Turkey’s democratic deficit

Adnan Menderes, Turkish prime minister, 1960.Wikicommons. Public domain.Turkey heads to the
polls on Sunday. The outcome will decide the future of Turkish politics for
years to come. These elections, despite some voting irregularities, will be
generally free and fair. Nevertheless those who follow developments in Turkey
would have noticed declining democratic capital in the country once hailed as a
democratic model (or example) for the Middle East to follow. Nowadays very few
people make such claims. If anything, Turkey is noted for its lack of
democratic rights, especially those pertaining to the freedoms of expression
and assembly since the Gezi Park protest almost exactly two years ago. 

This of course begs the
question, why is there a democratic deficit in Turkey? In answering this
question three interconnected factors can be identified. They are 1) the legacy
of an authoritarian style of leadership and, relatedly, an elite conception of
what constitutes good citizenship, 2) the legacy of the military's involvement
in politics, 3) the political system as a battleground for Turkey's
social-cultural divisions in their struggle to define Turkish identity. These
factors together explain many of Turkey’s democratic difficulties.

An
authoritarian conception of citizenship

Turkey has a legacy of
leaders with autocratic tendencies. Its first leader, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk,
was a reformer, a visionary and a state builder; however, no democrat. He tried
and failed to produce a two party system. Instead he ruled a one party state.
Kemal Ataturk was the first of many political figures in a country where
personalities have carried more weight than political programmes or policies.
The list includes, but is not limited to, Ismet Inonu, Adnan Menderes, Bulent
Ecevit, Turgut Ozal, Suleyman Demirel and Tansu Ciller. Turkey's current
president Tayyip Erdogan who hailed from the Justice and Development Party
(AKP) is only the latest example.

A case in point is
Adnan Menderes, prime minister between 1950 and 1960. Menderes had a
majoritarian understanding of democracy where the people’s will was only
identified through the result of national elections rather than civil
participation. He suppressed the media, targeted minorities and crushed
anti-government organizations.  The only thing that stopped him was a
military coup in 1960, after which he was shockingly sent to the gallows.
Erdogan has openly compared himself to Menderes and the similarities are
uncanny. Erdogan also sees the ballot box as the only instrument of
accountability and the only source of political legitimacy. He too has crushed
the press and attempts to stifle his opposition while using firebrand rhetoric
to label critics unpatriotic or a part of a large conspiracy, a reference to
the Hizmet movement of Fetullah Gulen.

For these types of
leaders, citizens should be beholden to their office holders. For example, last
month President Erdogan reacted angrily to demonstrators at a rally in eastern
Turkey. He told off protesting workers for their ingratitude. Erdogan claimed
that the government had addressed some of their concerns. The workers were
upset about the lack of rights associated with sub-contracted workers.
Similarly, just over two weeks ago an owner of a barber shop in Istanbul was
assaulted for not shaking the hand of an AKP deputy, by a member of the politician’s
entourage.

This authoritarian
conception of citizenship goes a long way in explaining the lack of freedom of
expression. Protesting the government is considered an example of bad
citizenship. The police brutally clamp down on such demonstrations. Think Gezi
Park, May Day protests or even students from the Middle East Technical
University campaigning against a highway being built through their campus.

Hagia Sophia. Wikicommons/Arild Vagen.Some rights reserved.However, protests
supportive of the government line are rarely suppressed or met with violence.
For example, tens of thousands of Muslims prayed outside of the historic Hagia
Sophia in Istanbul, whilst calling to convert it into a mosque. A week earlier
they had staged a rally demanding the same. The Hagia Sophia was built in 537
by Byzantine Emperor Justinian, had been a church for 900 years and then,
following the conquest of Istanbul had been turned into a mosque for another
500 years. Kemal Ataturk decreed it a museum in 1934 and it has been one ever
since. 

Unlike anti-government
protests, Hagia Sophia demonstrators did not face tear gas, water cannon,
police batons or fisticuffs. A rally that celebrated the 562nd anniversary of
the Ottoman conquest of Istanbul was not suppressed. In fact the reverse
occurred. Attended by hundreds of thousands of people, activists were supplied
with flags and banners by municipalities or NGOs affiliated with the AKP.
 

What is particularly
worrying is that tough legislation was passed at the end of March this year
allowing courts to give long jail sentences to protesters who conceal their
faces. It also gave police the authority to use lethal force in some
circumstances. No doubt it will be anti-government protesters who will feel the
long arm of this law.

Legacy of
military rule

Throughout its history
Turkey’s civil-military relations have been turbulent. There were military
interventions in 1960, 1971, 1980 and a ‘post modern’ coup in 1997. The 1980
coup was especially bloody with thousands going ‘missing’. In addition,
thousands were detained and tortured and hundreds were executed. The legacy of
the coup and the 1997 intervention has lasting repercussions to this day.

