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Turkey is a weird place. (Context: Turkish person living in the US). It is autocratic in a very specific way — it elects its autocrats. As in, Erdogan legitimat

Turkey is a weird place. (Context: Turkish person living in the US). It is autocratic in a very specific way — it elects its autocrats. As in, Erdogan legitimately wins his elections, and he is as popular as the votes indicate, which is around 51% - an unfortunate fact for those of us at the remaining 49%. For comparison, it’s not like Russia at all - Erdogan is very vulnerable to just getting elected out and while he does have more leeway in doing what he wants, he ultimately has to do what the population wants him to do or risk losing the next election. For the things that Turkish population puts less immediate value on is the places where he gets the most leeway, and rule of law in the western sense was until recently one of them. As of now though, he is bleeding out votes because of various issues, like this one, which I would speculate as the everyday person in Turkey sort of discovering habeas corpus is actually kind of important. I’ve always thought it’s a cultural remnant of the sultans.

duxup 7y ago
I have no doubt Erdogan has won elections. I do wonder how free and legitimate they are when he gets to expel those who oppose him. And of course the big question is would he allow a result where an election would mean he is removed from power.
- rolleiflex 7y ago
  Erdogan lost elections in the recent past and he had to give up power in Istanbul. The mayor of Istanbul is basically the Vice President of Turkey in terms of broadcasting power and actual ability to do things on the ground due to the sheer size of Istanbul, and he’s been a major thorn on his side since. I don’t think (I hope) when the time comes, he refuses to leave, that would be a much, much different problem than the ones facing Turkey right now. Re: legitimacy, I’ve been on the losing side of those elections for the last two decades by now. Unfortunately they’re pretty legitimate, he really does have a majority and his majority does not depend on expelling people. Had it been that way, Turkey would make a lot more sense. The core problem with Turkey lie not with legitimacy of elections, or with the consent of the governed, but within the much more subtle distinction between ‘ruling’ and ‘governing’ what is ultimately a very pluralistic society with a vast range of ethnic and sociocultural backgrounds. Doing legitimate elections is one thing, not assuming they mean ultimate power to squash out your opposition like bugs on a windshield is quite another. In terms of social malaise, Turkey is more similar to Hungary or Poland, rather than Russia. Again, it’s a weird country, it doesn’t make sense even to its inhabitants so I try to avoid commenting on it from afar.
- diminish 7y ago
  As someone on the opposite end of the political spectrum - made/joined a lot of campaigns against Erdogan's party since 15 years I could say He barely wins recent elections and lost 3 major towns and will lose power in few years. In Turkey our biggest problems have unfortunately "made in USA" labels :( . One of them is the the Imam of Universe (Fethullah Islamist cult) harbored in Pennsylvania by cold war remnants in Washington around intelligence circles. Those fellows are embedding a network followers in crucial posts in public and in large private enterprises by stealing exam questions, cheating in all sorts of admission processes, eliminating anyone who is just not one of them. At the end they have attempted a military coups for tactical political reasons. Needless to say when they were in power, those pro-western Gulen sect banned Youtube, blogger, Google Sites due to them talking about biological evolution in 2000s.
nif2ee 7y ago
> Erdogan legitimately wins his elections It's very easy to win elections when you kill, imprison and lay off _hundreds of thousands_ of your "enemies" and have total control on the press and the judicial system. Westerners nowadays forget that fear is a very, very effective political tool. In fact it's the most effective political tool by far. In Turkey, thousands of people were imprisoned based on just DNS queries that are being logged by intelligence services. Fucking DNS queries! even if your application/website connected to a "terrorist affiliated" server once via some ad or anything you get arrested. Turkey has, and now shamelessly supporting the most dangerous Islamic groups on Earth. How coincidental that after the alleged pathetic coup attempt, within days, around 100,000 people were arrested, how can you arrest a fucking hundred thousand people if these people aren't on lists a priori?. If hundreds of thousands plotted a fucking coup, how on earth could it fail? How can it even be a coup when hundreds of thousands plot it?. This is like Kirov assassination v2.0. It's not even a secret that Erdogan moving extremely dangerous ISIS members in civilian planes from Syria to Libya to destabilize Egypt. The US used an Iraq base and even asked the Russians to clear the way on the Syrian field for the planes that were going to kill Al Baghdadi in northern Syria despite having a big base in southern Turkey that can do the mission in minutes. It isn't hard to get that even the US army and CIA don't trust Erdogan having his men spying on the base and warning AL Baghdadi within seconds Every day, every fucking day, you open the news and see Erdogan "threatening" somebody, some country, some group, not just in Turkey but everywhere. Since he has been doing this for more than a decade now and nobody stood up to him. He's been seen now as the Caliph by islamists and extremists all over the world. It's the romantic reflection in the islamic legacy of the strong muslim ruler humiliating the infidels. The holy grail for every extremist!
