In Search of Elections

Free elections get further away in Turkey, while political problems multiply. When he first overthrew ex-Premier Adnan Menderes (TIME, June 6), General Cemal Gursel. the straightforward fighting man who runs Turkey's 50-man military junta, estimated that it would be three months at most before elections to install a new civilian government could be held. Last week, exactly three months after his coup, Gursel postponed the elections until next May 27, his first anniversary in power. Even if voting should be delayed a bit beyond that date, he added, "you may take it as definite that on Oct. 29, 1961, a new National Assembly will convene in Ankara."

There was no sign yet that the general wanted to become a dictator; he had simply underestimated the job. Ousted Premier Menderes left behind a ten-year record of budget deficits totaling $248 million, a foreign debt of $1.3 billion. To avoid bankruptcy, Gursel has canceled half of the 1,314 ambitious public works projects planned or under way in the Menderes era and has postponed work on acres of city rebuilding, including construction of fancy opera houses in Istanbul and Izmir.

The general's belt tightening makes sense, but it has also raised unemployment and brought on a mild business recession. Unaccustomed to such tight money, Turkey's merchants have had to dig into their gold hoards to meet current costs. Farmers, promised cement and sugar-beet plants by Menderes, now talk openly against Gursel when there are no soldiers around. There is grumbling, too, over the fact that the army is still making occasional arrests for "antirevolutionary activities," a vague charge theoretically punishable by death and thus a powerful damper on the right to dissent.

Late last week, in apparent reaction to the mounting unrest, Gursel and his junta abruptly fired ten of Turkey's 17 civilian Cabinet ministers (one key man retained: able Foreign Minister Selim Sarper). Blandly, General Gursel explained that "these men carried burdens for three months, and now it is felt that others should take over." The old Cabinet was admittedly ill-trained and uninspiring, largely because Gursel bars from office any official who has ties to either the Democratic or Republican parties. But for the same reason, superior replacements are likely to be hard to find. General Gursel, like all Turkish army men, prides himself on being "apolitical"--and political adroitness seemed indeed what was lacking.

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