Ending Turkey's Democracy

By Henry Srebrnik, [Saint John, NB] Telegraph-Journal
 

Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s re-election as President of Turkey on June 24 came as no surprise. He has now ruled Turkey as either president or prime minister for more than fifteen years. 

Muharrem İnce, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) candidate had hoped to force Erdogan into a second round run-off for the presidency, but failed. Erdogan won outright in the first round with 52.6 per cent of the vote. 

In the parliamentary voting, Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost some ground, but its alliance with the Turkish ultra-nationalist National Movement Party (MHP) provided it with 344 seats in the new 600-seat parliament. (The MHP, naturally, supports Erdogan’s renewed war against Kurdish separatists in the southeast of the country.)

How fair was this election?  You can guess.  Not only was the president the beneficiary of overwhelming support from both state and corporate media, but one of the candidates, Selahattin Demirtas of the left-wing pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), who came third, was in prison. 

Ince, who 30.6 per cent, said Turkey was now entering a dangerous period of “one-man rule.” But Erdogan called the election result a “lesson in democracy to all the world.”

Nor should we forget the purges and mass arrests that have taken placed since the failed military coup in July 2016, with thousands jailed or in exile – almost 152,000 have been dismissed from the public service alone. 

Erdogan’s AKP has to a large extent co-opted the organs of the state. It runs a countrywide network of patronage, charities, religious orders and “youth groups.” 

The passing of a new constitution, approved by referendum in November 2017, has granted him sweeping powers to run the country largely uncontested. Parliament has been weakened and the post of prime minister abolished.

The president can now appoint the head of the National Intelligence Agency, the Religious Affairs Directorate and the Central Bank, as well as ambassadors, governors and university rectors. He has also placed the chief of staff of the armed forces under control of the Defence Ministry.

Erdogan sees himself presiding over a “great transformation” that will undo the secularization imposed on the state by its founder, Kemal Ataturk, and make it once again an Islamic power. 

The Islamization of the state has been going on for many years, but its pace has increased, with a focus on the education system; Erdogan wants to raise a “pious generation.”

Last year Erdogan made substantial changes to school curricula, and after 2016 fired more than 33,000 teachers and closed scores of schools over claims that they had ties with those involved in the coup attempt.

Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag has described Erdogan as a leader “who exerts himself for the sake of God.” He is trying to leave a legacy that will last for decades. Turkey to all intents and purposes is in its Second Republic, this time a neo-Ottoman one.