‘Turkey now an authoritarian regime'

Professor Ersin Kalaycıoğlu from Sabancı University spoke to Sunday's Zaman about the most recent developments in the Turkish political sphere at a time when every criticism against the government is considered illegitimate and every critic is declared traitor.

Stressing that Turkey is now an authoritarian regime, Kalaycıoğlu says, “Turkey has become a regime where the people have no role other than praising the ruling party after casting their votes.” According to the leading political scientist, it has become evident that Erdoğan views democracy as a means to achieve his goals. Indicating that the political administration cannot cope with corruption charges through censorship, Kalaycıoğlu further says that the Constitutional Court should be the last resort in legal processes. Stressing that a democracy cannot exist without checks and balances, Kalaycıoğlu also says that it is a general observation in the world that governments do not like judicial control.

It is fashionable to discuss the Republican People's Party (CHP) election failure. But you believe that this is a futile debate. Why?

The most common conviction during the 1980 military coup, based on a bipolar view of the world, was that Turkey was under Soviet threat. This view was that the Red Army would be invited to the eastern part of Turkey after the east was partitioned in a Kurdish rebellion. A new organization was created based on this conviction. A new regime was designed from the assumption that left-wingers were a threat no matter how moderate they were, and that this threat should be addressed.

So the reason for staging a coup was on the basis of policy?

Yes. During the period between 1980 and 1983, we saw efforts to eliminate political parties, civil society organizations and unions. This was silently approved by business circles back then because they were complaining about the activities of the emerging unions. Membership in unions declined from 20 percent back then to 8 percent in 2012. In 1983, the military administration formed political parties that would submit to their will. A right-wing party would come to power, a center-left party would remain in the opposition and those remaining would not be able to have seats in Parliament because of the election threshold. Through this move, a model where state elites would have control -- control that was presented as democratic rule -- would be introduced. Turgut Özal changed this.

So the plan did not work out.?

No, it did not. Engineering generally does not work in politics. Kenan Evren remained president up until 1989; he had been pretty successful in dealing with the political left. Coincidentally, the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Therefore, it became evident that socialism was utopian and could not be an alternative to capitalism. And this contributed to the process that started in 1980. Therefore, by 1992, the political left was frozen in Turkey.

And of course, the political left moved to a more secularist stance because of its fears.

True. But this came later; it is a process that started in 1993. In 1992, the political left in Turkey was practically paralyzed. And it still is. There is no strong organizational structure that can carry this. People no longer define themselves as workers; instead, they base their identity on religious, ethnic and sectarian orientations. The sense of belonging to the working class has been destroyed. What would the presence of a social democrat party mean in an environment where there is no social democrat? The political left was eliminated; I doubt whether it was a real threat. But this was consistent with Turkey's NATO and American policy, as well as the domestic political setting.

Did the political left have a class base before this?

The union movement in Turkey started in 1963 when a new law on labor was passed. This law was made by the coalition government, of which Bülent Ecevit was labor minister. This bill was the source of Ecevit's image as a friend of workers. Ecevit became the Robin Hood of the workers. The growing interest of the labor unions in Ecevit as he was becoming a more popular figure within the CHP led to a relationship between the labor unions and the center-left party, as observed in Europe, in Turkish politics in the 1970s. But this started to disappear in the 1980s.

What did the political left in Turkey do?

The leftist parties were able to serve as the representative of the Alevis, who were excluded and denigrated. However, the headscarf issue has been traditionally dealt with by the right-wing parties. The image of excluded women developed in different patterns in Europe and Turkey. The headscarved women in Europe are mostly middle-class, whereas the women in Turkey tried to integrate more with urban life. Because the lifestyle and priorities of the women in Turkey were different, the left failed to pay attention to them.

Were both the Kurds and the women wearing headscarves considered a source of concern for the country's regime?

First of all, the Kurds are extremely religious. Therefore, it is possible to win the hearts of the Kurds through a religious agenda. Pro-Kurdish nationalism is a fairly strong movement. As you may be able to conclude, the CHP would not be able to reach out to the Kurds through religiosity. Another option it could have used was Kurdish nationalism. [But] when it did this, it was accused of partitioning Turkey and of backing the PKK [Kurdistan Workers' Party]. Because it was unable to sustain this policy, the CHP abandoned this approach. As a result, it was unable to mobilize the Kurds. In the past, the CHP had some sort of link to the Kurds because the Kurds were mostly workers. Then, this connection was also eroded.

