Turkey: AK Parti Going Down
The AK Parti of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been on the defense for weeks now. It has been accused of corruption, lying, distortion, and of course of pursuing fundamentalist policies. The latter criticism, however, is not the one bringing the AKP down to just 32% in the polls these days (during the last elections, Erdogan et al. received 47% of the vote). No, the main issue is corruption.
As Turkish Daily News summarized a few days ago:
The first case concerns Şaban Dişli, a close aide to the prime minister. He resigned from his position in the party over $1 million-worth of alleged corruption.
The next round was the Lighthouse e. V. case taken up by the German judiciary, with ties linking the guilty parties in Germany and AKP officials. Among them was Zahid Akman, president of the Supreme Board of Radio and Television, or RTÜK, who was frequently associated with the case in Germany. Similarly, Zekeriya Karaman, owner of pro-government Kanal 7, has drawn the attention of the media. Both Akman and Karaman have connections with the AKP.
No need to mention Dengir Mir Mehmet Fırat, deputy leader of the AKP, who was accused of creating fictitious exports to get subsidies from the state. Fırat was in full defense mode during last week’s televised duel with Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, a senior deputy of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP.
It has become increasingly clear to Turks that the party which nicknamed itself ‘ak’ (pure, clean, white) when it was first created may be more dirty than most other parties in Turkey - which says a lot, for the other parties have their own corruption problems, to put it mildly.
Interestingly enough, it seems that even the ‘grassroot activists’ of the AKP are losing faith in their party. One such individual wrote in a letter to a newspaper: “How we are going to save our religion from being abused to achieve financial ends? Neither groups nor religious communities showed reactions against hundreds of companies belonging to those who made profits by exploiting religion? The dimension of the corruption both in the government and local administration is huge. I have nothing to say if you don’t object to such an abuse just because they are Muslims.”
Even religious newspapers and channels are starting to turn on the AKP over the party’s leaders’ corruption.
What does this mean? Well, it could very well mean that the AKP will be brought down by itself; not because of its fundamentalist policies, but because of its corruption. Its leaders became rich by stealing from the state and individuals. They were able to protect themselves for years, but the longer they remain in power the clearer it becomes that they are dirtier than most others in their position. The result; both moderates who support the AKP because of its economic policies and fundamentalist or conservative religious voters are turning their back on Erdogan et alia.
One wonders whether the current trend will continue and, if so, what party will become Turkey’s new leader. Personally, I believe that the MHP (Nationalist Movement Party) has a good chance of winning the next elections; they can count on many supporters and… all too often, the radicals of this party (for radicals they are) sound moderate compared to both the AKP and the CHP (the secularist party of Turkey in keeping with its Kemalist traditions).
If that happens, we will see more firework in Turkey in the coming years.
I would still prefer voting for a little corrupt, but economic liberal party which increased foreign investments and GDP per person, and holds good relationships to all our neighbours than voting for a highly corrupt, nationalist, protectionist party like the CHP (or even worse, MHP). The AKP is indeed not perfect (which political party is?), and the light bulb affair really leaves a bad taste, but we have no alternative in Turkey, if we want to keep our economy (and thus our peoples lives standards) competetive. We can hope that through AKP’s loss of reputation, parties like ANAP or DP can gain, reach 10% and may form a coalition with the AKP in the next legislative period. This would be better than a MHP/CHP government.
Murat: if I were Turk, I’d vote Demokrat Parti. It is a very reasonable party, and the fact that so many think ‘but they won’t make it into Parliament’ is exactly why they don’t. When people start voting their hearts and minds, the DP would walk into Parliament with more seats than the CHP currently has.
" but economic liberal party which increased foreign investments and GDP per person" "if we want to keep our economy (and thus our peoples lives standards) competetive"
I am English & live in Turkey so I try to keep my political opinions to myself. But murat, noboby can think the Akparty has the economy under any sort of control, inflation is rampant & foreign investment is drying up fast. If the last election had been fought on economic points instead of the right to wear turbans the Akparty would have lost.
Any one who thinks AKP is doing a good job in keeping the economy in control, having good relations with Turkey’s neighbors and so fort is living in a dream land. Let’s look at the facts here first! What have they achieved in the last couple of years… First and for most, they have divided the country into "Religious" and "non-believers", they have legalized head scarf issue not to free women but to oppress them even further, they have stole, lied, cheated, they took over every secular establishment such as: education local governments, and even the presidency. PKK is stronger in Iraq, Armenian Genocide will be on the table in the US congress as soon as the Democrats come into power, Relations with EU is extremely shaky, Cyprus issue is not resolved, everyday living expenses have gone up for the average middle class…. hmmm let’s see… Have they resolved ANYTHING!!!!
What AK Party benefited from so much this far is single party ruling rather than a coalition and at the same time of course majority of municipality administrations coming from their party.
Turkey needed a single party ruling for so long since in coalitions the disputes among the parties prevented the parliament from making decisions on time and being able to apply them. There were many people who believed and maybe are still believing that for stability sake, being able to make a decision and to apply it even if it could turn out to be bad in the end was better than not being able to make one and apply it. That is what Ak Party benefited from so much this long.