- mrtksn 7y ago
  See, these people are on a list because they were fast-tracked into the positions they got due to their affiliation with the people who organised the coup, back when the coup organisers and Erdogan were BFFs. It probably sounds like tin foil hat conspiracy theorists to people unfamiliar with the life in Turkey but in Turkey, there are religious cults that are good for networking and social support. Essentially, they will pay for your education and get you to the top places but expect you to report to them and take orders from them when it comes to. Like the Chinese Govt using its citizens employed in tech companies to steal secrets etc. This particular one was active since 30-40 years now and was able to scale its operations to enormous size, having people everywhere. The founder was the original podcaster and Youtuber, spreading its message through VHS tapes etc. later creating a business model based on subscription(literally, subscribing to their newspaper multiple times) and expanding into a business network where you get business but you also pay in some of your profits. So these guys were on the radar of the secularist for a long time and are routinely purged from a critical position up until Erdogan teamed up with them. At some point, they got into a fight and Erdogan won and Erdogan had a list of their names of those he directly enabled, the rest were deducted from there. Imperfect but very well educated guess of the cult members, let's say. Probably not too much off since he had at least 3 years before the coup to polish his list of Gulenits. After the coup, Erdogan gained unchecked power and this is scary stuff. He is trying to be influential leader over the whole region but I am not sure that he is smart enough to do that. BTW, Erdogan dropped the Islamist rhetoric after the coup. He is now on the nationalistic side of the things, having the support of the nationalist secularist. All those imprisonments of the Gulenists were a wet dream of any secular nationalist. The rhetoric about foreign powers trying to destroy Turkey, evil west etc. is also not stranger to the secular nationalist.
balladeer 7y ago
I backpacked with a Turkish fellow in Europe for few days, some months ago. He said the opposition is trying to hit Erdogan where it hurts the most. Taking back cities after cities from his party's rule and hence hindering the fund flow to him and his party. He also added that he was really hated in the country right now. Is that how it is?
- tehlike 7y ago
  It's sort of true. There's a lot of construction going on in and around Istanbul, and most of the time it's either illegal or approved ex post facto for the benefit of the people close to government. Canal istanbul had a similar issue with proposed-land (before it was known) being acquired in advance by people close to Erdogan abroad, before it's acquired back under emminent domain at a premium. All this gets prevented by the new municipal government in Istanbul and Ankara. Erdogan also is on a tight leash these days, and publicly threatened to cut federal funding for both Istanbul and Ankara - it is kind of unheard of because when local government was under AKP ruling they had practically unlimited funding. So now that his party lost the local elections in two major cities, he's trying to make them look incompetent by cutting their funding, in hopes for winning the next election. Either Mansur Yavas or Ekrem Imamoglu will eventually be a candidate for President in following years, it'll be interesting to see how it plays out.
everdev 7y ago
After the failed coup didn't Erdogan order the arrest of many who opposed him? I've never heard of an autocrat that doesn't directly or indirectly manipulate elections.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
  Oh, Ergodan does what he can to stack the deck in his favor, but Turkey is not North Korea. He doesn't have untrammeled power to do so, and on occasion (most recently in Istanbul) he and his party do lose elections.
  - plumednom 7y ago
    For the two years after the fake coup, Tayipp did have absolute power. Remember that Tayipp's power was illegitimate for 4 years after he became President after he termed out from Prime Minister, which used to be a figure-head. The probelm is, he never stopped being Prime Minister and was in violation of the constitution for his entire term as President. So .. he staged a coup, changed the constitution, and gave himself even more power. He also removed parlimentary immunity, while retaining it for himself. Tayipp controls the country in the judiciary as much as in the military and the election board. Tayipp has filed over 100,000 lawsuits in the past 19 years. Whenever you say something he disagrees with, he sues you for $5k (30,000TRY) and labels you a terrorist. If he does this to you as a politician, especially if you're a member of HDP, you go to jail. In the 5 or 6 years I've been here, I've heard of no less than 200 politicians being arrested, mostly from the HDP.

