In an interview with CNN journalist Becky Anderson on Could 19, 2023, after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan fell in need of an outright election victory, he dismissed criticism of Turkey’s lengthy slide towards authoritarianism: “How might somebody who’s going right into a runoff election as a substitute of finishing the election within the first spherical be a dictator?”
The Turkish President appeared startled over the fees leveled in opposition to him and didn’t masks his discontent. “That’s the actuality,” he defined. “We now have an alliance with 322 MPs in Parliament and the chief of this alliance will go for the runoffs within the first place. What sort of a dictator is that?”
On the coronary heart of his criticism was U.S. President Joe Biden, who as soon as referred to as the Turkish chief an “autocrat” throughout his 2020 marketing campaign. However the broader goal of Erdoğan’s chiding is the Western world, which has depicted him as a strongman chief over his now 20-year rule.
The Could 14 elections have been universally thought to be a make-or-break second for the way forward for the nation’s political system. As Turkey marks the one hundredth anniversary of the Republic, Erdoğan’s unassailable grip on energy has made many assume that the Turkish Republic could sink into the oblivion of historical past after one other Erdoğan win. In opposition to this backdrop, the stakes of the Could 14 vote—which pit Erdoğan in opposition to an opposition coalition headed by Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu promising to revive Turkish democracy—have been understandably larger than ever earlier than.
But for some observers, Erdoğan’s message hit house. In any case, what sort of a tyrant could be content material with heading to a runoff election after garnering 49.5% of the votes within the first spherical? Why trouble with the second spherical as a substitute of pushing the 49.5% somewhat over 50% to nail his triumph that night time as soon as and for all?
This argument not simply reeks of gross logical errors, however additionally it is deceptive. That Erdoğan “gracefully” consented to the outcome doesn’t obviate the truth that the elections have been hardly truthful. In its preliminary findings after the vote, the observing delegation of the Group for Safety and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) mentioned that whereas the competition was “aggressive and largely free,” Erdoğan had an “unjustified benefit” over the opposition as a consequence of restrictions on the press and free meeting.
Learn Extra: ‘Erdoğan Is a Character Cult.’ Why Turkey’s Longtime Chief Is an Electoral Powerhouse
The opposition candidate received a 32-minute airing on state-run Turkish Radio and Tv (TRT), whereas Erdoğan received 32 hours in a month within the lead-up to the election. This discrepancy speaks volumes in regards to the tilted taking part in subject lengthy earlier than the edges launched into campaigning. What’s extra, Erdoğan marshaled immense sources at his disposal, mobilizing the state and celebration equipment to bend and twist the place attainable to his liking.
Victory on this setting doesn’t burnish Erdoğan’s battered credentials or rehabilitate his public document. Nonetheless necessary a staple it might have been within the definition of democracy, an electoral win nonetheless doesn’t make Erdoğan a democratic chief. It solely serves to masks the true nature of the authoritarian regime he has efficiently contrived to construct all alongside the best way.
Democracy will not be about elections solely. I’m not a political scientist nor an knowledgeable on the historical past of electoral politics. However my very own predicament—the truth that I can’t even reunite and meet with my mother and father for the previous seven years—and the tragedy that 1000’s of individuals went via is a testomony to the kind of regime that has taken maintain in Turkey. These elections function a canopy for a brand new kind of governance Erdoğan achieved to construct: an electoral autocracy. His document wants no amplification or philosophical exposition. Even an opposition victory wouldn’t imply an in a single day, clean return to democracy, as undoing what Erdoğan put in would take a few years, if not many years.
Though it looks as if historical historical past now, Turkey after the 2013 Gezi Park protests and the politically-charged corruption scandal that implicated Erdogan’s shut circle and members of the family has given option to a president who has trampled the central tenets of democracy, stamping out the final vestiges of already-imperfect judicial independence, swelling the ranks of paperwork with incompetent loyalists, snuffing out the area at no cost speech and media, and unleashing a sweeping purge of conceived non-loyalists in a push to rebuild the Turkish state in his personal picture. Erdoğan has achieved all of this and much more. He has jailed greater than 100,000 folks, together with numerous girls and infants, after sham political trials. In doing so, the President has revealed to the complete world that he has no ethical compunction over imprisoning probably the most weak members of society given that they weren’t amongst his loyal flock.
Elections, no matter their outcomes, don’t change what Turkey has skilled beneath Erdoğan’s management. His “swish” consent to runoff elections doesn’t rework him from a pariah to a liberal democrat within the Jeffersonian mildew in a single day. Slightly, Erdoğan’s twenty years in energy comprise an unlimited physique of proof about the kind of chief he’s and the regime he managed to construct.
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