It is important to
recall that the 1980s and 1990s was the height of the Kurdish insurgency in the
southeastern region of Turkey. In order to quash the insurrection, the Turkish
state instituted emergency law. During the fighting at least 40,000 Turkish
citizens, mostly of Kurdish heritage, were killed. Thousands of villages were
destroyed and hundreds of thousands were internally displaced. Still today there
are issues that remain unresolved such as the state's role in death squads and
extrajudicial killings as well as torture and mass disappearances. The conflict
has also yet to be permanently resolved. Despite peace overtures, violence
returns on a sporadic basis. Finding a permanent solution is a democratic
imperative, but still pending.

Turkey's ridiculously
high parliamentary threshold of 10 percent in its proportional representation
system is a result of the post 1980 military period. It was designed to prevent
Kurdish party representation. However, since 2002 the net effect of the
threshold is that it has given the leading party a disproportionately high
number of seats in parliament in comparison to the popular vote.

It is important to
remember that Turkey's current constitution, with some later amendments, was
drafted under the auspices of the military. Even when Turkey returned to
civilian politics in 1983, the military, through the National Security Council
and indirect channels within the bureaucracy, managed to influence politics. It
even staged a behind the scenes coup in 1997 that led to the ousting of Erbakan
and his Islamist Welfare Party, an early forerunner of the AKP, something its
founding politicians such as Erdogan would never forget.

It was only around the
time that the AKP emerged in 2002 that the military gradually lost some of its
ability to intervene in civilian politics. This was a result of EU oriented
reforms. However, what really led to the military's decline in Turkish politics
were investigations from 2010 onwards into apparent ‘deep state’ plots to
overthrow the government. Hundreds of retired and existing military and
security service personnel were arrested, prosecuted, tried and in many cases
convicted.

While this may sound
like a positive development for Turkey's democracy, it was actually a double
edged sword. While it did reduce the power of the military's involvement in
civilian affairs, the way in which the investigations were conducted upset many
Turks. This in turn led to mistrust as it was noticed that it was not just
military figures who were implicated but also civilian secularists including
newspaper editors and university rectors. Speculations were rife that what was
really taking place was a purge of AKP opponents from positions of power.
Recent court rulings have shown that at least one of the cases against the
military was fraudulent and even fabricated.

Democracy as
a social-cultural battleground

Democracy in Turkey is
a means to an end, the rectification of past injustices and to fulfil a
partisan vision of the nature of Turkish identity. This is exactly what Erdogan
meant by his comment well over a decade ago that democracy was like a bus ride,
one gets off when the destination is reached.

Erdogan and the AKP
believe that they represent the politically marginalised Turkish majority whose
origins are from rural Anatolia, the urban poor and/or people who believe that
their cultural identity, including an Islamic identity, has been suppressed by
the secular elite with support from the military. The AKP is convinced that if
it is to fulfil its vision of Turkey, any remnants of the old order must be
eradicated or risk being ousted by these secular forces. In order to do this,
it has eroded the country's delicate system of checks and balances.

Since the 2010 constitutional referendum, the government has had more influence over the constitutional court. The AKP
government has also held the office of the Presidency since 2007. Once a
ceremonial role supposed to be above party politics, the position now has
greater political powers as the current president Tayyip Erdogan has no qualms
about being partisan and manipulating the constitutional delineations of the
office. However, it should be noted that even when Abdullah Gul was president
he was content to rubber stamp AKP legislation and follow the party line.

And then there is of
course the media. According to Reporters Without Borders, Turkey is the world's
leading jailer of journalists and Freedom House now deems Turkey "Not
Free". Most recently Erdogan publically threatened Cumhuriyet Editor Can Dündar for its scoop on alleged Turkish arms
to Syria. It is not just the traditional media that has been targeted but also
the social media, with blanket bans enacted against youtube and Twitter.
Individuals, public figures and private citizens alike, have been arrested and
prosecuted because of things they have tweeted or even in some cases retweeted.

The erosion of checks
and balances has led to unaccountability. The government was able to whitewash
corruption scandals which gripped the country from December 2013 onwards. In
the end it wasn't those accused of corruption who paid the price, but rather
those who did the investigating.

Taking sides

All is not well in
Turkey. The country’s democratic deficit is a result of the legacy of
authoritarian type leaders and their undemocratic conception of what makes a
good citizen. It is also a product of the legacy of the military's involvement
in politics. Meanwhile, the political system is victim to social-cultural
divisions over the nature of Turkish identity. What is tragic is that the
younger generation of Turks are experiencing and coming of age during this
anti-democratic turn in Turkey. But they do not recall military rule. They did
not grow up marginalised or alienated. If anything they are the product of
social-mobilisation (an AKP success).

However, the younger
generation is seeing their political awakening in a highly divided Turkey and
being forced to take sides in a system where democracy and its institutions are
the battleground. Reversing this tide is the real democratic challenge ahead of
the polls on 7 June.