The man Turks trust: Kemal Dervis

摘要

"It was very important to me to be top of the class, so that I would be chosen to carry the Turkish flag at the end of the week," reminisces Turkey's freshly resigned former economy minister about his primary-school years on bucolic Buyukada island, in the sea of Marmara near Istanbul. Today, Kemal Dervis says his most cherished goal is to "establish a convergence of centre-left forces that would achieve the conditions under which Turkey can overcome its economic difficulties and pursue our road towards Europe and a modern and free society". Since announcing his departure from Bulent Ecevit's government last week, Turkey's most popular pro-secular public figure―he hates to be called a politician―has been seeking to do just that. Technocrat though he was and is, with no experience of down-to-earth electoral politics, he has been urging trade-union leaders and minor leftish politicians to forget their differences and unite (with him, though that is not how he puts it) against the likely victor of the general election on November 3rd: Recep Tayyip Erdogan, an ex-mayor of Istanbul, whose enemies call him, over his fierce denials, an Islamist.