The President Who Ate Turkey

How Recep Tayyip Erdogan gorged on a whole country.

By STEVEN A. COOK

November 27, 2014

 

Without fail every year, starting around November 10, my #Turkey Twitter feed is jammed with not just the latest news from Ankara and Istanbul, but also Auntie Jean’s turkey recipe and suggestions about how to deep fry the bird without blowing up your house. And every year, on behalf of Turks and Turkey scholars the world over, I plaintively ask the tweeting masses to change #Turkey to #Turkiye, the actual Turkish name for the country that borders Greece, Bulgaria, Iran, Iraq and Syria—alas, with no success.

 

This year, however, basting and brining be damned, I am not going to make my annual plea. In an odd sort of way, #Turkey and #Turkiye have come together for me. That’s because after a mere 90 days as president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has become the man who has eaten Turkey—the country. He is president and de facto prime minister, making him Turkey’s first “Primesident”—sort of like the political version of Turducken. Yet Erdogan’s powers run even further and deeper. He is also, effectively, the country’s foreign minister and chief judge, a prosecutor and big city mayor, university rector and father figure. There is nothing that better represents how Erdogan has gorged on Turkey than the president’s own newly unveiled Ak Saray, or White Palace, with its $350-$650 million price tag, 1,000 rooms and more than 2 million square feet.

 

Erdogan was, of course, larger than life before he took the presidential oath of office in August. Since 2007, when then-Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul—the only other adult in the room—became president, Erdogan has been the only person who has really mattered in the Turkish political arena. As prime minister for more than a decade, he achieved this mastery through his finely honed political skills, the incompetence of an out-of-touch and craven opposition, political coercion and fear. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) went from one of the most interesting “post-Islamist” political parties in the Muslim world to little more than a hive of sycophants who elided Turkey’s interests and those of the party into the man’s ambitions. In the process, the party has become more hardline in its role as the vehicle for Erdogan’s authoritarian and even retrograde turn. At a recent conference on women’s rights, Erdogan declared, “You cannot put women and men on equal footing. It is against nature.” This was shocking, even for Erdogan who wondered last summer what Americans knew of Hitler and more recently asserted that Muslims discovered America.

 

By Erdogan’s third term as prime minister, which began in the summer of 2011, the AKP had stuffed Turkey with copious amounts of patronage, making it practically impossible for anyone to mount a challenge to the man. The process of reinforcing Erdogan’s predominance was fairly straightforward: Erdogan encouraged big businesses that wanted lucrative government contracts—mostly in construction—to buy up media outlets, and, in return for good coverage of the government, the lira would flow. Those who refused to play the game were hounded, sued and fined, often exorbitant amounts. The most famous example of this was the $2.5 billion tax fine levied on the Dogan media group, whose owners, editors and journalists refused to be intimidated by Erdogan and the AKP.

 

This is not to downplay Erdogan’s achievements. He has certainly broadened Turkish politics to include classes that the previous elite had little interest in, and provided them with health care, better infrastructure and improved transportation. Turks have also felt wealthier since the AKP came to power, thanks to economic growth and the availability of consumer credit. Erdogan was also highly regarded in Washington, which considered his pious politics in an officially secular political order a Muslim “third way” that was an example to Arab countries. The European Union even rewarded Turkey with an official invitation to begin membership negotiation after Erdogan oversaw wide-ranging political reforms in 2003-2004.

 

But Erdogan has rolled back many of these liberalizing changes, using the state at his command to crack down on dissent, intimidate his opponents and—perhaps above all—enrich and empower himself. For all his political dominance, as prime minister he was still just the head of government, not the head of state. When, after three terms, the AKP’s bylaws prevented him from standing for another election in the Grand National Assembly, he was faced with the dilemma of how to finish his grand project of establishing Turkey as a regional and economic power.

 

Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/11/erdogan-president-who-ate-turkey-113193.html#ixzz3M5hm8Pqy