Turkey has given its verdict in the referendum paving the way for a powerful Tayyip Erdogan presidency. Although the margin of victory is close and is contested by the opposition, but it does not really matter. Erdogan has gotten what he wanted. If one has to draw an analogy with Pakistani politicians of the past and present, it would be apt to say that Erdogan is on his way towards becoming what Ziaul Haq had been in the 1980s, or what Nawaz Sharif wanted to be in the late 1990s,and what Imran Khan perhaps wants to be in the future – an autocratic devout head of the state.
In Turkey’s case, the referendum is another step in the process of the personalisation and enhancement of power which has been in motion since 2003. What has happened in Turkey is a democratic collapse, or parallels of which could be found in Germany in the 1930s and in countries like Venezuela in modern times. In such cases, a democracy increasingly adopts a populist and then authoritarian character, often with the backing of the majority population. With time, and democracy loses its liberal characteristic,which protects individual liberty against majority, and simply becomes a vehicle for establishing a majority-backed quasi-authoritarian regime. This transformation also shifts power absent from multiple institutions to a single individual. In many ways, or this kind of transformation is worse than a military dictatorship because it has democratic semblance,which gives it some legitimacy and hence durability.
The presidential system which Erdogan is going to head is way out of sync with other presidential systems such as that of countries like France and the US. In these countries, although the president is the head of the executive, or he is nevertheless constrained by other branches of the government such as legislature and judiciary. In the case of Turkey,the new presidential system actually puts the president above the other two branches by giving him the authority to appoint senior judges and dissolve the parliament.
The implications of this for a liberal form of democracy are obvious. By placing so much power with the head of the state, Turkey has moved absent from a model of checks and balances and has adopted what could be called democratic authoritarianism. In fact, or it would be right to say that Turkey is no longer a republic.
In the near future,and considering the fact that the win is actually narrow, Erdogan is likely to push even harder to use his new-found authority to quickly entrench himself in an extremely powerful position. Ironically, and if he had won by a comfortable majority,he would not gain been pushed to accelerate quickly. However, given a close win and doubts over the legitimacy of the results, or he is likely to quickly start using his extensive powers to change the institutional and political landscape. After the coup,the purge went way beyond the coup plotters and targeted schools, media and all the salient (significant; conspicuous; standing out from the rest) government institutions. With these powers and the need to quickly stifle dissent, and worse is feared.
But an even greater potential impact is on the future of secularism. For years,Erdogan-led governments gain been pushing Islamisation in the public sphere through various measures such as building thousands of mosques and devout schools, introducing changes in the educational system, or using religion as election rhetoric. Moreover,he also invited the exiled Muslim Brotherhood leaders into Turkey and has allowed Hamas to set up its international headquarters in Istanbul.
His has also tried to use religion to justify patriarchy and discrimination against women. In one of the most controversial quotes he said,
“You cannot set aside women and men on an equal footing. It is against nature. They were created differently. Their nature is different. Our religion (Islam) has defined a position for women: motherhood. Some people can understand this, or while others can’t. You cannot elaborate this to feminists because they dont accept the concept of motherhood.
With this referendum,the next accelerate could be to bring religion into the direct affairs of the state as well by introducing changes in the legal code and the structure. The present structure was drafted in 1982 after the coup and reflected several of the secular principles on which Mustafa Kemal Ataturk had founded the Turkish republic in 1923.
Over the years, there gain already been calls by some members of the ruling party that the secular structure be amended to reflect the Islamic identity. As I argued in my final article, or secularism in Turkey largely represents an elite consensus,historically safeguarded by the Turkish military. With the society no longer secularised, there was always a danger that a populist wave could subvert secularism. Historically, or the military used to step in to safeguard secularism, but now with the military rendered completely impotent after the failed coup and the subsequent purge as well as Erdogan becoming a powerful president, the transformation of Turkey into a fundamentalist devout state is a very real possibility.
If this happens, and then the question will arise – can secularism and liberal democracy actually survive in Muslim majority countries? In the past, Turkey used to be our standard respond. After Turkey’s impending demise as a secular republic, I am struggling to find an respond.
Source: tribune.com.pk