What is happening in Turkey?

Alper Yılmaz Dede

Turkish politics is like a witch's cauldron these days.

Indeed, it would not be an exaggeration to claim that it has never been this chaotic and polarized. On Dec. 17, 2013, Turkish citizens woke up to a massive police raid as part of an investigation by the Financial Crimes Unit of the İstanbul Police Department, involving four members of the Cabinet and their sons in connection with alleged corruption. The ministers were not arrested, but a total of 47 people were arrested after the raid, including the sons of three ministers, the director of Halkbank, a public bank, and some officials from the Housing Development Administration (TOKİ), the Ministry of Environment and Urban Planning and the municipality of Fatih district. The operation created huge shockwaves, and since then the population of Turkey has literally been divided in two: those who believe that some ministers from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's cabinet and their family members, including Bilal Erdoğan, the prime minister's son, are all corrupt, and those who claim that the police investigation is all a conspiracy and an attack on Erdoğan and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

In the raid, the police confiscated approximately $17.5 million, and $4.5 million was found in the Halkbank director's home. Prosecutors accused 14 people, including the sons of three former ministers, the Halkbank director and, more notably, Reza Zarrab of bribery, corruption, fraud, money laundering and smuggling gold. Four days later, the court ordered the arrest of these 14 people. Zarrab is originally an Iranian citizen who obtained Turkish citizenship about a decade ago. Zarrab is married to Ebru Gündeş, a famous Turkish singer, and has close ties with Babak Zanjani, an Iranian tycoon.

The initial reaction from the AKP government was a tacit acceptance of the allegations, as the massive arrests shocked everyone, and Erdoğan replaced four ministers who had been allegedly involved in the illegality. After replacing these ministers, Erdoğan said, “We have cleared out the bad apples.” However, Erdoğan and the AKP quickly recovered its senses and struck back by purging the police force and judiciary and sacking several thousand police officers, police chiefs and public prosecutors whom Erdoğan suspected of being part of the whole operation. The allegations are huge, and almost on a daily basis new tapes of voice recordings of those who have allegedly been involved in corruption somehow appear on popular media sharing websites. The tapes have more hits than the most popular Turkish series on the Internet, and some of them include conversations that allegedly belong to Erdoğan himself and his son from wiretaps taken during the police investigation.

Erdoğan strongly believes that he is the sole target of a corruption and bribery probe against his allies, and he has accused the Fethullah Gülen movement of trying to oust him. Erdoğan keeps attacking Gülen at public rallies and repeatedly claims that the Gülen movement has become a parallel state in Turkey (a state within the state). Indeed, in self-imposed exile, Gülen, a well-respected Turkish Islamic scholar, currently resides in rural Pennsylvania, as he left Turkey in the late 1990s. In the mid-1990s, the secularist Turkish military accused Gülen of planning to establish a Sharia-based state in Turkey and put him on trial, after which the court acquitted him. Gülen's supporters from different walks of life have established hundreds of schools in and outside Turkey in the last three decades, run several newspapers, TV and radio stations, and own an Islamic bank. Erdoğan uses highly demonizing rhetoric not just against Gülen and his supporters, but against anyone who criticizes him and his party.

Over the years, Erdoğan's rhetoric has changed significantly. Erdoğan comes from the ranks of the National View (Milli Görüş -- a movement initiated by Necmettin Erbakan, who founded the National Order Party [MNP], Turkey's first Islamist party, in 1970). When he was mayor of İstanbul in the 1990s, Erdoğan was known to have said, “Democracy is a train; we get off the train when we want to.” Unfortunately, under Erdoğan's AKP, Turkey doesn't have a good record when it comes to some major democratic criteria. For instance, according to the World Press Freedom Index, Turkey is the 154th country on the list. The government fires and hires journalists and editors at will and also funds a media team called AK Gençlik to intimidate journalists. Additionally, Erdoğan has threatened media bosses several times through financial investigations of their operations. The Sabah and Star dailies are the most notable mouthpieces of the government. Things are not promising either when it comes to government transparency and accountability.

Recently, the AKP prevented the Court of Accounts from performing its public auditing responsibilities, as the government asked the Court not to submit its annual reports to Parliament. With a lack of public spending auditing, the AKP government is literally free to spend taxpayers' money at will. Moreover, the AKP government has also become increasingly authoritarian, as Erdoğan unveils new plans to intervene in people's lives. The AKP's attempt to limit alcohol sales, shut down exam preparatory schools and its threats about raiding the private residences of unmarried student couples are just a few examples of how authoritarian the AKP has become.

The March 30 local elections are approaching, and Erdoğan has a very busy campaign schedule. Unfortunately, what I see is that on a daily basis, Erdoğan is increasing his demonization of Gülen and the AKP's political rivals in his campaign speeches in different cities. The current political debate in Turkey uses very negative language and is totally dull, unconstructive and polarizing. The puzzling thing is that those who loved Erdoğan before now love him more and those who hated him hate him more.

Published on Today's Zaman, 03 March 2014, Monday