WarSclerotic

The graft and bribery investigations of Dec. 17 and 25, 2013 have shown that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s boundless tyrannical power is financing its ruthlessly anti-democratic and unlawful policies with money from graft, bribery and theft. In addition to informal pools of funds obtained from pro-government businessmen who are awarded public contracts in non-transparent and uncompetitive tenders, Erdoğan also started to abuse public resources for his presidential campaign. Even though election law requires every public official to resign from office when he runs as a candidate in an election, Erdoğan skillfully used his influence over the legislature to ensure that he was exempt from this ban. Election law says that if you are the governor of a district and if you run as a candidate in an election, you must resign from office in order to circumvent abuses of public resources in your election campaign. However, Erdoğan is exempt from this requirement even though, as prime minister, he can abuse public resources to any extent he wishes. Given the political financing through illegitimate methods, the abuse of public resources by a candidate in government, the unequal coverage of the presidential candidates by state-owned media and broadcasters — such as the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT), the Anatolia News Agency and the so-called private media outlets that are controlled by the government — the printing of 18 million extra ballots, the power outages in more than 40 locations while votes were being counted in the local elections of March 30, the hundreds of minutes about the ruling party’s gerrymandering efforts and numerous findings and claims about election rigging, especially in Ankara, everyone must be on high alert for the fairness and soundness of the presidential elections slated for Sunday. Regardless of the level of democratic maturity, Turkey has always performed satisfactorily in terms of election security and fairness, starting in the final days of the Ottoman Empire, excluding the 1946 elections and especially during the multiparty regime. Although many other deficiencies of Turkish democracy were stressed, no one would have voiced concerns that the country didn’t hold fair and just elections. No one would have complained about any systematic effort to rig the elections, including those held in the wake of the military coup of September 12, 1980 and the post-modern coup of February 28, 1997. No doubts about systematic gerrymandering efforts were heard. However, Turkey lost this proud quality during the last elections, held with the Erdoğan-led government at the helm of the so-called “New Turkey” with an “advanced democracy.” The doubts and controversies regarding the March 30 local elections have further escalated the concerns about the fairness and security of the elections slated for Sunday. These worries compelled many international organizations, including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), to send their observers to Turkey. Putting to one side all the other sins of Erdoğan, who is growing more despotic each day, this anti-democratic sin is enough to have Erdoğan remembered as a black stain on Turkey’s history of democratization. Having designed a tremendous propaganda machine modeled after Hitler’s Germany or Mussolini’s Italy — using illegitimate funds obtained through the abuse of public resources, graft and fraud — Erdoğan can be prevented from turning Turkey into a full-fledged dictatorship only with the prudence and foresight of the public, in spite of the fact that their democratic consciousness seems to have been maimed by the intense propaganda. If the nation fails to exhibit this democratic prudence and foresight on Sunday, you can be assured that a much more dangerous adventure awaits this country. When an impatient, intolerant and bigoted leader who does not respect fundamental rights and freedoms is given, through democratic means, the mandate to meddle arbitrarily with the very nature of the democratic regime, we face the risk of completely losing the country’s already limping democracy and paralyzed legal system. Problematic reactions by a significant majority of the public, exposed to media illusion, do not look promising for the future of the country. Nevertheless, we cannot lose our hope in the nation as it has a tendency to play an affirmative role with its conscience and problem-solving stance even in the darkest, most chaotic and most complicated periods. If people refuse to wake up to the realities, if they refuse to reject efforts to paralyze their will under the heavy media bombardment of lies and slander as well as fear and worry, I am afraid they will lend a helping hand to the creation of a terrible dictatorship in the presidential elections. A significant portion of the public, whose willpower has been trapped with various devilish methods, will pave the way, through democratic means, for the birth of a despotic Frankenstein whom they will find very difficult to get rid of in the future. To understand what sort of despot might result from this likely imprudence and lack of foresight by the public, we don’t have to wait for the outcome of the elections. Even a cursory look at what Erdoğan promises in his election rallies is enough to reveal the dictatorship awaiting Turkey. A leader who has undermined his own prestige in the eyes of many social groups and foreign countries due to his anti-democratic, unlawful and unethical actions cannot promise anything but dictatorship and tyranny. Isn’t it nonsensical to expect this leader to comply with democratic principles, rights and laws — a leader who believes he represents both the nation and the state, who believes both the nation and the state will become manifest in his personality in Sunday’s elections and who sees this as his most natural right? As you know, Louis-Dieudonné de France, or Louis XIV, underwent a serious erosion of personality after ruling France for 72 years between 1643 and 1715. He was not satisfied with being referred to as Louis Le Grand or Le Roi-Soleil, and he had become a symbol of absolutist dictatorship with his infamous phrase, “L’État, c’est moi.” Yet, Louis XIV was only claiming to be the state. He hadn’t gone further to claim that he was both the state and the nation, as a certain leader is currently doing in his election rallies. Don’t you think a leader who chose to follow in the footsteps of Louis XIV some 300 years later — taking the will of the public hostage through propaganda decorated with lies and slander — is in a situation that is more scandalous than that of Louis XIV? This is not a joke. It is true. But, unfortunately, Prime Minister Erdoğan is coming with new and terrible scandals each day. So much so that the shocking words he uttered during his rally in Tokat on July 9, 2014 — in which he said he was both the state and the nation — were not noticed by anyone. In that speech, Erdoğan argued that he, instead of deputies in Parliament, will directly represent the public, and thus, in addition to identifying himself with the state, he promised that the nation will be manifest in him. In other words, in addition to declaring that he will not comply with the limits defined under the Constitution, Erdoğan promised that he will unify the state and the nation in his personality. If Le Roi-Soleil was alive today and saw Erdoğan’s audacity, I am sure he would be very jealous of him. Therefore, before going to the polls on Sunday, people should make up their minds about whether they will lend support to the birth of a despot who would be envied by Louis XIV or they will elect a president who will set the country’s course back to democracy, human rights, and rule of law.