of her former admirers in
Europe and the United States have distanced
themselves from her after her alliance with
the Islamist party and after the publicity
surrounding her wealth and her shady
connections.
Still, suddenly, she is the one who
decides whether Turkey's current minority
government will stand or fall. That's power.
+This article is adapted from a version
appearing in Women's International Net
(WIN) Magazine. To see WIN Magazine, go
to . For a
free subscription: editor@winmagazine.org
with message: subscribe.
*Ustun Reinart is a writer in Quebec City,
Canada and author of Night Spirits
(University of Manitoba Press, 1997. She is
currently teaching at Middle East Technical
University (METU) in her native Turkey.
Ambition for All Seasons: Tansu Ciller
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Middle East Review of International Affairs Vol. 3, No. 1 (March 1999)