duxup 7y ago

I have no doubt Erdogan has won elections. I do wonder how free and legitimate they are when he gets to expel those who oppose him. And of course the big question is would he allow a result where an election would mean he is removed from power.

rolleiflex 7y ago
Erdogan lost elections in the recent past and he had to give up power in Istanbul. The mayor of Istanbul is basically the Vice President of Turkey in terms of broadcasting power and actual ability to do things on the ground due to the sheer size of Istanbul, and he’s been a major thorn on his side since. I don’t think (I hope) when the time comes, he refuses to leave, that would be a much, much different problem than the ones facing Turkey right now. Re: legitimacy, I’ve been on the losing side of those elections for the last two decades by now. Unfortunately they’re pretty legitimate, he really does have a majority and his majority does not depend on expelling people. Had it been that way, Turkey would make a lot more sense. The core problem with Turkey lie not with legitimacy of elections, or with the consent of the governed, but within the much more subtle distinction between ‘ruling’ and ‘governing’ what is ultimately a very pluralistic society with a vast range of ethnic and sociocultural backgrounds. Doing legitimate elections is one thing, not assuming they mean ultimate power to squash out your opposition like bugs on a windshield is quite another. In terms of social malaise, Turkey is more similar to Hungary or Poland, rather than Russia. Again, it’s a weird country, it doesn’t make sense even to its inhabitants so I try to avoid commenting on it from afar.
diminish 7y ago
As someone on the opposite end of the political spectrum - made/joined a lot of campaigns against Erdogan's party since 15 years I could say He barely wins recent elections and lost 3 major towns and will lose power in few years. In Turkey our biggest problems have unfortunately "made in USA" labels :( . One of them is the the Imam of Universe (Fethullah Islamist cult) harbored in Pennsylvania by cold war remnants in Washington around intelligence circles. Those fellows are embedding a network followers in crucial posts in public and in large private enterprises by stealing exam questions, cheating in all sorts of admission processes, eliminating anyone who is just not one of them. At the end they have attempted a military coups for tactical political reasons. Needless to say when they were in power, those pro-western Gulen sect banned Youtube, blogger, Google Sites due to them talking about biological evolution in 2000s.

nif2ee 7y ago

> Erdogan legitimately wins his elections It's very easy to win elections when you kill, imprison and lay off _hundreds of thousands_ of your "enemies" and have total control on the press and the judicial system. Westerners nowadays forget that fear is a very, very effective political tool. In fact it's the most effective political tool by far. In Turkey, thousands of people were imprisoned based on just DNS queries that are being logged by intelligence services. Fucking DNS queries! even if your application/website connected to a "terrorist affiliated" server once via some ad or anything you get arrested. Turkey has, and now shamelessly supporting the most dangerous Islamic groups on Earth. How coincidental that after the alleged pathetic coup attempt, within days, around 100,000 people were arrested, how can you arrest a fucking hundred thousand people if these people aren't on lists a priori?. If hundreds of thousands plotted a fucking coup, how on earth could it fail? How can it even be a coup when hundreds of thousands plot it?. This is like Kirov assassination v2.0. It's not even a secret that Erdogan moving extremely dangerous ISIS members in civilian planes from Syria to Libya to destabilize Egypt. The US used an Iraq base and even asked the Russians to clear the way on the Syrian field for the planes that were going to kill Al Baghdadi in northern Syria despite having a big base in southern Turkey that can do the mission in minutes. It isn't hard to get that even the US army and CIA don't trust Erdogan having his men spying on the base and warning AL Baghdadi within seconds Every day, every fucking day, you open the news and see Erdogan "threatening" somebody, some country, some group, not just in Turkey but everywhere. Since he has been doing this for more than a decade now and nobody stood up to him. He's been seen now as the Caliph by islamists and extremists all over the world. It's the romantic reflection in the islamic legacy of the strong muslim ruler humiliating the infidels. The holy grail for every extremist!

