Daily Times

With democracy comes autocracy. However, democracy is for the people, with the people and by the people. This may be considered a hackneyed cliché but is perhaps the real test for any democracy. With the recent army coup in Turkey being defeated by the people of Turkey the true spirit of democracy is under debate again. Turkey even more than Pakistan has a military history with four military coups between 1960-2016, three of them succeeding but the fourth and most recent of them failing. Turkey in many ways is a case study of how a nation perched geographically and ideologically between the east and the west has tried to balance its priorities precariously. That was and remains the challenge, as it is perceived that losing this balance resulted in a rebellion by a powerful army group against Recep Tayyip Erdoðan.

Modern Turkey, founded on the ashes of the Ottoman Empire by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, was designed from the ground up to be a moderate, democratic state. In fact, his name was Mustafa Kemal, but he was named the father of the Turks, as he took a hardline stance against religious extremists. Kemalism, the set of reforms he promoted, included secularism. He was a revolutionary who sought to break ties with the old order. He did not want Turkey to be bound up in anything that would hold the country back from modern progress. When this balance is tilted and progress is stifled, more than the courts and the constitution, it is the Turkish army that has traditionally envisaged itself as the saviour and custodian of the Ataturk legacy and ideology. However, there are researches that show that both Ataturk and Erdoðan in different ways have used the religious card to win conservative votes and accumulate power.

Erdoðan came into power in 2003, and is responsible for turning around the Turkish economy. His achievements in making Turkey count both to Europe and to the Middle East are no small achievements. In 10 years the Turkish economy grew 64 percent, and the per capita income 43 percent. Turkey was a debt-ridden economy, and the IMF and World Bank had overtaken policy making the way they have done in Pakistan. Erdoðan’s debt management policies paid off almost 23 billion dollars of debt in 10 years as he asked the IMF to leave Turkey, and to borrow from Turkey instead. The federal reserves that were $26.5 billion in 2002 increased to $92.2 billion in a decade. Inflation decreased from 32 percent to nine percent.

These measures made Erdoðan popular with the public, and helped him win two elections as the prime minister. Turkey, some said, also followed the geo-economic model of Dubai, making it a hub for both Europe and the Middle East. The Emirates airline became a symbol of class and comfort, and made Dubai the stopover for people form all around the world. The Turkish Airlines was following the same model to attract tourists, investors, and travellers. Tourism boomed. What Dubai could not offer in terms of culture and history Turkey did. In the Muslim world after Malaysia, Turkey became the role model of progress and public welfare.

Erdoðan realised that economic development without human development was not sustainable. Education became a priority. The budget for education was increased to become the highest allocation with the number of universities increasing from 98 to 186 in 10 years. Health care became a huge focus. A Green Card health care system was introduced that gave free health care to the poor. Thus after five decades of deterioration Turkey bounced back, and became a top performing G20 country within a decade under Erdoðan.

However, the story is not all a bed of roses. Success is addictive and power is intoxicating. Over a period of time Erdoðan had become insecure of losing this glorified position of the saviour of Turkey, and the thought of losing it made him do all those things leaders do when fears of not being in power make them hoard power in a ruthless manner. As his three terms as prime minister had finished, he fought election as president and won. The president in the Turkish constitution is a ceremonial post with minimal powers, and Erdoðan tried to change the constitution to give more powers to the position of president but failed. This has made him more insecure, and he has tried to control the three major institutions that matter: media, courts and army. He has identified non-loyalists in the army and courts, and replaced them with people he thinks will bow to his whims. Similarly, press freedom has been curbed, and Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have been frequently blocked in retaliation of criticism piled against him.

These steps made Erdoðan more dictatorial in his approach, and gave an opportunity for some ranks in the army to encash upon this public unrest. However, neither the majority of the army nor the majority of the public was in favour of this coup for it to be successful. The army has enough conservative support for Erdoðan to fight the opposing forces within, and the public does not see an alternative leader in Turkey whom they can be sure of delivering better than Erdoðan. So does that mean that it is all safe and sound for Erdoðan and democracy? Not really. Erdoðan has come back more insecure and dictatorial with a vengeance. He has declared a three-month state of emergency. He has detained 2,700 judges, banned deans of major universities and arrested thousands of army personnel and scores of media people.

Lessons for a leader wishing to learn would be to go back to the foundations of democracy. It was Erdoðan’s focus for providing socioeconomic benefit to the Turks that made him successful, and it would be enhancement of the same that would secure his position. Reliance on institutional and constitutional infiltration is not a durable leadership anchor. Public welfare is the only enduring recipe for fulfilling the true democratic spirit of letting the power of people rule over the people in power.

The writer is a columnist and an analyst, and she can be reached at andleeb.abbas1@gmail.com