Erdogan Jumps out of the Frying Pan, into the Fire , Henri J. Barkey writes, and concludes that "The stability of one-party rule under the “master,” as
Erdogan’s followers call him, will prove to be illusory".
Is it so ?
Prime Minister Erdogan won the day in Turkey’s municipal elections, but his
one-party rule will be even more hotly contested as the August presidential
election approachErdogan Jumps out of the Frying Pan, into the Fire Henri J. Barkees.
Published on April 1, 2014
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan scored a victory in the March
30 municipal elections, as his party managed to hold on to Istanbul, the most
important mayoralty, and received more than 45 percent of all the votes cast.
(The city of Ankara was still being contested at the time of writing.) This is
despite a massive corruption scandal that cost four ministers their jobs and a
series of leaked conversations that revealed the Prime Minister firing and
hiring journalists and interfering in news coverage. To prevent further damage,
Erdogan also had Twitter and YouTube banned in Turkey.
There are four main conclusions that can be drawn from these
elections. First,
Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party, AKP, succeeded in defining the
election as a referendum on the Prime Minister. The opposition, buoyed
by the allegations, fell into this trap. Hence municipal elections, which were
supposed to be about local elections, were transformed into a national
plebiscite where the opposition was at a distinct disadvantage. In the answer
to the proverbial question, “Are you better off today than you were four years
ago?”, the Turkish public resoundingly said yes. This strategy also allowed the
main opposition party to dispense with concrete proposals and focus on Erdogan,
who campaigned in every corner of the country as if his life was on the line.
The Turkish opposition parties had proved wanting before and did not disappoint
this time.
Second, the AKP also succeeded
in making the political opposition seem subservient to the religious leader
Fethullah Gülen, who currently resides in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania. Gülen and his numerous followers, who had been allied with the AKP until
recently, had decided to take on Erdogan. The reasons are complex, but
fundamentally they take issue with his growing dominance at the expense of all
other societal and political forces, and also with the overt and unabashed
corruption in his government. Erdogan and his supporters denounced the
movement, which they blame for the damaging leaks, as an alien organization
that had infiltrated the country, a parallel state that was usurping their
legitimate authority. The government rebranded itself as victim when all the
while it was engaged in a bitter, scorched earth counterattack.
Third, this election
undermined the one assurance that had hitherto prevailed in Turkey: that elections
(with the exception of the Kurdish areas where the army constantly manipulated
the votes in the past) were always fair and clean. Hours after
the votes began to be counted, government opponents questioned results in many
localities. There were power outages in many districts during the count (one
minister, absurdly, blamed a cat), misreporting of results, attacks on
pro-Gülen and other opposition media outlets, and countless other reports of
irregularities. Many volunteers were mobilized to challenge the results,
especially in Ankara and selected districts in Istanbul. Unlike the 2000
Florida recount debacle, where in the end the results were accepted even if
begrudgingly, this bodes poorly for the future and the legitimacy of Turkish
elections. Unless the AKP
allows the Supreme Electoral Council to respond in a constitutionally
legitimate manner to the voting irregularities, the damage to the system will
be enduring. Turkey lacks the wherewithal to deal with such massive challenges.
Finally and most importantly, these elections have polarized the country in an unprecedented manner.
Whereas people who disliked Erdogan and his party had accepted his leadership
precisely because he had emerged from fair elections, he is increasingly
regarded as illegitimate. His authoritarian behavior has alienated many, but
especially the urban and tech-savvy professionals. Erdogan and his supporters
likewise dismiss their opponents as illegitimate; they are traitors, tools of
foreign powers, and deserve prosecution. Turkey resembles Venezuela today. Erdogan’s
victory speech was anything but magnanimous—in contrast to previous such
occasions. He repeated his promise to root out members of the “parallel state”
from politics and institutions. The problem, of course, is that membership in
the “parallel state” is in the eye of the beholder; anyone who has criticized
him or otherwise attacked him is eligible. Erdogan went so far as to predict
that many of his opponents would leave the country—an echo of his opponents’
earlier claims to the effect that he would have seek refuge abroad. A professor
friend of mine who had observed the vote tallies at various precincts told me
that after the AKP victory she would not be surprised if she were fired from
her job. Such is the climate of fear.
The next battle in this war will begin quite soon. Erdogan has to decide
whether or not to run for the presidency in August. For the first time in
Turkish history the President will be directly elected by the people, and the
victor must cross the 50 percent threshold. The AKP’s haul of 45 percent of the
vote is perfectly respectable, but it still comes up short of the 48–49 percent
he was coveting.
Ideally, Erdogan would like to assume the presidency and install a
subservient person at the helm of the AKP and government. He has an important
obstacle here: his long-time colleague, co-founder of the AKP and current
President, Abdullah Gül. Gül would either like to stay President or become
Prime Minister. With the
opposition unable to check Erdogan’s power, Gül has emerged as the de facto
balancer to Erdogan. Is Erdogan willing to compromise? We will know soon
enough.
Erdogan may have vanquished
his opponents at home for the time being, but he has not recovered from the
self-inflicted damage he has incurred abroad. The Erdogan
brand is severely damaged and diminished. His outlandish accusations against
his allies for fomenting coups against him, his open interference in the media,
and his ban on social media outlets have made Europe and the United States question
his reliability as a partner. He may try to assuage their concerns by opening
dialogues with Cyprus and
Israel, but it is unlikely that he would be taken seriously as a player.
He will be treated merely as the current leader of an important ally.
Will the opposition in Turkey learn from its defeat? Don’t bet on it. One
thing Erdogan got right in his victory speech was that, no matter what the
latest election results are in Turkey, losers never seem to resign and give way to new blood and
fresh ideas. The
Nationalist Action Party leader has led his party for almost 17 years despite
the fact that his party vote has never passed 15 percent. Similarly, the main
opposition party leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu of the Republican People’s Party,
has indicated that he not only has no intention of making any changes but also
that he stands ready to contest any surprise national election the government
may call. Go figure.
Related to the upcoming presidential elections is the Kurdish peace
process. In order to pass the 50 percent threshold, Erdogan needs Kurdish votes. The municipal
elections made it abundantly clear that the pro-Kurdish party, the People’s
Democracy Party, now completely controls the Kurdish regions in an almost
contiguous manner. The Kurds will expect significant compromises from Erdogan
before agreeing to cast their votes for him.
Increased polarization, with each side vilifying the other, is likely to
intensify Erdogan’s already pronounced authoritarian tendencies. It remains to
be seen how wide and deep his post-election revenge will be. He may further
punish businesses, as he has already done in selective cases, for supporting
the opposition, whether in the March elections or in the earlier
anti-government demonstrations of May and June 2013.
Turkey is in for a rough ride as both sides mobilize for a “war to the
end.” Suspicion, fear, and retribution are likely to be the dominant themes of
the coming months. The stability of one-party rule under the “master,” as
Erdogan’s followers call him, will prove to be illusory.
Henri J. Barkey is a professor of
international relations at Lehigh University.
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