Erdogan is strengthened as Turkey's democracy weakens
After the coup attempt, Erdogan is set to tighten his grip and create a more completely Muslim society
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) are striking back against their presumed enemies, suspending and detaining thousands of members of the armed forces, police and judiciary, according to media reports on July 18. The authorities are following up the swift defeat of the amateurish attempt to seize power by a group of junior officers on July 15-16. The would-be coup was violent: at least 290 died, and there were ugly clashes nationwide before the uprising collapsed in the face of rejection by the civilian population and televised appeals by most of the senior military.
What next
Erdogan will create a more monolithic style of government, using his AKP following as a support base in the streets. A new constitution enshrining his additional powers will be published and come into force before year-end. The economy will not be immediately affected as Turkish and Arab investors rally to the AKP, and the lira may remain fairly strong.
Subsidiary Impacts
- The balance of power in Turkey has shifted radically in Erdogan's favour, which may deter Western investors.
- Turkey's alignment with Saudi Arabia will grow more explicit.
- Mass trials and possibly even executions will alienate it further from international opinion.
Analysis
The attempted coup was striking for both its unexpected timing and its lack of professionalism. There have been rumours about a possible military coup ever since the Islamist-rooted AKP took power late in 2002. However, successive senior commanders always firmly resisted any impulse to step in, knowing they would have no international recognition and encounter more or less universal civilian resistance, leading to massive violence.
These calculations were disregarded by the coup leaders, a group of seemingly junior officers, with many of the core conspirators lieutenants. They also chose to ignore universally well-known prescriptions on coup attempts -- that they should be made before dawn when the population is asleep, and that political leaders must be arrested.
The coup's failure was a foregone conclusion
Deaths nationwide are variously estimated, the Foreign Ministry now putting the total at more than 290, reflecting resistance. The coup failed because left-wing liberals and (much more importantly) Islamist AKP supporters took to the streets across the country, some summoned by calls from minarets. Despite some pockets holding out, by midday on July 16, the government was fully in charge.
State's response
There have been two prongs to its policies since then:
Institutional purge
Thousands of officials have been rounded up and imprisoned, including army officers and NCOs, judges and prosecutors; nearly 9,000 police are reported to have been suspended, as of July 18. These numbers are obviously far larger than the number who could have been involved in the coup (an original list of 137 names includes only junior officers, from colonels down to lieutenants).
The purges are blowing a wide hole in crucial national institutions, with:
- 48 judges in the 157-member Council of State detained;
- 140 judges of the 387-strong Supreme Court of Appeals also arrested; and
- 30 governors and 50 senior civil servants sacked.
The effect on the military has been equally devastating: 103 generals and admirals were in detention as of the morning of July 18. Every province has been affected, with garrison commanders and officers of similar rank being held.
Some of the largest concentrations of military arrests have been in the south-east, with 309 officers and men, headed by a brigadier, arrested in the war-torn town of Sirnak, and 200 more, including the general commanding the Second Army, in Diyarbakir. The general was the architect of the '24-hour curfew-search' strategy used in the south-eastern cities.
The arrests look certain to reduce the Turkish army's operational capacity against the Kurdistan Workers' Party and probably beyond (see TURKEY: Kurdish guerrillas are beaten, not finished - January 12, 2016).
The purge of officials will weaken state capacity
The police, traditionally regarded as pro-Islamist, was almost entirely loyal to the president and fought soldiers trying to implement the coup: nonetheless, 24 provincial police chiefs have been removed from their posts, though not detained.
Popular mobilisation
The government has also urged its followers -- essentially committed religious conservatives -- to go onto the street in demonstrations each evening. Erdogan for several years has firmly discouraged opposition demonstrations with tear gas and water cannon.
Erdogan is telling his supporters to hold continuous demonstrations
Every mobile phone user in Turkey has received the summons in repeated text messages over several days. The demonstrations have a strongly Islamic flavour with chanting of the 'tekbir', the Muslim call to prayer.
At a funeral of victims of the coup, the presiding imam prayed in the president's presence for "protection against the malice of educated people" -- those with a Western mind-set (see TURKEY: Society will become more Islamic under AKP - May 4, 2016).
The government sees its way forward as empowering its followers against possible challengers, although none seem likely at the moment.
Death penalty
Erdogan has indicated that he is considering retrospectively restoring capital punishment for those linked to the coup -- demands for the death penalty are a feature of the demonstrations. Retrospective penalties would be a clear departure from Western norms.
He has also said he will loosen restrictions on private ownership of firearms (which is in any case already widespread in Turkey) to enable his followers to "resist coups". That might imply the creation of civilian militia or popular force.
Parliamentary response
This fervour has eclipsed political movements outside the AKP, even though they rallied instantly to its side on the evening of July 15, when Turkish democracy seemed under threat. All four parliamentary parties signed a joint declaration the next day condemning the coup attempt.
Even the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party took part, although unlike the other two opposition parties it got no thanks from the government for doing so. Moves to prosecute its leaders are still going ahead, albeit slowly.
Those trials may be overshadowed by those of the alleged coup-makers, which may require special tribunals and additional judges.
Gulen blamed
The government's version of the coup is that it was more than just a conspiracy among young officers discontented with Erdogan. It blames its main Islamic opponent, Sufi cleric Fethullah Gulen (who has lived in the United States since 1999) and his followers and is calling for his extradition.
Such claims are difficult to assess: no evidence has been produced and the Gulenists have always been (like other Sufi bodies) a secret society with no visible structure or identifiable membership and rules. Most observers believe that they are a relatively small number inside the secretive world of Islamic brotherhoods.
Erdogan's implacable pursuit of them may reflect the jolt they gave the government in December 2013, when Gulenists in the judiciary launched a massive corruption probe, publishing purported recordings of Erdogan giving instructions about money (see TURKEY: Erdogan will use trusted agents in Gulen feud - March 7, 2014).
Relations with West
The dispute with Gulen is chiefly significant not because he is likely to be able to unseat the government, but because it is entangled with US-Turkish relations which are already tense and mutually distrustful. The psychological and political gap between Turkey and its NATO and EU partners is growing steadily (see TURKEY/US: Relationship will become more transactional - April 19, 2016).
_350.jpg "Admiral Namik Alper, commander of Aksaz naval base, arrives at a courthouse in Marmaris on July 17 escorted by plainclothes policemen (Reuters/Kenan Gurbuz)")