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Coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the Republic, Turkey has just lived through a historical election to which every antidemocratic method was applied. In the second round of the Presidential election, the President of the AKP, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, despite the fact he could barely stand upright, was re-elected President after using every means provided by the State. I don’t write that “he won” because if this electoral campaign had been devoid of fraud, and been carried out in an equitable manner, Erdoğan’s government would probably have not received more than 40% of the votes.
Erdoğan and his team who have frequently underlined the importance of 2023 for them ever since attaining power in 2002, put in place a chain of illegalities during the electoral process. Erdoğan and his allies committed a number of infractions, ranging from the publication of videos that had been modified of his rival Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu,to the arrest of the HDP’s parliamentary candidates, the simultaneous broadcasting of identical programs on all the television networks, the stoning of candidates at meetings of the opposition. Süleyman Soylu, the minister of the Interior, worked as AKP’s parliamentary candidate in order to achieve this.
By pronouncing sermons in mosques, Erdoğan clearly transformed these elections into a polarization between a regime dictated by political islamists and an opposition calling for a democratic system. I leave it then to your judgment whether these were truly democratic elections! If truth be told, The Economist’s democracy index provided the answer to this question. According to its investigation, Turkey is ranked 104th out of 167 countries as pertains to democracy.
The country is experiencing a major economic crisis, yet it takes the risk of an “official recognition” of political Islam. It is clear that the economic crisis is not the absolute priority for either Erdoğan’s partisans or his opponents. Some are fighting for the charia, others for the protection of the most fundamental rights and freedoms in the constitutional framework.
No matter what it will do, the AKP government represents a great danger particularly for children, women and youth and is incapable of totally intimidating the opposition. According to official figures, half of the country wants nothing more to do with Erdoğan. Aware of this danger, Erdoğan has immediately invested in the upcoming local elections, scheduled for the early months of 2024.
In the hope of creating a more positive atmosphere, it appears that Erdoğan and his team will both run with the hare and hunt with the hounds until they have crossed the critical point. However, it must be mentioned that this point is not far removed!
Therefore, President Erdoğan announced the composition of his “new cabinet” on the evening of May 3. As a reminder, it is a cabinet without a prime minister according to the new constitution and its presidentialism.
One can state that the most obvious indicator of Erdoğan’s efforts to create a positive atmosphere is in the nomination of the new minister of the Economy. Erdoğan had to accept the fact that the country’s economy has been deteriorating for a good while, day in and day out, while he was responsible for all monetary and financial decisions. Reason for which he nominated Mehmet Şimşek to the position of minister of the Treasury and of Finances. One might think that Mehmet Şimşek, considered to be “favorable to the markets” in foreign policy will progressively modify the economic policies applied over the past two years, by returning to more orthodox ones in economic matters. When one takes into account the interests of Erdoğan and of his entourage, one has no difficulty understanding that the only solution is the temporary end of his governance in economic matters.
It should also be noted that Erdoğan did not include the ex-minister of the interior, Süleyman Soylu who was constantly in search of provocative opportunities by committing any number of illegal actions against the opposition, and behaving almost like a mafia capo.
And yet, does this mean that the new Turkish minister of the interior, Ali Yerlikaya, is something of an innocent dove? No. Unfortunately, one must describe him as the “shield of ISIS”. In 1993, Ali Yerlikaya was named governor of the Felahiye district in Kayseri. In 2003, he was legal counsel to the ministry of the Interior and, in 2004, he took over the general directorate of human resources for the ministry of Health. In 2007, he was named governor of Şırnak, then governor of Ağrı and of Tekirdağ respectively. Ali Yerlikaya was also governor of Antep (Gaziantep) between 2015 ans 2018 and at the center of criticism over the events that occurred in Antep, when the town became the auxiliary HQ for ISIS and the epicenter of its projected attacks. This same Ali Yerlikaya also occupied the post of governor of Diyarbakır, when ISIS attacks were committed in Diyarbakır on June 5th 2015, in Suruç on July 20 2015, at at the Ankara station on October 10 2015, not to mention the bomb explosion during a wedding in Gaziantep on August 20 2016.
One of the faithful is thus pushed aside, who will probably be put to use in other tasks, while rewarding a personality who has rendered many services and who will be compatible and close to radical nationalist Islamist allies.
Another noticeable selection in this new cabinet? Mahinur Özdemir Göktaş of course, as minister of Family and Social services, the only woman in the 19 person cabinet. One can say that this cabinet clearly demonstrates the pursuit of the AKP’s discriminatory policy concerning women. It is well known that women have not left the streets for a single day, despite the constantly heavier oppressive policies put in place since 2016. Erdoğan’s enmity against women is huge, but women are not giving up!
Another nomination worth mentioning is that of Hakan Fidan as minister of Foreign Affairs, the man Erdoğan describes as his “box of secrets”, the somber director of the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) for 13 years, who was never a candidate at elections, nor nominated to any ministry prior to this one. Turkey’s diplomacy will thus always remain one of its occult “networks”.
So, in whose hands were placed youth, students who represent the country’s future?
Yusuf Tekin is the new Turkish minister of Education. With 12 years experience as a bureaucrat, Yusuf Tekin of course declared, as expected by political Islam, that he does not consider a co-educational education system as mandatory. At the symposium held on Imam Hatip religious schools, to which he participated in 2013, Tekin declared: “In the 1930s, the language of religious references was tampered with and these institutions were then transformed into political instruments.”
But what will be Erdoğan’s new Kurdish policy?
In fact, it is crystal clear: by including in his alliance HÜDA-PAR, the “Party for the Free Cause”, formerly “God’s Party”, the legal and political arm of the terrorist Organization of the Turkish Hezbollah, and by allowing 4 parliamentary shares to the extreme right-wing Islamist party, devoid of any real electorate, Erdoğan revealed his new policy as pertains to the Kurds. It amounts to “making Kurds strike Kurds”. Erdoğan’s new plan consists of dealing with Kurds in the framework of his political Islam policy. The presence of 4 Kurds in his cabinet and the quick invitation extended to Netchirvan Barzani, followed by a meeting on May 17th, are also part of this plan.
n closing, although there was drop in the voices of Kurdish democratic policy which participated in the elections under the sword of every apparatus of State-directed repression, there is no exaggeration in saying that the salvation of the peoples of Turkey depends on the ecological and democratic paradigm, that of women’s liberation and of the Movement for Kurdish Freedom.
Translation from French by Renée Lucie Bourges
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