Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has not endeared himself to his more liberal, reform-minded constituents. Last summer, thousands of protesters took to the streets to demonstrate against Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian rule. The prime minister’s detractors have not had to look far. Under Erdogan’s leadership, Turkey holds the ignominious honor of being the world’s leading “jailer of journalists.” Alongside his Justice and Development Party (AKP), Erdogan has promoted religious education and restricted alcohol consumption. Just last month, bribery investigations implicated the prime minister’s cabinet members, political allies, cronies and even his son in an expansive corruption scandal. This, in part, spurred Erdogan’s attempts to strip away Turkey’s judicial independence through proposed legislation that would give him heightened control over the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors. By endeavoring to undertake such a naked power grab, Erdogan dramatically lurched away from the country’s liberal-democratic principles.
On December 17, 2013, Turkish police detained dozens of members of Erdogan’s administration on charges of bribery and money laundering. The prime minister went on the offensive, swiftly sacking hundreds of police officers in retaliation. Shortly afterwards, the government removed several prosecutors related to the case and dropped the arrest warrants of many of the individuals caught by the investigation — including Erdogan’s son. Erdogan explained away the allegations of corruption the same way he explained his judicial power grab: by asserting that Turkey and his regime were being undermined by the Gulenists, a religious order with whose founder Erdogan has had a falling out. The government has justified this investigation-turned-purge by citing the need to excise a duplicitous and subversive “parallel state” of malicious Gulenist infiltrators.
When President Abdullah Gul signed the aforementioned AKP-sponsored legislation, essentially a bid to cripple the entire judicial branch of government, Turkey’s judiciary became another stepping stone in Erdogan’s long-running attempt at consolidating power. While Erdogan has publicly rejected this interpretation of events, a growing number of Turks are becoming tired of his inadequate explanations. Erdogan’s approval rating now sits at 43.5 percent — down from 59.1 percent the previous year — and his party suffers more, with approval ratings hovering around only 30 percent. Even the European Union has chimed in, condemning the prime minister’s partisan dismissal of judges. It seems that the suspicious timing of the attempted judicial reforms has left few convinced of a Gulenist conspiracy. A recent development in Erdogan’s growing crackdown — restricted Twitter access that began March 20 — lends these suspicions even more credibility. And when a court overturned the Twitter ban, Erdogan did not take the criticism lightly, calling for the ruling to be corrected. The prime minister’s increasingly authoritarian stance “mean[s] Turkey is…regressing,” according to Cengiz Aktar of the Istanbul Policy Forum. These recent developments show the height of Turkey’s slide into internal conflict. Despite the judiciary’s stabs at resistance, Erdogan’s ever-growing despotism could be gaining momentum.
The recent transgressions against judicial autonomy have only deepened tensions between the AKP’s two opponents: the Gulenists and the Republican People’s Party. This tension disinclined a triumphant Erdogan from showing any generosity towards his competitors after provincial elections in March, when the AKP had a stronger-than-expected showing. Erdogan’s victory speech consisted of making thinly veiled threats and condemning his political opponents as “traitors” and “terrorists.” This is a dramatic reversal for a man who, in 2003, extolled the need for a “pluralistic and participatory democracy.” The AKP’s electoral success, despite its low results in public opinion polls, is a promising situation for Erdogan, given his own poll numbers. With this in mind, he may now be emboldened to continue his quest for retribution and enhanced political power. Even considering recent negative opinion polls — who were alarmingly willing to forgive bribery and graft while buying into Erdogan’s anti-Gulenist attack on the courts — might not restrain him. As a freshly bolstered Erdogan ramps up to run for president later this year, he will likely try, in the words of a New York Times editorial, to “crush anyone or anything who crosses him” — a strategy that almost certainly guarantees more dangerous political polarization and instability in Turkey.”
In a highly divided nation in which Islamists and secularists have continuously vied for power, increased partisanship certainly means volatility. Turkey’s judiciary has so far been an equalizer: While historically guaranteeing religious freedoms, even against the will of some of the country’s Muslim majority, the court has also fought secular corruption. In 2012, this trend continued as hundreds of military officers — generally considered defenders of Turkey’s secularism — were successfully convicted of plotting a coup that would have been the fifth in the country’s recent history. This conviction, although on the surface seemed to indicate that the courts are properly functioning, law-abiding government institutions, had an underlying political motive: It has been linked to the administration’s efforts to undermine the Republican People’s Party. According to some, such actions come from the government’s urge to strike at the political and military opposition to state power rather than an urge to fight corruption. This pairs well with the prime minister’s efforts to weaken judicial independence, and shows that if the courts do not stick to their guns, they will run the risk of becoming another tool in his power struggle, rather than a safeguard against it.
Regardless of whether Gulenists are actually disloyal to the Turkish state, or whether soldiers loyal to the administration’s enemies are corrupt, Erdogan is trying to tighten his grip on power through political jockeying that doesn’t belong in the courts. Although Turkey’s highest judicial body, the Constitutional Court, has successfully challenged Erdogan’s Twitter ban and has struck down Erdogan’s more egregious attempts to keep judges and prosecutors in his back pocket, the prime minister has set alarming precedents by attacking judicial independence. These two victories for the courts are little consolation given recent events. As long as Erdogan keeps seeing enemies within the government and continues to cover up corruption with swipes at judicial independence, Turkey will be in jeopardy. If last year’s protesters ever had a reason to return to the streets, this is it.