Islamic Political Identity in Turkey

210 islamic political identity in turkeynal MNP, and Süleyman Arif Emre, also a member of the 8skenderpa7aNak7ibendi order, became its Wrst chairman. Erbakan only became a MSP memberin May 1973, although the party actually contested the October 1973 nationalelections under the leadership of Emre. After the election, the MSP’s administrativeboard appointed Erbakan as the chairman. Although the Turkish constitutiondid not allow a person to become a chairman if his previous party hadbeen banned by the Constitutional Court, the generals wanted Erbakan to leadthe new party because they hoped to weaken the AP in the next elections.In its Wrst election, the MSP won 48 seats in Parliament. 14 In addition, theparty received 11.8 percent of the vote in the parliamentary election and 12.3percent in the senatorial election, winning three seats in the Senate. Generally,the parties that were critical of military rule and had been shut down after the1971 coup did well in the 1973 election. In contrast, the AP, which was accusedof collaboration with the coup authorities, dropped from 46.5 percent of thetotal vote in 1969 to 29.8 percent in 1973; the Republican Reliance Party(Cumhuriyetçi Güven Partisi) dropped from 6.6 percent to 5.3 percent. 15The electoral success of the MSP was strongest in the eastern and southeasternprovinces, owing to the sectarian religious divisions and tensions betweenthe Sunni and Alevi communities, although the politicization of thissectarian division was caused by an underlying competition over economic resourcesand government jobs. Conservative groups and economically vulnerablefarmers voted for the MSP. The fact that the MSP’s program called for “rapidindustrialization” rather then Islamization may be seen as evidence that manypeople in eVect voted for electricity, not the sharia. However, after the closureof the MNP, the same leadership framed their new movement as one directedtoward “salvation,” using the Qu’ranic term for salvation and arguing that therewere two types of salvation, ethical and material. 16The MSP joined the coalition government of the social democratic CHP onJanuary 24, 1974. Erbakan became deputy prime minister, controlling six ministries(Interior, Trade, Justice, Food and Agriculture, Industry and Technology,and the State Ministry of Religious AVairs). The image of the MSP in the coalitiongovernment was of a party dedicated to the promotion of Muslim morality,Ottoman heritage, freedom of conscience, the modernizing of Turkey’s economythrough rapid industrialization, and concern for the “little man.” This image,in turn, helped the MSP to restore calls for Islamic values as a potent force inTurkish politics and society. 17 The party considered the family to be crucial formolding the moral and spiritual character of the country’s youth. 18 It also stressedsocial and economic justice and the equitable distribution of national wealth.Both the 1973 and 1977 national elections indicated that the MSP’s mainsource of support was in the rural areas. For example, in 1973 only 32.8 percentof the MSP’s total vote came from urban centers, while 67.2 percent was fromvillages. In the 1977 national election, the MSP won 8.6 percent of the total vote,with 36.8 percent coming from urban centers and 63.2 percent from villages.Interestingly, in both the 1973 and 1977 elections, the MSP was most popularin Sunni Kurdish provinces, such as Elazì;, Bingöl, and Diyarbakìr. This indicatesthat the Sunni Kurdish ethnicity was contained within the broader oppo-