Turkey's Autocratic Trend and the Kurdish Paradox

Today's Turkey is sharply polarized between the supporters of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and their critics. The AKP camp believes that under the leadership of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan a "new" Turkey has replaced the old one. The old Turkey, in their eyes, was a place where the politics and economy of the country was in shambles.

Weak coalition governments, high inflation, chronic public deficits and systemic corruption plagued the system. Most importantly, the military, the guardians of the system, called the shots by toppling or pressuring civilian governments. And as far as foreign policy is concerned, they believed Turkey used to punch below its weight and had almost no regional soft power in the Middle East as a model of Muslim democracy.

Those, who don’t buy this rosy picture rightly point out that the current state of Turkish democracy in this so-called new Turkey leaves a lot to be desired. Erdogan’s understanding of democracy is indeed based on a simplistic and populist notion of winning elections. His majoritarian and electoral understanding comes at the expense of individual rights and liberties, an independent media, and freedom of expression and association. The absence of rule of law as well as problems with the separation of executive, legislative and judicial powers still condemns Turkey to a second class category among democracies.

This is why, under the populist and hegemonic style of Erdogan the old type of Turkish authoritarianism (dominated by the military) has been replaced by a “new” one based on the tyranny of the majority and the hegemony of Erdogan. As far as the economy is concerned, it is hard to argue against the fact that Turkey today is a more prosperous place compared to the 1990s. However, the latest corruption scandals clearly revealed that political networks of tender-fixing, influence-peddling, patronage and cronyism still plagues the Turkish system. Corruption is indeed still systemic in the new Turkey.

What about the Kurdish question in today's Turkey? The Kurdish issue poses a glaring paradox for the anti-AKP camp. Everyone agrees that the Kurdish problem is the most daunting challenge facing Turkish democracy. Solving the Kurdish problem requires the opposite of what Erdogan seems to provide: democracy, freedom of speech, rule of law, separation of powers, liberalism, decentralization of decision-making and less patriarchal governing structures.

So why is an autocratic Erdogan still the only hope for solving the Kurdish problem? The fact that Erdogan is the best hope of fulfilling such promise – by negotiating a peace process with the PKK – is indeed a glaring paradox that requires explanation. Some argue that the peace process with the Kurds is cosmetic, tactical and hollow. They believe Erdogan calculated in a Machiavellian way that he needs the support of Kurds to get elected to the presidency and to change the system into a presidential one after the AKP wins the next parliamentary elections. But this is a highly risky strategy for Erdogan, mainly because winning Kurdish votes also means losing a significant amount of support from Turkish nationalists – an important segment of the AKP base.

Another way to analyze the paradox is to actually believe that Erdogan genuinely wants to solve the Kurdish problem. He is, after all, an admirer of the Ottoman system of multiculturalism and may fancy himself as the historic Turkish leader who will be elected president by the people and have sultan-like powers. Under the presidential systems he covets, he may have the power to delegate power to the Kurdish regions the way only an Ottoman Sultan could.

One should also not underestimate the fact Erdogan probably identifies with the victimhood narrative of the Kurds. He after all, had a similar narrative of victimhood based on being a pious Muslim under secular Kemalist hegemony. What we may be witnessing in the new Turkey is a coalition of pious Muslims and Kurds taking their revenge from the ultra- secular nation-state created by Kemalists.

Gonul Tol is Executive Director of Center for Turkish Studies at the Middle East Institute (MEI)