But there were still attempts to carry out the engineering that you believe started in the 1980s?

The system created by the 1982 Constitution included three main components: the military, the pro-Turkish figures and the Islamists. In other words, a Turkish-Islamic synthesis was the ideological basis of the 1982 Constitution. The government was able to stand against the leftist threat, whereas the coalition government started to collapse after the end of the Cold War in 1991. It was concluded that the existence of religious organizations and their activities violated the general principles in the 1982 Constitution in Turkey. Secondly, the coalition had a disagreement over what to do to address the PKK threat that emerged in 1984. The pro-Turkish figures argued that reconciliation was not an option and that the PKK should be wiped out using violent measures. The military implemented this view and idea. The Islamists, on the other hand, argued that it was possible to have a connection with the Kurds because they were religious people but, that to do this, secularism should be abandoned. Therefore, a disagreement that would destroy the coalition emerged in the 1990s. The problem and disagreement became more visible when the PKK and Kurdish issue turned into a chronic crisis subsequent to the Iraqi invasion. Consequently, in order to return the genie to the bottle, the military started to place pressure on the Islamists. This was the reason why we experienced a military intervention in the Feb. 28 incident. With this move, the coalition would be recreated and the military would become the dominant actor, while the two parties that constituted the government would be supportive of this actor. This has remained the case up until 2002. In the process that started with the Justice and Development Party [AK Party] coming to power, Islamists became dominant actors. The military and the nationalists had to play a secondary role. But the struggle for a position in this hierarchy still continues.

So it seems that the Kurds had to pay the bill during this process.

In the aftermath of the economic crisis in 1991, the people in Turkey were recovering in economic terms. However, the people in Southeast Anatolia experienced hardships due to the embargo imposed upon Iraq. News reports indicated back then that the unemployment rate was around 40 percent among the Kurds.

Maybe we should also cite growing pressure by the state.

If you take a look at the number of PKK militants who were killed during the period between 1984 and 1991, you would see that it was 1,500. But this increased to 30-40,000 after the Gulf War in 1991, when the people started to support Kurdish nationalism and the PKK. The local people had to pay the greater portion of the bill incurred by a mismanaged economic crisis, which contributed to the rise of Kurdish nationalism. It should also be noted that the 1991-1999 period was an era where Turkey was experiencing a social revolution.

In 2002, the AK Party introduced a process of democratization. But things have changed over the past three to four years. Why?

It was perceived that democracy is the most useful tool to achieve this sort of change in Turkey. The EU membership bid and American support were key components of this strategy that would democratize the military-civilian relationship. But today, we realize that democracy was used as an instrument in this process. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had already implied this in the 1990s when he relied on a metaphor likening democracy to a tool. Now, he says that checks and balances are things that we should get rid of. However, as underlined by James Madison [when writing] the American Constitution, checks and balances have remained main elements of all democratic designs since the 18th century.

Was not this the main issue in the discussions over implementing a presidential system after 2011?

This is the real problem. A regime that does not have checks and balances cannot be a democracy.

So what would we call the current regime? I am asking this because there are debates on this matter.

There are a few definitions for this in the literature of political science. One is offered by Terry Karl: electoralism. [This is] where the winners of elections feel that they are not bound by fundamental rights and freedoms or the principle of the supremacy of law.

Is there any such regime right now in the world?

We have some Latin American countries -- Venezuela, for instance. We actually want to have a regime like the one in Venezuela. There was the Alberto Fujimori experience in Peru. Shelving democracy like he did is called “Autogolpe.” This is the formation of a regime through reliance on illegal means and constitutional violations after coming to power. Fujimori was accused of doing this; eventually he fled to Japan and then was extradited to his country where he was prosecuted and convicted. There are many such examples in Latin America. Another type of such a regime is what our colleague [Guillermo] O'Donell calls delegative democracy. This is a regime where the people cast their votes but do nothing else in the aftermath with the exception of praising the winning party. This is what we are expected to do now in our system as well. This is another definition of an authoritarian system. The third is competitive authoritarianism, a term used to describe regimes in countries like Russia and Ukraine. This is a type of regime where the winning party becomes dominant in a competition where there is no promotion of rights and freedoms and supremacy of law.