Although I agree with Murat about Turkey’s need for stability, this should not be in the expense of its own citizens. One party ruling has more disadvantages than benefits, at least for Turkey’s current context. Seeing maybe the most corrupt goverment ever is a result of that. I am not saying or trying to imply that any other party in today’s Turkey with the power of one party ruling would have acted otherwise. We can not be sure of that. We can not be sure whether they would be able to capture the media this much and silence dissenting views. We can not be sure whether every time a scandal of them became public they would extend the Ernegekon investigations and arrest any opponents as they please as a counter attack. We can not be sure whether via the use of membership to European Union they would change legislations as they see fit.
What I know is, as much as stability is what Turkey needs to develop itself in areas where it is weak, it is not ready for single party ruling in today’s context.
Its the same for everyone. Only because people dont like the leaders religious behaviour, the simply can not accept all the beneftis Turkey gained through the AKP government.
The GDP per capita in Turkey in 2003 was around 2.500$. Today we have a GDP per Capita of more than 10.000$, even 13.000 according to IMF. We should remember that only 3 years before the AKP got to power, Turkey almost had a state bankruptcy, thanks to our competent and secular CHP elite. Now the GDP is 13.000$! And thanks to intelligent privatization, life standard is also increasing in Turkey: just take a look all the new freeways constructed in Anatolia. Of course you will not recognize them if you only travel from Taksims Discotheques to Izmirs Beaches when you are in Turkey. None the matter, the metropoles are also getting modernized: just take a look at thr Marmaray tunnel (which the CHP criticizes, because we are selling our country out to japanese investor. LOL). Or look at the now very clean streets of Istanbul, and compare them with how they looked like in 2003. The AKP leaders may be muslims, and for them their religion may actually more important than it is for me: but they are at least working! Later I ll give you answer to other issues you mentioned, but i have to go to the university now.
Murat, it is this type of approach that causes Turkey not to be able to step forward, ‘the goverment may be corrupt but at least it has achivements or any politician is a liar, at least we should vote for the ones who are performing or will be performing something’. Turkey deserves better than that.
While looking at the achievements of this goverment, you should also be looking at the expenses of these achivements. It has nothing to do with religion although it should not be interpreted as we are not religious or we are devoted. Religion is not something we should even be discussing, it is something special between us and God. If you read comments above, you will see that the stress is not on religion.
When we look at the achievements of this goverment, we should also be looking at what is happening in justice system, what is happening in education system, what is happening in economics and what is happening foreign relations wise. In today’s Turkey, financial police can beat store owners just because they are selling alcoholic beverages and they are not even punished for that (so called punishments do not count) but on the other hand a school in Anatolia with only 2 teachers, showing an utmost success by grading among the highest in university entrance exams is punished a year later by its number of teachers being reduced down to 1 instead of sending more teachers to the school.
You are talking about GDP per person and I do not know where you are siting your figures from so I will not comment about that
but I am pretty sure you are well aware that inflation is highly underrated by the goverment. That may I think answer your points about Turkish economy. You may well argue that inflation is about expectations so what the goverment is trying to do is very normal, trying to increase the confidence of Turkish citizens in its own economy by forming an inflation basket that is highly underrated but when the real inflation in the market is around 30-40% and you are living through it and when it is announced around 10% and your salary is only adjusted according to the official announcement, you get the impression that there is something wrong about this calculation and I am not even taking into consideration the changes in utility prices and gas since they are not directly under goverment’s control (then we would not be talking about 30-40% anyway).
A day does not pass by that we hear another relative of another minister or president or prime minister establishes a firm that has ties with govermental tenders or else.
Being under a one party ruling helps establish stability in economic sense and it is not unlimited by the way, it is to some degree but it does not mean that Turkey’s economy is developing or expanding. Tell me about the unemployment ratios in Turkey, their trend in time and tell me about the industrial investments of this goverment. I am not talking about construction or building highways. This should not be interpreted as I am saying that they are not important, they are not enough for me to vote for this party, they should not be enough for Turkish citizens to vote for this party. However when it is considered that some of the voters just fall for coal or shopping allowances (I can not even blame them, if you are hungry you are first after getting yourself fed), it should be no surprise to anyone that these are enough for some.
Economists indicate that 80 / 90% of investments in stock exchange is hot money (foreign investors) that can easily leave the country in seconds. There is no real investment in industry other than privatizing any corporation appropriate (even profit making ones) and I am not saying this as a person opponent to privatization, I am supportive of it.
Turkey is going somewhere but at the expense of what? Are there real investments in Turkey, is anything being done for population control (to the contrary we are asked to increase the number of children we have), is anything being done for stability in east region other than some military ops that turn out to be nothing but show offs (latest attack to Aktütün is a very obvious proof of that). What is really happening in Turkey? From where I look, unfortunately I do not see the 13.000$ GDP per capita.
Elif said pretty much all I wanted to say. She covered a lot…. The only other point I would like to add is this latest fashion in Turkey to give broad labels to individuals such as "Secular elitists, CHP elitists, Secular fascists" is just simply wrong. First of all, since when being secular is elitist. Being "secular" is the norm in Turkey and should stay the norm. Of course schools, civil servants, anyone working for the government, politicians, universities etc should be secular. In my mind, anyone opposing that has an ulterior agenda which has nothing to do with democracy or freedom of speech… Those are just tools to get rid of democracy and secularism in Turkey. I know CHP has been doing a pretty bad job as an opposing political party to AKP but that does not mean they are elitist. They are simply yet another disfunctional political party. There has not been a proper functioning democratic party in Turkey for decades. AKP is the (latest) icing on the cake!
@murat
What is the “light bulb” affair?
I heard something about it but cannot find any information.
Thanks,
Lloyd
Ankara