Erdoğan game plans have faltered

Abdullah Bozkurt

The real challenge to the legacy of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the Turkish political landscape now comes from Erdoğan himself as he has been rapidly moving from a progressive stand through which he was able to appeal to a broad-based electorate to an authoritarian conservative platform with a strong dominance of political Islam.

A growing disillusionment among Turks, something the weak opposition parties have failed to capitalize on, is now being fed by the leader of ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) himself, albeit unconsciously and inadvertently. As Erdoğan tries to unload what he considers excess baggage en route to an ultimate consolidation of his power, he has started making a series of mistakes that may prove to be difficult to recover from.

For one, he lost his reformist and progressive appeal when he introduced an Islamist agenda on both domestic and foreign policy choices. At home, he has strengthened the anti-Erdoğan opposition camp by alienating more groups including liberals and moderate conservatives. Turks are no longer buying into sugarcoated legislative reforms embedded in an actually regressive and hidden policy agenda. Rigging the fourth judicial reform package, which was supposed to align Turkish legislation with the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), with a last-minute amendment before summer that actually reduced sentences for those who squandered taxpayers' money in public contracts, was a recent example in order to save political cronies. Now Erdoğan offers harsher penalties for those who exercise the right to freedom of assembly in ostensibly a democratization package the government forwarded to Parliament last week. I suppose the proverbial saying of “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me” is in order in the eyes of voters.

Abroad, foreign policy choices along ideological lines have contributed to the near-isolation of Turkey both in the Middle East and North Africa region and beyond. Although Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu dismisses criticism flat out by highlighting the frequent flyer miles he has clocked, the meetings he has held and the number of Turkish embassies around the globe, the bitter fact is that Turkey has been sidelined in many issues in its own region, to say nothing of in world affairs. Erdoğan vows that the world will eventually agree with the Turkish view on Syria and Egypt, two countries with which Ankara cut off ties. The efforts to pick up the broken pieces on the foreign policy front by trying to repair relations with Iraq and finally agreeing to the EU's position on the readmission agreement after dragging its feet are testament to a failed foreign policy. That is why Erdoğan scrambled Davutoğlu and his diplomats to fix the picture on the eve of the election period in Turkey.

Erdoğan's democratic credentials at home were dealt severe blows just in four weeks alone when he attempted to shut down privately funded popular prep schools that train and educate schoolchildren by offering supplementary courses for highly competitive state-administered exams. The move, seen by many as an assault on the right to free enterprise and the right to education, to forcefully close some 4,000 prep schools sparked outrage among millions of parents. It turned out the government did not even calculate the economic costs let alone legal and social challenges emanating from such a closure. It was Erdoğan himself who pushed the agenda with a small cadre of his advisors and now the plan has blown up in his face when even Cabinet members and AK Party deputies have started to question the wisdom of such a drastic ban. Erdoğan had to take a step back and has shelved the idea for the time being. He ended up with his reputation greatly damaged.

Then came the massive profiling revelations when the liberal daily Taraf published confidential National Security Council (MGK) documents dated 2004 when Erdoğan and his minister signed on to a plan to crack down on faith-based groups in the country including the powerful Hizmet movement inspired by Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen. The daily continued publishing more documents indicating that the profiling and blacklisting of people and diverse groups from Alevis to Christian missionaries went on even in 2013. The government admitted the authenticity of documents but denied it ever acted upon them. That turned out be false when the daily published articles detailing how people profiled by the government were denied public service or shifted to low-key positions. As a last resort, Erdoğan turned to intimidation tactics, just as meddlesome generals in this country once used to do, by launching criminal and civil lawsuits against the paper and its investigative reporters who uncovered the government's dirty laundry. That followed with financial threats as auditors from the revenue administration started to show up at businesses.

That was the second biggest mistake Erdoğan committed in a month. He could have easily come out clean by offering a simple apology to the public for the profiling programs that victimized people and violated their constitutional right to privacy. Instead of cutting his losses and allowing an independent judiciary to investigate the culprits behind the profiling, Erdoğan decided to fight back using and perhaps abusing state powers. Perhaps his administration was up to its neck in profiling dirt. As Erdoğan got angrier in his public speeches, he crossed the fine line of separation of powers between the executive and judiciary. He called on the judiciary to intervene and punish those who publish scandalous government documents. He even said if the judiciary remains idle and does nothing, it would violate the constitution. Taraf fired back at Erdoğan, accusing him of violating constitutionally protected rights such as the right to privacy and the right to free speech.

Where do we go from here? I think Erdoğan is fighting a losing public battle. Turks historically and traditionally feel great sympathy towards victimized groups and very much despise condescending, uncompromising and overbearing leadership. That was the key point once-powerful generals overlooked for years before realizing that it was too late to make changes. Second, this is not a fight for sharing power between Erdoğan and Gülen as government people tried to portray it. It is much more than that. Erdoğan, the strongman of Turkey, wants to railroad any and every opposition that comes in his way so that he can create a new Turkey of his own image. That may be generals yesterday, liberals and conservative groups including Gülen today and President Abdullah Gül loyalists tomorrow. As Erdoğan tries to impose values of his own orthodox version of political Islam on Turkish society, he will keep clashing with many diverse groups that may disagree with his vision of Turkey.

Is this sustainable, though? Hardly. In a very vibrant and dynamic Turkish society boasting a young population, Erdoğan's push will trigger stronger push-backs, eventually trapping him in his own corner. The polarization in Turkish society may become unbearable, and Erdoğan is risking a big backlash from the public by forcing his own agenda. The business community is not comfortable with the foreign policy choices of the Erdoğan government because they are losing market share and opportunities. Considering that the economic outlook does not look so gloomy during election periods, the AK Party may not be able to ride out the stormy impact of global economic changes as easily as it once thought. That is why Erdoğan kept slamming what he describes as the interest lobby because roll-over debts on credit cards have snowballed to the point that people feel squeezed as they are trying to make ends meet under the burden of consumer debts including car loans and mortgages.

What card is left for Erdoğan to play? As he has proven himself to no longer be so keen on building coalitions, I believe the Turkish prime minister decided to fight back with the way he knows best: Creating a villain dressed up with all kinds of crazy conspiracy theories. Erdoğan will attack his opponents by floating ideas such as that the world Jewish lobby and imperialist powers are after him and his government. He did so during the May-June Gezi park incidents by claiming that an interest lobby was behind the anti-government protests, perhaps an implicit reference to the Jewish lobby. When he was pressured on Egypt, where his government has burned all bridges with the interim government backed by the military after Mohammed Morsi's ouster by a coup, Erdoğan said Israel was behind it and had evidence to back that claim up. It turned out he was referring to a YouTube video where French intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy, who is Jewish, made some comments two years ago in a panel discussion at Tel Aviv University. Similar attacks against the Hizmet movement and Mr. Gülen by hired guns in pro-government media lately are also part of the same pattern.

I suppose we will see an aggressive campaign period in Turkey where conspiracy theories sell easily and serve as a convenient tool for politicians to distract the public from real and substantive issues. As the elections get nearer, Erdoğan will turn up the volume on Chavez-style rhetoric.

Published on Today's Zaman, 09 December 2013, Monday