mrtksn 7y ago
See, these people are on a list because they were fast-tracked into the positions they got due to their affiliation with the people who organised the coup, back when the coup organisers and Erdogan were BFFs. It probably sounds like tin foil hat conspiracy theorists to people unfamiliar with the life in Turkey but in Turkey, there are religious cults that are good for networking and social support. Essentially, they will pay for your education and get you to the top places but expect you to report to them and take orders from them when it comes to. Like the Chinese Govt using its citizens employed in tech companies to steal secrets etc. This particular one was active since 30-40 years now and was able to scale its operations to enormous size, having people everywhere. The founder was the original podcaster and Youtuber, spreading its message through VHS tapes etc. later creating a business model based on subscription(literally, subscribing to their newspaper multiple times) and expanding into a business network where you get business but you also pay in some of your profits. So these guys were on the radar of the secularist for a long time and are routinely purged from a critical position up until Erdogan teamed up with them. At some point, they got into a fight and Erdogan won and Erdogan had a list of their names of those he directly enabled, the rest were deducted from there. Imperfect but very well educated guess of the cult members, let's say. Probably not too much off since he had at least 3 years before the coup to polish his list of Gulenits. After the coup, Erdogan gained unchecked power and this is scary stuff. He is trying to be influential leader over the whole region but I am not sure that he is smart enough to do that. BTW, Erdogan dropped the Islamist rhetoric after the coup. He is now on the nationalistic side of the things, having the support of the nationalist secularist. All those imprisonments of the Gulenists were a wet dream of any secular nationalist. The rhetoric about foreign powers trying to destroy Turkey, evil west etc. is also not stranger to the secular nationalist.

balladeer 7y ago

I backpacked with a Turkish fellow in Europe for few days, some months ago. He said the opposition is trying to hit Erdogan where it hurts the most. Taking back cities after cities from his party's rule and hence hindering the fund flow to him and his party. He also added that he was really hated in the country right now. Is that how it is?

tehlike 7y ago
It's sort of true. There's a lot of construction going on in and around Istanbul, and most of the time it's either illegal or approved ex post facto for the benefit of the people close to government. Canal istanbul had a similar issue with proposed-land (before it was known) being acquired in advance by people close to Erdogan abroad, before it's acquired back under emminent domain at a premium. All this gets prevented by the new municipal government in Istanbul and Ankara. Erdogan also is on a tight leash these days, and publicly threatened to cut federal funding for both Istanbul and Ankara - it is kind of unheard of because when local government was under AKP ruling they had practically unlimited funding. So now that his party lost the local elections in two major cities, he's trying to make them look incompetent by cutting their funding, in hopes for winning the next election. Either Mansur Yavas or Ekrem Imamoglu will eventually be a candidate for President in following years, it'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

everdev 7y ago

After the failed coup didn't Erdogan order the arrest of many who opposed him? I've never heard of an autocrat that doesn't directly or indirectly manipulate elections.

9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
Oh, Ergodan does what he can to stack the deck in his favor, but Turkey is not North Korea. He doesn't have untrammeled power to do so, and on occasion (most recently in Istanbul) he and his party do lose elections.
- plumednom 7y ago
  For the two years after the fake coup, Tayipp did have absolute power. Remember that Tayipp's power was illegitimate for 4 years after he became President after he termed out from Prime Minister, which used to be a figure-head. The probelm is, he never stopped being Prime Minister and was in violation of the constitution for his entire term as President. So .. he staged a coup, changed the constitution, and gave himself even more power. He also removed parlimentary immunity, while retaining it for himself. Tayipp controls the country in the judiciary as much as in the military and the election board. Tayipp has filed over 100,000 lawsuits in the past 19 years. Whenever you say something he disagrees with, he sues you for $5k (30,000TRY) and labels you a terrorist. If he does this to you as a politician, especially if you're a member of HDP, you go to jail. In the 5 or 6 years I've been here, I've heard of no less than 200 politicians being arrested, mostly from the HDP.