The motives behind the bureaucratic assault on politics in Turkey

One recent tweet summed up the feelings of many of its own citizens about Turkey: “It would have been a very enjoyable country if only we weren’t its citizens.” Almost every day something happens to cause a stir in the country; a totally ordinary legal investigatory process that could take place in any part of the world with little public attention, for example, might turn into a huge media event in Turkey. Yet, this latest event is all the more interesting as in perhaps no other country would law-enforcement officers attack the government with such heroism and firm resolve. The so-called corruption crisis started with detentions on 17 December with charges by the public prosecutor against the ruling AK Party. In fact, as the public learned gradually from the press, there were three different investigations unrelated to each other: one investigation of the Ministry of the Environment; a second of the Fatih Municipality of Istanbul; and a third about money laundering. These investigations were started on the same day in order to have maximum public shock value with the detention of 92 people, including three sons of ministers on charges of corruption, bribery and money laundering.

In any democracy the principle of the separation of the three branches of government (executive, legislative and judiciary) is a universal value. The branches are and must be independent from each other with appropriate checks and balances. If and when one tries to undermine the other two, the system can no longer be considered as a democratic regime. It appears that the judiciary and executive branches are in conflict with each other in Turkey. This might be the result of a long-time struggle by Turkey towards a healthy democracy with its history full of military interventions and coups d’état. So, whenever a conflict emerges the branches of government react immediately to the situation and begin to claim that there is a violation of their independence. That is why the Turkish executive is standing so strongly against the judiciary’s accusations and media campaign which seeks to deny the legitimacy of an elected government just because some ministers had to resign because their sons were accused of some crimes. This denial of legitimacy cannot be accepted as it has no basis in the principle of “innocent until proven guilty”; the trials of these suspects have not even started yet. In “normal” democracies governments don’t fall if ministers’ relatives face criminal charges.

There are several historical and contemporary reasons for this struggle for power in Turkey. Historically, the country was founded on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire as a laïque (à la Française, not the Anglo-Saxon type secularism) nation state without any social contract. The founding fathers of this state wanted Turkey to imitate Western modernisation. However, this project could not be very successful as the founders failed to persuade the ordinary Turkish public, especially in rural Anatolia. During the modernisation process, other ethnic and religious communities including Kurds, Alevis and non-Muslims such as Greeks and Armenians were forced to assimilate or migrate. There was a one-party regime until the second half of the 20th century and the then ruling Republican People’s Party (CHP) could not adapt to a multi-party system as the public rejected its modernisation project continuously. The CHP could not come to power in free elections from the 1950s, with a short exception in 1974, as there was discontinuity and a huge gap between the public and the party administration. The CHP gradually became dependent on the extra-parliamentary sources in its efforts to gain office. These sources are well-known and obnoxious in a democratic regime. However, the extra-parliamentary agents realised three military coups in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s on the pretext of the imagined threats from the “regressive tendencies” of the people. These powers did not cease their interventions until recently as they realised more “post-modern” coups whenever they saw fit and found a pretext.

Perhaps it is one of the most difficult areas of politics to convince the person with a weapon in his hand to respect elected politicians. In its long, arduous and strenuous journey towards democracy Turkey has only recently succeeded in establishing an acceptable relationship between the army and politics under the current government. The opposition parties became more aware of the fact that they would not win any elections and reverted to the old tricks in the hope that they would form a government without having public support in elections as in the case of the 1997 coalition government; there was also continuous opposition from the state president, the so-called “deep-state” bureaucracy and the judiciary under the leadership of the Constitutional Court in the first years of AK Party rule. Last year, the hopes of opposition parties were raised with the Taksim Gezi Park demonstration and again these parties had to resort to young people’s democratic protests without doing their job properly within parliament.

The Turkish public has been accustomed to attempts to control and shape politics via extra-parliamentary forces for so long that they cannot be convinced easily by such operations supported by the media and judiciary directed against the ruling government. They see these attempts simply as routine smears and slander campaigns targeting the prime minister through relatives of his ministers.

The underlying reasons why he was chosen as a target are clearly his achievements in office, which have strengthened his public popularity, much to the chagrin of the opposition. The most important reason is his attempt to transform Turkey into a more healthy democracy; such efforts please the electorate and he has increased his share of the vote in the last three consecutive elections. Even so, the ruling AK Party is still being criticised – and rightly so over its failure to draft a new democratic constitution. The democratisation process was realised under the AK Party, despite accusations that it has a hidden Islamist agenda, not under the so-called Westernised secular parties. Obviously, this process has classified Turkey among the world’s democratic governments and changed the country from the Turkey of the generals to an ordinary democratic country.

However, even though Turkey’s democratic reforms have been praised by the EU, there is still room for improvement. The country needs more democracy and transparency.

Erdogan was also chosen as a target because of his economic achievements during the worst global recession as well as his development of better relations with neighbouring countries. Turkey is now an important actor on the regional stage, a position that it has sought for decades.

Finally, we cannot ignore the Kurdish question or the so-called “peace process”, which promises the possibility of a social contract to be established between Kurds and Turks for the first time in republican history. For unknown reasons certain circles have been trying to impede the peace process through new tactics. The Turkish public are fed up with an atmosphere of terrorism and the majority welcomed the new opportunity to end the low-intensity war going on for the past three decades. This historical success has probably boosted Erdogan’s prospects of becoming president of the republic in 2015.

As Turkey has emerged stronger from the intentional and sinister Taksim Gezi events the latest developments surely give the country new gains in terms of greater democracy, greater transparency and a more effective rule of law promoting the independence and separation of the branches of government. All in all, the crises could turn into opportunities to enhance democracy in the country; the implementation of anti-corruption policies would be a good start.

The writer is from the School of Communications, Marmara University, Turkey

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.