Can Turkish democracy survive Erdogan?

Turkey’s democracy is going to be tested. Possibly to its limits.

The Republic’s longest serving leader, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is up for re-election next year which means that this year he will spend a lot of time trying to ensure he stays in office. Whoever wins, a dramatic change in foreign policy is unlikely, but on the domestic front an Erdogan victory means a continuation of the 20 years he’ll have spent at the top, two decades in which Turkish democracy has taken a battering.

Opposition politicians are also concerned that if defeated, the President may contest the result in a manner similar to that of Donald Trump in the US. There the foundations of American democracy were shaken but were deep enough for the legal system to prevail. Since 2003 Erdogan has been chiselling away at the foundations of Turkey’s democracy.

For the first few years he was seen as a reformer. There were small advances in giving rights to the Kurdish minorities. Health care improved and, amid low unemployment, so did the economy. But there were reasons to doubt his commitment to a free society. In the 1990s he’d made a subsequently famous remark that “democracy is like a train – when you reach your destination, you get off”.

In 2008 he ordered an investigation into an alleged group called “Ergenekon” which, it was claimed, was part of the deep state plotting to overthrow the government. More than 140 people were arrested and charged. The existence of the group was never proven, and it became clear that members of the police, judiciary, and legal system concocted evidence against some of those who stood trial. Almost all defendants were acquitted but after five years of proceedings, 17 life sentences were handed down to prominent figures in politics, academia, the media and the military.

2013 saw the “Gezi” protests (named after an Istanbul Park) in which hundreds of thousands of people across the country protested against the government. As the police smashed them off the streets there were several deaths and up to 8,000 people were injured. Erdogan cracked down on political opponents and, bit by bit, gained sweeping powers over the judiciary and media.

Repression accelerated following the badly organised coup attempt of 2016 against Erdogan which resulted in him declaring a prolonged state of emergency. Tens of thousands of people were arrested, and more than 150,000 academics, journalists and political activists were forced out of their jobs.

In the last 12 months there have been more than 200 media workers put on trial. This week a cameraman, Rojhat Doğru was sentenced to life in prison for “disrupting the unity of the state and the integrity of the country”, “attempted murder”, and “membership of the organisation” during a protest he was covering in 2014. Doğru is a Kurd. The evidence against him was beyond flimsy.

Changes to the electoral system were rammed through, intended to strengthen the grip of Erdogan and his AKP party. But the ruling elite had miscalculated. Extra powers were given to the President, and he crowned himself Head of State and Head of Government. However, whereas before all Presidential candidates ran against each other in one round of voting, now the system requires a run-off between the two leading candidates. Next year a coalition of six parties is expected to back a single candidate against Erdogan in the second round to defeat him.

This brings us to the potential for a contested result. In 2019 the mayoral contest for Istanbul was won by Ekrem Imamoglu of the opposition CHP in a two-way race. Erdogan claimed there had been voting irregularities and forced a new election. But in the re-run Imamoglu’s majority went from 13,000 votes to 800,000. Erdogan’s supporters say concerns that he may try and steal the 2023 vote are insulting and paranoid. Opponents point to 2019.

He’s approaching election year with inflation at 35% and rising, as is unemployment. The value of the lira has plummeted. He refuses to raise interests which he regards as un-Islamic and “the mother and father of all evil”. Economic experts within government who disagree with the President are fired.

Erdogan seems to be relying on his core support from voters who are religious, but they are a (slowly) shrinking demographic, whereas the youth vote is growing even as youth unemployment stands at about 25%. Frustrations are increasingly taken out on the huge communities of refugees which Turkey has taken in over the past decade. This week a mob attacked a shopping mall in a poor area of Istanbul which houses stores owned by Syrians. The crowd then marched through the streets chanting “This is Turkey – not Syria”.

Meanwhile businesses are going bust, and pensions are shrinking. Some opponents accuse him of corruption, meaning there is the possibility of a new government going after him in the courts. That would inevitably drag in numerous senior officials. There are many reasons to do what it takes to ensure the vote goes to the leader of the AKP in 2023.

The President exhibits many of the traits of a hard-line authoritarian populist. This does not necessarily mean he is the type of leader who would go so far as to outright rig or ignore a democratic vote. But his record gives cause for concern.