In an interview with CNN journalist Becky Anderson on Might 19, 2023, after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan fell wanting an outright election victory, he dismissed criticism of Turkey’s lengthy slide towards authoritarianism: “How may somebody who’s going right into a runoff election as a substitute of finishing the election within the first spherical be a dictator?”
The Turkish President appeared startled over the fees leveled towards him and didn’t masks his discontent. “That’s the actuality,” he defined. “We have now an alliance with 322 MPs in Parliament and the chief of this alliance will go for the runoffs within the first place. What sort of a dictator is that?”
On the coronary heart of his criticism was U.S. President Joe Biden, who as soon as referred to as the Turkish chief an “autocrat” throughout his 2020 marketing campaign. However the broader goal of Erdoğan’s chiding is the Western world, which has depicted him as a strongman chief over his now 20-year rule.
The Might 14 elections have been universally thought to be a make-or-break second for the way forward for the nation’s political system. As Turkey marks the one centesimal anniversary of the Republic, Erdoğan’s unassailable grip on energy has made many assume that the Turkish Republic might sink into the oblivion of historical past after one other Erdoğan win. Towards this backdrop, the stakes of the Might 14 vote—which pit Erdoğan towards an opposition coalition headed by Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu promising to revive Turkish democracy—have been understandably greater than ever earlier than.
But for some observers, Erdoğan’s message hit residence. In any case, what sort of a tyrant can be content material with heading to a runoff election after garnering 49.5% of the votes within the first spherical? Why hassle with the second spherical as a substitute of pushing the 49.5% just a little over 50% to nail his triumph that night time as soon as and for all?
This argument not simply reeks of gross logical errors, however it’s also deceptive. That Erdoğan “gracefully” consented to the consequence doesn’t obviate the truth that the elections have been hardly truthful. In its preliminary findings after the vote, the observing delegation of the Group for Safety and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) stated that whereas the competition was “aggressive and largely free,” Erdoğan had an “unjustified benefit” over the opposition resulting from restrictions on the press and free meeting.
Learn Extra: ‘Erdoğan Is a Character Cult.’ Why Turkey’s Longtime Chief Is an Electoral Powerhouse
The opposition candidate acquired a 32-minute airing on state-run Turkish Radio and Tv (TRT), whereas Erdoğan acquired 32 hours in a month within the lead-up to the election. This discrepancy speaks volumes in regards to the tilted enjoying discipline lengthy earlier than the perimeters launched into campaigning. What’s extra, Erdoğan marshaled immense assets at his disposal, mobilizing the state and occasion equipment to bend and twist the place potential to his liking.
Victory on this surroundings doesn’t burnish Erdoğan’s battered credentials or rehabilitate his public report. Nonetheless vital a staple it might have been within the definition of democracy, an electoral win nonetheless doesn’t make Erdoğan a democratic chief. It solely serves to masks the true nature of the authoritarian regime he has efficiently contrived to construct all alongside the best way.
Democracy is just not about elections solely. I’m not a political scientist nor an skilled on the historical past of electoral politics. However my very own predicament—the truth that I can’t even reunite and meet with my dad and mom for the previous seven years—and the tragedy that 1000’s of individuals went via is a testomony to the kind of regime that has taken maintain in Turkey. These elections function a canopy for a brand new kind of governance Erdoğan achieved to construct: an electoral autocracy. His report wants no amplification or philosophical exposition. Even an opposition victory wouldn’t imply an in a single day, easy return to democracy, as undoing what Erdoğan put in would take a few years, if not many years.
Though it looks like historical historical past now, Turkey after the 2013 Gezi Park protests and the politically-charged corruption scandal that implicated Erdogan’s shut circle and relations has given strategy to a president who has trampled the central tenets of democracy, stamping out the final vestiges of already-imperfect judicial independence, swelling the ranks of paperwork with incompetent loyalists, snuffing out the area free of charge speech and media, and unleashing a sweeping purge of conceived non-loyalists in a push to rebuild the Turkish state in his personal picture. Erdoğan has completed all of this and much more. He has jailed greater than 100,000 folks, together with numerous ladies and infants, after sham political trials. In doing so, the President has revealed to all the world that he has no ethical compunction over imprisoning probably the most susceptible members of society given that they weren’t amongst his loyal flock.
Elections, no matter their outcomes, don’t change what Turkey has skilled underneath Erdoğan’s management. His “sleek” consent to runoff elections doesn’t rework him from a pariah to a liberal democrat within the Jeffersonian mould in a single day. Relatively, Erdoğan’s 20 years in energy comprise an enormous physique of proof about the kind of chief he’s and the regime he managed to construct.
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