Daily Times

Recep Tayyip Erdogan is not one to let the small matter of an ongoing state of emergency, imposed by his own hand, stand in the way of democracy’s trappings. Indeed, the man who has ruled Turkey for the last 15 years — first as Prime Minister and then President — featured prominently in both the presidential and parliamentary elections that took place over the weekend.

His securing close to 53 percent of the vote was enough to comfortably return him to the presidency. Moreover, the People’s Alliance — a bloc between Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) — won a parliamentary majority.

Yet the significance of these polls is that Erdogan has become the country’s first-ever executive president. This is not a question of a ceremonious title. Far from it. This new system was constitutionally introduced last year by way of a referendum that may or may not have been rigged. And it allows the President to run a one-man show.

For thus armed with his new powers, Erdogan may legitimately abolish the role of Prime Minister and with it the accompanying checks-and-balances that a parliamentary paradigm provides. He will also have the authority to appoint unelected Vice Presidents, high-level officials, senior judges as well as dissolve Parliament itself and impose a state of emergency. Though the latter is something Erdogan is familiar with; having done exactly this back in July 2016 in response to a failed coup attempt against him.

This is autocracy by every name. And it is bad news for the Turkish citizenry.  Not least because it will likely have dashed once and for all the collective hope of joining the European Union. Indeed, as recently as April of this year the EU Commission’s annual report on Turkish progress towards bloc membership painted a grim picture of a nation rapidly veering away from democracy, the protection of human rights and freedom of expression. The report has been described as the EU’s harshest criticism of Ankara to date.

Yet this seems of little import to Erdogan. Not least because the question of Turkish membership of the Christian club of Europe has been hanging in the balance for three decades and has served to repeatedly humiliate the country which was formally admitted into the NATO club back in 1952. All of which has led Ankara to increasingly focus on its near backyard. From recent forays into ‘resolving’ the Syrian conflict to talking tough to Tel Aviv on Gaza. Though the opposition have slammed the latter as empty political gestures given that Erdogan did not have the bottle to go all out and boycott Israeli products.

Be that as it may, what the region is witnessing is a resurgent Turkey manoeuvring to take its place at the big boy table. And while this is being presented to the people as imperative to countering the prevailing hegemony — all the majority of the 80 million-strong people can see is the increased curbing of their fundamental rights.

As well as the untimely reminder that elections a democracy do not make.  *

Published in Daily Times, June 26^th 2018.