ANKARA – 64-year-old President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan created history bybecoming the longest serving ruler of Turkey. So far, that distinctionbelonged to Mustafa Kemal ‘Atatürk’, the founder of the Turkish republic,its first president from 1923 till his death in 1938.
Mr. Erdoğan was Prime Minister from 2003 till 2014, when he was electedPresident. Having successfully conducted a referendum in April last year toconvert Turkey link>intoan executive presidency, he advanced the elections, which were not due tillNovember 2019, to now return as an all-powerful President. Under theamended constitution, he can have two terms, and with another win in 2023,he could remain in position till 2028.
Reversing Atatürk’s legacy
The collapse of the Ottoman empire with the end of World War I was thetectonic event that had enabled the founding of the Turkish republic andempowered Atatürk to transform Turkish society. He imposed Western norms ofdress, Roman script for the language and a European legal system andcalendar, converting the former Islamic caliphate into a secular republic.He was a popularly elected leader but implemented many of his reforms,which often generated opposition, with a degree of authoritarianism asAtatürk (Father of the Turks).[image: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivers a referendumvictory speech to his supporters at Ankara Esenboga Airport on April 17,2017.]
In many ways, Mr. Erdoğan is taking Turkey through a change of similarmagnitude. He became Mayor of Istanbul in 1994 on the strength of thepro-Islamist Refah (Welfare Party), which was banned in 1998 and he wasjailed for ‘inciting religious hatred’. He re-emerged to set up themoderate Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2001. Under hisrule, Turkey has softened its secular image by giving greater importance toIslam. His anti-West rhetoric, sharper after an unsuccessful coup in July2016, marks a significant shift from a Western-oriented North AtlanticTreaty Organisation (NATO) member state negotiating for European Union (EU)membership to one seeking to join a Russia-China dominated ShanghaiCooperation Organisation. Traditional elites in the judiciary, military andcivil service, often described as those identified with Kemalism andbelonging to the urban, secular, Western-oriented intellectual classes, arebeing replaced by the more religiously oriented, conservative, provinciallyoriented elite. These changes have already begun and with another decadeahead, Mr. Erdoğan is set to change the nature of the Turkish republic.
An all-powerful president
It is clear that Mr. Erdoğan’s gamble in advancing the elections andestablishing an electoral alliance between his pro-Islamic AKP and theultra-nationalist right-wing Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) has paid off.In the presidential election,link>he ensured afirst round victory by winning 53% of the vote. In the parliamentaryelections, the AKP won 42% of the vote, giving it 295 seats in the600-member legislature. Together with 48 seats of the MHP, it provides acomfortable majority though it will be the first time in 16 years that theAKP will depend on a coalition partner. Elections were peaceful but hardlyfair, having been conducted under a state of emergency, though an 87%turnout lends credibility to Mr. Erdoğan’s victory.
Coming after the constitutional referendum undertaken last April, Turkeywill now have an executive presidency. With the abolition of the post ofthe Prime Minister, Mr. Erdoğan is both head of state and head ofgovernment link>withthe power to appoint one or more vice presidents and cabinet members. ThePresident will continue to head the AKP, can rule by decree and enjoys fullpowers to dissolve parliament. Theoretically, the parliament is empoweredto investigate wrongdoings by the President to impeach him with two-thirdsmajority but this requires approval by the Supreme Court, where 12 of the15 judges are presidential appointees.
Mr. Erdoğan had made his preference for an executive presidency clear soonafter he took over in 2014 after being Prime Minister for 11 years. Theunsuccessful coup attempt (2016) reinforced his convictions and providedthe opportunity. Fethullah Gülen, a cleric in exile in the U.S. for twodecades, was held responsible and a purge of his supporters followed. Morethan 100,000 government officials have been dismissed by decree and another50,000 are in jail pending trials. These include more than a thousandmilitary officers (over a hundred of rank of general) accused of complicityin the coup. Nearly 200 media outlets suspected of Gulenist leanings havebeen closed, and 120 journalists are in detention. During the early yearsin power, Mr. Erdoğan had worked closely with the Gulenists to break thestranglehold of the secular Kemalists, particularly in the military and thejudiciary. The relationship broke down in 2013 when Mr. Erdoğan’s familymembers were subjected to investigations involving influence-peddling andcorruption, ostensibly by Gulenist sympathisers who were increasinglytroubled by Mr. Erdoğan’s authoritarian tendencies.
Growing challenges
Even with the domestic political opposition decimated and in disarray, Mr.Erdoğan faces tough challenges, both at home and abroad. Turkey’s economyhas slowed down in recent years. Inflation is in double digits and, in 2018the Turkish lira has declined by 20% in value. This has raised foreign debtlevels even as stories about cronyism do the rounds negatively impactingthe investment climate. Yet interest rates have been kept low for politicalreasons and this is unlikely to change till the municipal elections inMarch next year. The reason is that the large cities like Istanbul, Ankaraand Izmir are the places which opposed the referendum and also votedagainst the AKP.
Turkey vigorously supported the Arab Spring hoping to use the AKP’s tieswith the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), which had become stronger, as a lever tostrengthen its role in the Arab world. This backfired as Saudi Arabialink>changedtrack quickly seeing dangers of a reformist MB gaining ground. In Egypt,the military made a comeback, welcomed by the Saudi regime. Turkey wascritical of Mohamed Morsi’s ouster as President and relations with Egyptbroke down. In the embargo coordinated by Saudi Arabia, the United ArabEmirates, Bahrain and Egypt against Qatar, Turkey has come out strongly insupport of Qatar.
The Syrian fallout
The worst fallout has been on account of Turkey’s involvement in the Syrianconflict. An early vocal supporter for the ouster of President Basharal-Assad, Turkey initially was the corridor for the stream of Islamicfighters going to Syria.link>Nearly threemillion Syrian refugees entered Turkey, creating challenges for the EUwhich is committed to paying Turkey billions to man the barricades amidgrowing tensions.
The environment dramatically changed with the growing threat of the IslamicState (IS) moving from Iraq into Syria and the establishment of theCaliphate by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2014. As the U.S. started attackingthe IS in Iraq, Russia intervened in 2015 to bolster Mr. Assad. Use of theNATO airbase at Incirlik made Turkey a target with the IS mounting a seriesof attacks, including at Istanbul airport in 2016 which claimed over 40lives.
Turkey cracked down hard on the Kurdish militants (PKK) just when the U.S.was equipping the Syrian Kurds (YPG) to take on the IS in northern Syria,leading to a spike in Kurdish militancy in Turkey and further strainingTurkey’s relations with the U.S. Mr. Erdoğan decided to get closer toRussia (and Iran)link>insteadthough the price was accepting the continuation of Mr. Assad. It isnegotiating for the S-400 anti-missile system with Russia, raising theprospects of U.S. sanctions on a NATO member.
Ironically, Mr. Erdoğan may find that even as he has become all powerful,his polarising brand of politicslink>makes it moredifficult to tackle the economic and security challenges facing thecountry. – the Hindu
*BY: Rakesh Sood is a former diplomat and currently Distinguished Fellow atObserver Research Foundation. E-mail: rakeshsood2001@yahoo.com*