It sounds almost unbelievable that the proud and noble people of Turkey would willingly dissolve a parliamentary democracy and hand ultimate power to a man who wants to impose Islam as a national religion. After the end of the Ottoman empire a forward thinking Kemal Ataturk dragged a backward Turkey into the Twentieth Century by making it a secular republic. It is governed by a parliament elected by a popular vote.
Modern Turkey has become the bridge between Asia and Europe. As a member of NATO it is allied with the west and it had aspirations to join the EU, although that has dragged on for years. Holding power has been an ongoing tussle between parliament and a powerful military and military coups have seen the men in uniform running the country from time to time. A Kurdish minority has long cherished carving out a homeland within Turkey, resulting in a protracted civil war and the EU has demanded improved civil rights improvements as a condition of EU entry.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan fought his way from mayor of a major city to leader of the AK Party and eventually became the country's president. He was an authoritarian figure that began amassing power - and using it to crush any form of opposition. Rival politicians were simply jailed on trumped up charges and newspapers and journalists that did not toe his party line faced personal danger - and closure. A coup attempt was quickly crushed and Erdogan used this emergency to grant himself exceptional powers which he has used ruthlessly.
He proposed a referendum to grant him executive power to make decisions unilaterally and without the assent of parliament. He demanded the power to appoint and sack the judiciary and similarly appoint or dismiss the ministers who would run the country under his direction. It became clear that at heart he was an Islamist and that he would institute Sharia law. He is proposing another referendum, this time to reintroduce the death penalty.
The discussion period before that referendum was a sham. All newspapers and television channels were in government hands and supported a " yes " vote. Leading figures advocating a " no " were simply rounded up and imprisoned on spurious charges. Opinion polls predicted a close vote and the government announced that Erdogan won by twenty-five million votes, representing a 51.5% margin. Calls for a recount were dismissed. It seems that Erdogan will achieve the unlimited powers he sought from the 2019 election, when he will appoint the cabinet and an undisclosed number of vice presidents, and have complete personal control over the civil service and judiciary.
Basically, the AK party claims that Erdogan has been granted unlimited power to take the country in whatever direction he chooses. He is now the supreme dictator, and we have seen the way supreme power corrupts in so many instances before. Half of the civil wars in Africa have evolved from elected rulers who have refused to accept election defeat and have simply used their armies to hold on to power with added authoritarian tendencies. We also remember the outcome from both Hitler and Stalin.
The outcome will probably be a surge of secular Turkish migrants flowing out of that country as moderate followers of Islam decline to live under a harsh regime that imposes death by stoning for adultery and the amputation of hands for theft. It seems that a nation of moderate Islam as a beacon to the world has been lost and the views of Erdogan may have more future affinity with Islamic State.
Perhaps the emergence of an authoritarian Islamic state on their doorstep may induce the countries of the European Union to settle their internal grievances and achieve a new solidarity !
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