A victorious Erdogan must resist the allure of authoritarian rule
Following Sunday’s election victory, Recep Tayyip Erdogan will now rule Turkey until at least 2023.
No other leader since Ataturk has ruled the country for so long – or with such a powerful personal mandate.
There is much to commend in Erdogan and his party’s 15-year rule.
Read more: Innocent children have paid the price for broken US immigration policy
Fuelled by the sell-off of state assets, foreign investment flows have increased and tranches of red-tape have been cut. Exports have boomed and the country’s infrastructure has been transformed. Traffic at Istanbul’s airports alone has grown 826 per cent since 2003.
However, future omens – political and economic – are not encouraging.
Sunday’s victory should not be interpreted as the continuation of “business as usual”, but rather as a critical juncture at which Erdogan must decide if he will entrench authoritarian rule, or respect Turkey’s secular, democratic traditions.
Upon being sworn in for his new term, he will gain a tranche of new powers to appoint ministers, senior civil servants and judges, issue sweeping decrees on security issues, and dictate the state budget. The Turkish parliament, long a suppliant tool in Erdogan’s armoury, will be reduced to minnow status.
One of the main reasons Erdogan has been able to consolidate so deftly is the failure of a weak and divided opposition, whose interests span regions, ethnicities and diverging economic ideologies.
To rein in Erdogan’s authoritarian impulses, the various opposition parties must deftly demonstrate – on the streets, in international forums, and via what remains of the independent media – their united opposition to the President’s excesses.
Erdogan’s most significant challenge – and that which poses the biggest opportunity to gain traction – is the deteriorating state of Turkey’s economy. While posting an encouraging 7.3 per cent growth rate in the final quarter of 2017, inflation rates have soared to above 12 per cent.
The President has proved himself adapt at exploiting security issues for political gain, but has yet to navigate the realities of an economic downturn during his 15 years in office.
With a fifth of young people out of work – a figure that is higher in the country’s restive Kurdish provinces – he must focus on restoring global confidence in the Turkish lira and consider raising interest rates rather than boosting public spending.
This will require partnership and dialogue with business; not the silo mentality the administration has recently adopted.
Aside from economic concerns, the elephant in the room remains Turkey’s questionable commitment to Nato, which has, in recent times, been intransigent at best, and given succour to western foes at worst.
Much like Donald Trump, Erdogan’s impulses and public outbursts are often guided by emotion – such as his accusation that western states were “supporting terrorism and standing by coup plotters” for failing to issue public messages of support for him during the military’s failed putsch in 2016.
To seek to push Turkey out of Nato – whether by compulsion or heavy encouragement – would ultimately result in the formalisation of a lasting Ankara-Moscow military accord. The impact would be hugely to the detriment of western security interests in the Mediterranean, accelerate illegal immigration flows, and result in a “grand bargain” in Syria in which the only winner would be Bashar al-Assad.
An urgent rapprochement must be held between Nato leaders and Erdogan to agree clear work plans on shared interests such as the containment of Iranian geopolitical influence, eliminating Daesh, and ending Russia’s war games in the Black Sea.
As the country approaches the hundredth anniversary of the foundation of modern Turkey, Erdogan presides over a deeply divided nation.
Above all, the President must keep in mind that his 52.2 per cent vote share gave him a mandate to govern; not a carte blanche to abuse.
Read more: DEBATE: Is the EU justified in imposing counter-tariffs on America?