madam president turkey's political system is sufficiently mature now to be considered a pluralist democracy
political debate is robust and voters have a genuine choice
moreover turkey is a member of the council of europe which of course binds its government to common standards of democracy human rights and the rule of law
evidently a stable and permanent democracy is a precondition for eventual membership of the eu
there are now however perhaps two areas of concern
the first is turkey's history of military intervention in the political process
while the army is undoubtedly an important guarantor of secularism and stability any attempt to undermine an elected government would scupper turkey's eu ambitions for good
the second concern is the dominance of the akp in the political landscape which leads some observers to fear the gradual development of a de facto one-party state
provided that happens democratically we cannot object even if some have expressed concerns about the relatively high threshold for parliamentary representation at ten in turkey which of course squeezes smaller parties out of the parliamentary process
however the akp's mildly islamist leanings also give rise to concern in the views of some and the party's popularity tends to indicate a fundamental paradigm shift in the nature of turkish society
until now the secular kemalist tradition has served turkey's euro-atlantic leanings very well but its gradual decline due to demographic changes would tend to indicate that those who believe in the power of ataturk's vision have rather taken it too much for granted
for the good of turkish society democracy needs to be pluralist secular and built on a bed-rock of respect for human rights including those of its kurdish minorities
one concern in addition of course is turkey's membership of the organisation of the islamic conference oic where such common western values as we all share in the european union are not evident because the oic cites sharia law as a basis for human rights in the islamic world
this in my view will also generate some serious conflicts of interest were turkey one day to join the european union
