On the evening of March 30th Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Prime Minister of Turkey, addressed a cheering crowd in the center of Ankara. Over the excited chants and animated flag waving, Erdogan proclaimed, “My brothers; I thank each of you because you have protected the ideal of a great Turkey and the targets of a great Turkey. You have supported your prime minister, your party, the politics, your own future with your own will.”[i]
Prime Minister Erdogan was not, in fact, up for reelection in March; this last election cycle merely served to elect the mayors of city, district, and town municipalities. However, amidst the widespread protests and corruption scandals that have plagued the nation in the preceding months, the local elections were predicted to be a referendum on the Prime Minister himself and the rule of his party, known as the Justice and Development Party or the AKP. Opposition hopes that the local elections would push the AKP out of positions of local control were dashed; despite vocal disapproval for the ruling party, the AKP managed to pull 45% of the popular vote- a strong plurality- and captured key cities including Istanbul, the home base of many government protestors.[ii] Oral Çalışlar, a columnist for the Turkish newspaper Radikal, declared, “The real world defeated the cyber world.”[iii]
Of course, opposition parties and government protestors are questioning whether the AKP truly did manage to capture such a large vote share. The defeated parties are crying foul at possible election fraud and note the possibility of strategic power outages at voting booths in Ankara and elsewhere.[iv] However, many pre-election opinion polls, including one by the Brookings Institute, predicted an AKP victory.[v] In addition, The Economist notes that, “there are many reasons for Mr. Erdogan’s electoral success. To many, AK means financial stability and competent management. ‘They may steal but they also get things done,’ is a frequent line from voters.”[vi] Therefore, it is certainly possible that the AKP managed to hold on to the conservative majority despite recent social tensions.
Tensions have been high in Turkey following last summer’s Gezi Park Protests, which escalated from an environmentalist demonstration to a full blown social movement opposing limitations to freedom of the press.[vii] Protests were reignited this March following the death of Berkin Elvan, a 15 year old boy who fell into a prolonged coma after being struck by a police tear gas canister during the crossfire of a protest in June. Prime Minister Erdogan did not sooth matters, pronouncing that Elvan had “taken up with terror organizations.”[viii] Furthermore, drags to the Turkish economy have further strained relations within the country. The unemployment rate has been on the rise since July and currently hovers at the ten percent mark.[ix] In January, in an attempt to counteract the plummeting value of the lira, the Turkish Central Bank raised the overnight lending rate from 7.75% to 12.5%.[x] The Economist notes that, “During AK’s time in power, GDP per head has tripled in real terms… [but] The IMF reckons trend growth has dropped from 7% to 3%, too low to stop unemployment rising.”[xi]
In the past year, theft and corruption have been two of the heftiest charges against the AKP, a socially conservative party which first came to power in the 2002 election cycle and is often linked to Islamism. A corruption scandal broke in December following the disintegration of relations between the AKP and the Gülen Movement, an Islamic social movement that promotes interfaith dialogue and education. Erdogan and the leader of the movement, Fethulla Gülen, had been allied since 2002. During their alliance, according to Gareth Jenkins, “In return for their political support, Erdoğan had allowed Gülen sympathizers to establish a substantial presence in the police and the judicial apparatus, which they then used to prosecute and imprison hundreds of their perceived critics and rivals.”[xii] However, the partnership collapsed between the two organizations and on December 17th, “pro-Gülen prosecutors ordered the arrest of 51 businesspeople – all of them with close connections to the AKP leadership – on charges of corruption and contract-rigging.”[xiii] The Gülen Movement has also been accused of releasing recordings on YouTube that reveal corruption within the AKP inner circle.[xiv] The split was followed by a purge of Gülenist supporters from the judiciary branch, during which time 400 judicial officials and 10,000 police officers lost their jobs.[xv] Erdogan also pushed forward a law that abolished the dershane school system, a major recruiting tool of the Gülen Movement.[xvi]
Erdogan responded to growing criticism by implementing a new internet censorship law, which more strictly regulates the internet, and by temporarily banning access to Twitter and YouTube in the country.[xvii] Speaking on the transition of the power over the courts from Gülenist prosecutors to AKP loyalists, Gareth Jenkins from Silk Road Studies notes that “the cases have demonstrated that the fate of those brought before the courts is ultimately not determined by the principles of due process or the rule of law but by political power. All that appears likely to change following Erdogan’s purges is the identity of who wields this power.”[xviii] Such actions do not speak very positively for the fate of rule of law in Turkey.
