TIROLER TAGESZEITUNG, leading article: "The foundation of the Erdogan system is crumbling" by Christian Jentsch

2023-05-12 20:00:30

Issued on Saturday, May 13, 2023

Innsbruck (OTS) – Turkey faces a fateful choice. And even before the Turks cast their votes in the presidential and parliamentary elections on Sunday, an amazing thing happened. Although President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been in charge of Turkey for 20 years and has been energetically driving the country’s transformation towards autocracy since the failed military coup of July 2016 at the latest, he and his conservative Islamic ruling party, the AKP, have to worry about staying in power. His challenger, the opposition leader and head of the Kemalist-social-democratic CHP, is in a neck-and-neck race with the almost all-powerful president and is even ahead in the most recent polls. That alone is a sensation when you consider the general conditions.
In recent years, Turkey has moved further and further away from a functioning democracy. The rule of law was increasingly under pressure, critical media were shut down and tens of thousands of critics were branded enemies of the state as a result of the failed coup and ended up behind bars. The institutions of the state were hollowed out and President Erdogan gave himself far-reaching powers with a constitutional amendment. With the presidential system that came into force in 2018, parliament was disempowered and the president is also the head of state and government. In addition, Turkey was moving further and further away from Europe. The tone became more and more aggressive, the ditches deeper and deeper.
And this despite the fact that Erdogan was once seen as the hope of the West. In the early 2000s, he transformed the “sick man from the Bosphorus” into an economic miracle, broke the close interdependence of the military, secret services, politics, judiciary and administration and also let the so-called “little man” participate in the new prosperity in Turkey . The geostrategically important Muslim country remained firmly anchored in the West. As a NATO and G20 member, you play in the concert of the big players and act as a link between Europe and the Near and Middle East. And Europe remained at least in sight for a long time.
With Erdogan’s authoritarian turn, many ties were severed. In the country and in relations with the outside world. But a serious economic crisis with galloping inflation and the consequences of the earthquake disaster have left deep cracks in Erdogan’s system. And Turkish civil society is showing strength despite the erosion of democratic institutions. Autocrats can also be voted out.