Less than white?

Sep 18th 2008 | ANKARA
From The Economist print edition

A growing row over claims of government corruption

LEADERS of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development (AK) party like to boast that their acronym means “white” or “clean” in Turkish. No longer so. A succession of corruption allegations is sullying AK’s image of probity.

Much mud is being flung over a scandal involving a Turkish charity, Deniz Feneri (“Lighthouse” in Turkish). On September 17th a German court convicted three Turkish men involved in the charity of siphoning off €18.6m ($26m). The money had been raised ostensibly to help needy Muslims, among them Palestinians, Turkish slum-dwellers and refugees in Pakistan. Instead the court found that some funds went to buy real estate in Turkey.

Opponents of the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, claim that some money was funnelled to Kanal 7, an Istanbul-based television channel with close ties to the government. The court, however, found no evidence of links to AK.

Mr Erdogan has turned his ire on Aydin Dogan, the owner of Turkey’s biggest media conglomerate, whose newspapers and television channels have led the way in reporting the Lighthouse scandal. Mr Erdogan claims the media group is stirring up the controversy because AK refused to grant Mr Dogan favours for his other business interests, including a permit to build luxury residences on land around Istanbul’s Hilton hotel. The prime minister has denounced Mr Dogan’s journalists as “dishonourable” and “lowly sell-outs”. Such has been his vehemence that one bemused European ambassador wondered: “Might it be that Ramadan fasting has weakened his nerves?”

The Dogan group has in the past been accused of using its media muscle for commercial advantage. Moreover, some Dogan titles, notably the flagship daily,Hürriyet, had been among the biggest cheerleaders of the secularists’ political campaign against AK. In July the party narrowly avoided a ban for breaching constitutional rules against Islamism.

Now some claims of corruption are beginning to stick. Earlier this month an AK deputy, Saban Disli, resigned from a top party post after being accused of receiving a million-dollar kickback from a land developer. “This is just the tip of the iceberg,” asserts Yilmaz Ates, a deputy for the main opposition Republican People’s Party, which unearthed the deal.

Ali Bulac, a prominent Islamist intellectual, says the Lighthouse scandal has “triggered trauma” among Mr Erdogan’s core of pious supporters. Matters have not been helped by his attempts to promote Mr Dogan’s rivals. These include Calik Holding, which recently acquired Turkey’s second largest media group, Sabah-ATV, thanks to generous loans from a state-owned bank. Mr Erdogan’s 29-year-old son-in-law is Calik’s chief executive.

Despite the uproar, opinion polls suggest that Mr Erdogan’s popularity far outstrips that of his rivals, with around 50% of the vote. Meanwhile, shares in Dogan Holding have fallen sharply as investors worry that the row with the government could damage its $8 billion empire.