So which one describes the situation in Turkey?

Turkey may fit in any of these types. Turkey is currently an authoritarian regime. The issue is whether we will be able to move toward democracy again. We are a country that has been in the process of democratization -- and one that has failed to consolidate its democracy -- over the last 70 years.

You know that some recent corruption allegations were covered up and that the election win was presented as an exoneration of these charges. What would you say about this?

This is not acceptable. It is not right. There is no such case of this in the world.

And the people were asked to believe this. Besides, this attracts support.

True. But the majority did not vote for the AK Party. This should be underlined. They failed to attract the support of the majority. It received 43.3 percent of the vote. When you compare it to 2011, you will see a decline of 6.5 percentage points. This means that about 13 percent of those who voted for this party did not vote [for them] this time. It is weird to present this as a mass endorsement. We have such a problem here: Can a president or a prime minister who may have committed a crime rule the country in an administration viewed as a legitimate government? There is a clear answer to this in political science: no. In a democratic state, this investigation should be properly carried out by an independent and impartial judiciary. You may postpone this, but you cannot eliminate it. Eliminating this means that Turkey is not governed by a legitimate government.

You may preserve your power, but you cannot preserve how you are perceived?

And you cannot preserve your power either. Your power comes from legitimacy. The only thing you will have in a country where legitimacy is not preserved is police violence. You can govern a country by reliance on intimidation and coercion up until the point when people [start risking] their lives. And when this happens, you will see developments like those in Egypt, Ukraine and Tunisia. Therefore, this is a risky move. The media is trying to give the message that this job is done, but there is no evidence suggesting that the doubts were addressed and that there is no corruption. First, the opposition will keep questioning this because the prime minister confessed that he rigged public tenders and interfered with the judicial process. This should be properly investigated.

Could we say that the judiciary is under the influence of the political administration?

Not just me, the opposition leaders argue this; the bar associations also join this argument. At the same time, EU reports and American reports make the same point. There is a lot of evidences proving this argument. For this reason, it is not right to argue that this government is now unquestionable because of the election win. The voters said in the election that our economic interests would be protected if this government remains in power; that is all. We will see whether this is right because if such a government, one that contributes to the erosion of justice, remains in power, will political and economic stability continue in Turkey? The IMF [International Monetary Fund] reduced the growth rate in Turkey from 3.5 to 2 percent. Moody's turned Turkey's economic outlook to negative. Why? Turkey has started to become economically unstable because we are have a government that imposes censorship and [blocks] the Internet. Does this government make international investors confident?

Do you think that there is political vacuum in Turkey right now?

Such major changes rarely take place in elections. The 1950 elections are an example, and so are the elections of 1983 and 2002. Democracy will remain [if] some minor changes [are made]. We will wait for the 2015 elections; let us see what will happen. We should note that the AK Party lost 6.5 percentage points in its vote count in this election. Therefore, as long as these [corruption] accusations remain, the decline will also continue. If you rely on censorship to cover up allegations, this is not a measure or option that the general people will endorse. You should take a look at who was able to remain in power by imposing censorship measures.

It seems that we are ready to become a closed state and society.

No, not really. The voters did not realize that the votes they cast meant that. But when they do, things will start to change because of serious economic losses.

So did voters endorse a closed society design?

Of course; they endorsed censorship. Why is the prime minister still talking about Twitter? He is doing so because of the support he received from the voters. The voters endorsed the way the corruption claims have been framed. They ignored the constitutional violations by the prime minister. Why did they do this? They thought that they were doing ok terms of economics and that this government would preserve their economic interests.

What do you think the Constitutional Court is doing?

Without intending to, it now adopts an approach that is consistent with the principles of the supremacy of law. Of course, this is not how it is perceived. There is an executive branch that perceives this approach of the Constitutional Court as a power struggle against it. Executive branches all over the world complain about judiciaries. If the executive branch complains about the judiciary, this means that the judiciary is doing its job right. [Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio] Berlusconi was also complaining about the judiciary. Even [US President Barack] Obama is complaining about it.