Word: demirel
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...house, thereby preventing a quorum. With just 209 seats in the 450-member lower house, Ecevit's Republican People's Party depends on the uncertain support of independents to maintain a slim majority. Meanwhile, Ecevit is under constant attack by burly, gladhanding former Premier Süleyman Demirel, whose Justice Party has 177 parliamentary seats but can muster enough support from independents to threaten the government on any important vote...
Eager to return to power, Demirel blames Ecevit for the fact that Turkey is threatened by bankruptcy. The country has exhausted its foreign exchange reserves, faces $13 billion in foreign debts, and total exports earnings ($2.3 billion last year) barely cover the cost of imported oil. A group of 24 nations, led by the U.S., West Germany, Britain and France, agreed last month to provide $1.5 billion in emergency assistance. That aid was contingent on Turkish acceptance of an austerity program proposed by the International Monetary Fund...
...their parliamentary squabbling, Ecevit and Demirel are divided more by personal animosity than by ideology. Demirel, by profession an engineer, generally favors free-enterprise solutions. Ecevit, a poet and the son of a university professor, leans toward mildly socialist ones. Turkey's real problem, though, is that neither party is strong enough to govern effectively. Still, Ecevit sounded optimistic about his own political future and that of his strategically important country in an interview with TIME Rome Bureau Chief Wilton Wynn...
...parliament commands a solid majority, many politicians believe the only hope for a strong government that could impose national belt-tightening lies in a grand coalition between the two biggest political groups: Ecevit's social-democratic Republican People's Party and the main opposition, former Premier Suleyman Demirel's conservative Justice Party. In response to public outrage over the Ipekçj assassinations last week, there were some signs of renewed political moves toward such a government of national unity, even though Ecevit and Demirel are notorious personal antagonists...
...government. Currently, Turkey's inflation is 35%, and unemployment is a huge 20% of the labor force. The nation is also gripped by political terrorism involving extremists of both the left and the right -the latter thought to be encouraged by the ultrarightist Nationalist Action Party, which Demirel had been forced to include in his coalition...