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Recent Presidential elections; 
I remember well in April 1973 when after many rounds the parliament had not elected a President , a frustrated columnist in Milliyet wrote that he might as well study Byzantine history to comprehend what was going on .
Following the 1971 memorandum by the Turkish military , which had forced Prime Minister Demirel to resign ,a national Government under the military's shadow was in place to conduct the 1973 Presidential elections .The pugnacious and ambitious Gen Faruk Gurler , a major force behind the memorandum , first made Chief of General Staff (CGS) Gen Tamac hand over a day before the due date and took over as the new CGS . He then resigned and presented himself as the Military's candidate to replace President Cevdet Sunay, also a former CGS.
Demirel and Bulent Ecevit , leaders of the 2 major political formations with other politicians , in spite of the Military brass occupying the parliament galleries ,gave a stunning display of Byzantine intrigue at its best , with the Parliament going through the motions of voting round after another round .Inconclusively. The politicians tired out the now unsure and somewhat divided Military in a virtuoso performance, which would have made their Byzantine ancestors proud . Finally, a compromise was reached on a retired and innocuous Naval Commander Fahri Koruturk , who was installed the new President. A rejected and dejected Gurler died a few years later, forgotten and unsung.
At the end of bloody 1970s during which intra- religious , intra -ethnic and left right violence left tens of thousands dead in Turkey, leaving its polity scarred and divided , in April 1980 President Koruturk's term ended , but Demirel and Ecevit would not agree on a candidate . For five months hundreds of rounds of voting were conducted in the Parliament , without any result .This was a display of clannish obstinacy and total abdication of political responsibility .
Gen Kenan Evren then took over in September 1980 much to everyone's relief , banned political parties and debarred political leaders. As a measure of abundant caution ,the 1983 Constitution prepared under the military regime provided dissolution of the Parliament if it fails to elect a new President after four rounds . Gen. Evren stayed head of state until 1989. In 1992 , on my return to Ankara when I lauded some politicians for their defiance of the military in 1973,they complained that , yes , but the military had handled them roughly by jailing them in 1980.
It is as if the custodians of Ataturk's secular legacy , merit based Armed Forces since the days of Janissaries , modernized by the French and the Germans during late Ottoman era and since 1950s as part of NATO, are trying to guide Turkish society towards modernity and western contemporary values, a polity with tribal overlay over a Byzantine past and nature , from chaos and obduracy to conformity and order. Even by changing the Constitutions , thrice in the last 40 years ; a liberal 1961 Constitution was replaced in 1983 by one restricting freedoms .
The elections of last three civilian Presidents i.e. of Turgut Ozal in 1989, Demiral in 1993, both politicians and former head of the Supreme Court Ahmet Sezer in 2007 were peaceful and orderly affairs.
 K Gajendra Singh, Indian ambassador (retired), served as ambassador to Turkey and Azerbaijan from August 1992 to April 1996. Prior to that, he served terms as ambassador to Jordan, Romania and Senegal. He is currently chairman of the Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies.
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