HE life sentence handed down to Kenan Evren on Wednesday confirms Turkish democracy`s triumph over authoritarianism after a long and bitter struggle that saw four military coups and the hanging of a prime minister. The former army chief and later president overthrew Suleyman Demirel`s democratically elected government in 1980 and then went on to rule for three years. During this time, half a million political workers were arrested and 50 people executed on terrorism-related charges. The army`s coup-making instinct stemmed from the Turkish army`s belief that it was the sole defender of Mustafa Kemal`s secular legacy and that it had every right to overthrow elected governments when it thought that the political regimes deviated from Ataturk`s policies. In 1960, it toppled the government led by elected prime minister Adnan Menderes whom they hanged. The last time it took over government was in 1997, when it used pressure and judicial manipulation to overthrow the government led by Necmettin Erbekan, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan`s mentor. Mr Erdogan has proceeded cautiously and chipped away at the military`s power gradually, three successive electoral triumphs giving him the moral and political strength to take on the army.
Clearly, Pakistan has still not reached the stage where a former military dictator can be tried without fear of democracy being derailed, even though no one knows better than Pakistanis the enormous harm that generals addicted to power can inflict on a country. The military has intervened directly in governance four times and one general hanged an elected prime minister and arrested, tortured and executed countless political dissidents. Like their Turkish counterparts, the generals here too made a mockery of the justice system, and found collaborators both in the judiciary, and among opposition politicians who have often enough been instigated by extraconstitutional forces to try and thwart the democratic process. The lesson for Pakistani politicians is that they must act responsibly, and exercise patience and wait for elections instead of destabilising the government of the day by threatening revolutions and `marches`.