In his victory speech on March 30th, Erdogan declared that he would pursue his enemies, remarking, “We will enter their lair. They will pay for this.”[xix] Although these words are mainly aimed at the leaders of the Gülen Movement, they ring ominously for any secularist protestor who has participated in an anti-government demonstration in the last year. Perhaps most interestingly, Erdogan proceeds to address the Gülenists directly: “Weren’t you positioned against democracy? Democracy has won at the ballot box today. The will has won at the ballot box.”[xx]
Erdogan has made it clear that he considers last March’s election results to be an ironclad mandate from the people affirming the AKP’s rule. What he intends to do with this mandate is less obvious but does not speak well for Turkey’s democracy. While most elected leaders view their election as a popular mandate to install their own political program, the AKP’s past implies that Erdogan does not believe that this has to be within the confines of the law or the democratic process. This marks the beginning of a vicious cycle that has marred Turkey’s political scene since the opening of multiparty elections in 1946: a leader or party is elected through solely democratic means and then proceeds to use that power to dismantle secularist democracy. This process has been halted by military involvement up through 1997. In the 1990s political theorist Ernest Gellner described this quandary in the Turkish political system as “either you give up on democracy and in doing so contradict the principles you are supposed to be applying, or else you implement it, in which case you allow people to win who will, in turn, betray it.”[xxi]
Following the March local elections, the fate of Turkey’s future is still uncertain. Dissenters have continued to protest the election results and economic conditions may worsen in the coming months. Reports indicate that Erdogan may be planning to disregard the AKP’s term limits and run for a fourth term in the general elections this August.[xxii] Though the local election results seem to point to a sweeping AKP victory in those elections, much may change in the interim. Some sources predict that Erdogan’s long term goal is to do away with the parliamentary system in favor of a more American presidential system with stronger executive power, a change that would require two thirds of the parliament.[xxiii] Such a move would surely infuriate the liberal minority in the nation, who may be effectively left without a political voice and in turn may respond with more violent protests. Whatever changes, it seems likely that instability will remain. In 1995, Ernest Gellner predicted that Turkey’s vicious political cycle had finally been put to an end; 66 years after the establishment of democracy, it’s clear that the cycle continues.
[i] “Full Text: Turkish PM Erdogan’s Post-Election ‘Balcony Spech’”, Hurriyet Daily News (30 March 2014).
[ii] “A Referendum on Erdogan’s Rule”, The Economist (31 March 2014).
[iii] The Turkey Analyst, “What the Columnist’s Say” Silk Road Studies (26 March 2014).
[iv] Daniel Dombey, “Turkey Election Fraud Claims Emerge As Twitter Ban is Dropped”, Financial Times (3 April 2014).
[v] Ali Carkoglu, “Turkey Goes to the Ballot Box: 2014 Municipal Elections and Beyond”, Brookings Institute, Center on the United States and Europe (March 2014).
[vi] “Erdogan on a Role”, The Economist (April 5th 2014).
[vii] “Turkey Clashes: Why are Gezi Park and Taksim Square so Important?” BBC News (7 June 2014).
[viii] “Berkan Elvan: Turkish PM Accuses Dead Boy of Terror Links”, BBC News (15 March 2014).
[ix] “Turkey Unemployment Rate”, Trading Economics (March 2014).
[x] “The Limits of Turkey’s Interest Rate Hike”, Forbes (30 Jan. 2014).
[xi] “The Battle for Turkey’s Future”, The Economist (29 March 2014)
[xii] Gareth Jenkins, “The Repercussions of the AKP’s Local Election Victory”, The Turkey Analyst, Silk Road Studies (9 April 2014).
[xiii] Ibid
[xiv] Berna Turam, “Gulen, Erdogan, and Democracy in Turkey”, Al-Jazeera (13 March 2014).
[xv] Jenkins, Repercussions
[xvi] Gareth Jenkins, “The Ergenekon Releases and Prospects for the Rule of Law in Turkey”, The Turkey Analyst, Silk Road Studies (12 March 2014).
[xvii] “Istanbul Clashes Over Turkey’s New Internet Laws”, BBC News (8 Feb. 2014).
[xviii] Jenkins, Rule of Law
[xix] Full Text, Hurriyet News
[xx] Ibid
[xxi] Ernest Gellner, “The Turkish Option in Comparative Politics,” Rethinking Modernity and National Identity in Turkey (1997).
[xxii] Humeyra Pamuk and Ece Toksaby, “Turkey’s Erdogan Sees More Powerful Presidency After August Vote”, Reuters (8 April 2014).
[xxiii] Ibid
