The Turkey problem
In our first briefing of 2014, we wrote about “the tragedy of Turkey under Erdogan”. In a truly dismal start to the New Year for the Middle East we highlighted the Sunni jihadist revival in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Egypt as particularly concerning. And we noted the tragedy that Turkey was not fulfilling what many thought would be its key role at the outset of the Arab Spring, namely providing an island of democratic stability to which the reforming Arab Middle East could look for example and impartial mediation. As recently as November 2013, we felt that it was still not too late for Turkey to correct its course, but the eruption in December of a corruption scandal affecting the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and his reaction to it, made this impossible. And now it seems that Erdogan’s triumph in last Sunday’s local elections could make things even worse again.
In the 30 March local elections, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost between 5 and 7 percentage points in voter share compared with the general elections of 2011, but it increased its share of the vote compared with the local elections of 2009 despite the corruption scandals and Erdogan’s increasing authoritarianism. The best explanation for this performance was that provided by the centrist Milliyet daily, which concluded: “The reality that the middle class in Turkey still has difficulty understanding is that we are a Middle Eastern country. In the current system, values such as honesty, transparency, and being a democrat are not appreciated in the strictest sense. Almost half the voters in Turkey do not care about democracy, lies, corruption, violence, and discrimination as long as they are not directly affected.”
A slightly more sophisticated explanation, which does not exclude the above, is that the bulk of AKP voters remain alienated from Turkey’s former ruling elite, that is the secularist and Ataturkist political, business, and military elite. These voters, like Erdogan and the AKP, are conservative and religious, and their fear of being once again relegated to the periphery of Turkish society by an unsympathetic ruling elite is greater than any disgust they might feel about corruption within the AKP. It was this point that Erdogan has been so successful in exploiting, with his highly combative identity politics.
It should also be noted that Turkey’s voters are on the whole comfortable with the peace process with the Kurds currently being pursued by the AKP government. Nationalist opposition to the Kurds no longer appeals to the majority.
The local elections were in effect a referendum on Erdogan himself, and he won decisively, and this gives power to his threat to make his opponents “pay” for their allegations of corruption and authoritarianism. Erdogan also undoubtedly sees it as a renewal of his mandate to pursue his Ottomanist dreams.
When Erdogan was re-elected in June 2011, he stood on the balcony of the AKP headquarters and proclaimed that “Sarajevo won today as much as Istanbul; Beirut won as much as Izmir; Damascus won as much as Ankara; Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, the West Bank, Jerusalem won as much as Diyarbakir. The message at the time was clear, Erdogan saw Turkey as the leader of the Muslims in the Balkans, the Sunnis in Syria, and, of course, of the Palestinians.
Erdogan’s victory speech this week began in similar vein, seeking to tie in the AKP with the cause of downtrodden Muslims. He said: “I thank my friends and brothers all over the world who prayed for our victory. I thank my brothers in Palestine who saw our victory as their victory. I thank my brothers in Egypt who are struggling for democracy and who understand our struggle very well. I thank my brothers in the Balkans, in Bosnia, in Macedonia, in Kosovo, and in all cities in Europe who celebrate our victory with the same joy we have here.”
The reference to “my brothers in Egypt who are struggling for democracy” is particularly interesting as it is a clear reference to the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), which won power in Egypt’s first post-Arab Spring election but was ousted by the army in July 2013 ostensibly on the grounds that it had abused its power. Erdogan is signalling here his continuing support for the MB despite its designation as a terrorist group by the new regime in Cairo, and Saudi Arabia’s strong opposition to the MB.
The view in Arab diplomatic circles is that the local election victory will encourage Erdogan to step up his divisive politics not just at home but abroad as well. In particular, in addition to signalling deepening support for the Muslim Brotherhood, he is now thought likely to step up his support for the Syrian rebels – and, indeed, this was signalled before the local polls with the opening up of a new rebel front against regime forces in north-west Syria, close to the Turkish border.
At home the next step for Erdogan is to succeed in changing the constitution so that the presidency accrues more powers. If he is successful, he will then stand for the presidency; if he is not successful he will simply change the AKP’s own party constitution so that he can remain prime minister for a fourth term.
All of this is further bad news for the Middle East. Turkey, which once prided itself on “zero problems with neighbours”, is now in varying degrees at odds with the ruling regimes in Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and all the Gulf monarchies except Qatar, Syria, Egypt, and Israel. And this is a situation that is unlikely to improve for as long as Turkey remains in thrall to Erdogan. Diplomatic sources say that the key to understanding Turkey’s foreign policy today is to realise that it is based almost entirely on the personal preferences of the prime minister and not on any deep analysis of Turkey’s strategic interests, and these preferences are strongly pro-Muslim Brotherhood. JdeC.
NOTE: The 2 April explosions outside Cairo University that killed a police brigadier and wounded at least five others has reinforced the conclusion that the ousting of the elected Muslim Brotherhood government from power in July 2013 could only lead to a sharp radicalization of MB supporters. Just before the explosions, it was announced on state-owned television that “seven members of the Muslim Brotherhood were arrested with 11 locally made grenades and firearms before using them in protests in Cairo.”
Security sources say that the combination of Egypt and Syria make the conditions for the spawning of extremists and extremist thought worse than they were in the lead-up to the 9/11 attacks. Syria and Egypt are now playing the same role that was then played by Afghanistan, and the dangers are compounded by the supporting roles played by Libya, Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain, Iraq, and Lebanon. In Egypt, the military of course believes that it can control the MB and even eradicate extremism, but independent security sources say this is very unlikely.
It is also worth noting that the extremist discourse will be greatly aided by the undeniable fact that peaceful adherence to electoral politics by the Muslim Brotherhood was rewarded only by its ouster in a military coup. The counter proposition that the MB regime was becoming authoritarian hardly stands up to serious scrutiny when compared with what went before and what has come since in Egypt.