Turkey's Presidential Takeover?

[alfred russel]

There weren't any legal term-limits on Erdogan. He said he'd only be PM for three terms, but there's very rarely term limits on PMs.

I think he wanted the aggrandisement of being President. Just like Mugabe changing Zimbabwe from a Parliamentary to a Presidential system - and numerous other examples in Africa which almost always end up in some form of authoritarian regime. So he's constitutionally and politically changed the system (his model, from what he says is the V Republic in France) to a Presidential one.

I looked it up and his party imposes term limits, not the system.

Erdogan proposed constitutionally giving the president a bunch of powers, but the proposals havent gone anywhere (his party lacks the ability to re write the constitution on its own without a referendum, and the Turkish people are against it). I think the only thing he got to go through was the direct election of the president.

[Sheilbh]

Erdogan proposed constitutionally giving the president a bunch of powers, but the proposals havent gone anywhere (his party lacks the ability to re write the constitution on its own without a referendum, and the Turkish people are against it). I think the only thing he got to go through was the direct election of the president.

Okay. Hence why they want a supermajority sufficient to change the constitution without a referendum I suppose. I thought he'd managed to get most of them through with the support of the Kurds, but was wrong

So at the minute he's just de Gaulle on the cusp of the V

[Razgovory]

Teh Horror!

[garbon]

Any reason you are against putting in sources, Sheilbh? Also who names their blog Ottomans and Zionists?

No. I don't know if I normally do or if I just forgot.

So survey says, you generally avoid source links.

[Valmy]

Yeah, how silly of me  to be unsupportive of military dictatorship.

That is not the silly part.

[Martinus]

I remember certain people here on Languish cheering on Erdogan doing away with the "undemocratic" military in favour of his "democratic" rule. 

I was one of them. I think the autocratic tendencies of Erdogan and the AKP weren't really visible in the first years of their rule and only became more and more apparent in the last three to five years.

If someone tells you they see something, and you refuse to acknowledge that, then later, when you yourself start to see it, you can't come back and say that something was "not really visible" at the time. It just means you couldn't see it.

[Eddie Teach]

Eh, if Obama suddenly starts acting like the Antichrist, Siege will take credit for having seen it all along.


(Yes, of course Siege believes in the prophecies in the Book of Revelation. Why wouldn't he?  )

[Zanza]

If someone tells you they see something, and you refuse to acknowledge that, then later, when you yourself start to see it, you can't come back and say that something was "not really visible" at the time. It just means you couldn't see it.

It must mean a great deal to you being right for once. 

[Razgovory]

Yeah, how silly of me  to be unsupportive of military dictatorship.

That is not the silly part.

No the silly part was everyone here screaming about the impeding Islamic theocracy in Turkey, and then looking the other way when thousands were slaughtered in Egypt.

[OttoVonBismarck]

And I still think ruling monarchs should be toppled off their thrones, by force it necessary.  But I would be a little hesitant to cheer on that Palestinian nationalist coup in Jordan.  That is kind of how I felt about the Turkey thing...wait and see.  Things obviously went far worse than I ever imagined.

I can't agree. Qatar, Bahrain, and UAE generally have pretty effective monarchies and I don't think knocking them off "by force" would do any good in the world. The rich tiny gulf states are some of the best run countries in the Arab world. Kuwait and Jordan are both monarchies but are both constitutional monarchies in sort of the 18th century sense of the word where there is true power sharing. I think that's a good model and one that can gradually lead to true democratization, just as it did in Britain for example.

The Saudi monarchy is the most troubling and probably the most difficult to deal with. The West likes the Saudis because they have unabashedly been pro-Western, but they can only rule Wahhabist Saudi Arabia by allowing horrific repression by extremist Muslims in the form of the religious police and Sharia judges who can hand down punishments unrelated to any code or statute but instead simply "what they think appropriate" from their study of religious texts. The Saudis deal with the Wahhabists makes it more and more difficult for them to maintain their relationship with the West because the Wahhabists hate the West. If Westerners dropped their support for the House of Saud, likely they would have to embrace extremists more closely, since they would have no Western relationship to help maintain their power base. If Westerners supported a Saudi democracy it would likely turn into a government little different than that which the Islamic State wishes to setup in its Caliphate.

[OttoVonBismarck]

They were democratically elected. There was no indication they were going to cancel the next election and every indication they'd probably lose it. Don't interrupt your enemy when they're making a mistake.

You are being intentionally obtuse here. There was no evidence Putin ever planned to cancel elections, and he hasn't, but he certainly made it so no one could meaningfully campaign against him by creating an unfree society. Elections, even genuinely free ones, do not mean a democratic country if the party in power controls information and the system such that they have no chance of losing. That's precisely what the MB was moving toward in Egypt. I would generally agree that the MB is a moderate Islamic party in the context of the Middle East, but in Egypt they were not wanting to share power with anyone else.

I have no time for the neo-Orientalists of the right or the left who think the Arab world isn't ready for democracy, I think a lot of the problems stem from the lack of democracy and we should support it. That means we'll deal with governments we disagree with entirely, but we already do that.

I haven't seen such school boy idealism in many a year, certainly not in a place as often cynical as this forum. History is a clear guide that many peoples are in fact not ready for democracy. Anywhere in which the elite are more liberal than the populace, and the populace is mostly barbarians, there is little moral argument for democracy. That's a classic scenario where the masses must be controlled/cowed, with as much violence is as necessary to make it so.

[viper37]

Turkey is one case where a military coup would be a good idea as I would think the military there used to be one safeguard of the democracy in that nation. But Erdogan acted early to defang the military and put certain Generals in jail and now we're seeing the results of his authoritarian take over. I've often wondered if in Egypt the military leaders saw this in Turkey and so therefore acted before the Muslim Brotherhood could do similar to neuter the Egyptian military.

I remember certain people here on Languish cheering on Erdogan doing away with the "undemocratic" military in favour of his "democratic" rule. 

names, please.

[Martinus]

Turkey is one case where a military coup would be a good idea as I would think the military there used to be one safeguard of the democracy in that nation. But Erdogan acted early to defang the military and put certain Generals in jail and now we're seeing the results of his authoritarian take over. I've often wondered if in Egypt the military leaders saw this in Turkey and so therefore acted before the Muslim Brotherhood could do similar to neuter the Egyptian military.

I remember certain people here on Languish cheering on Erdogan doing away with the "undemocratic" military in favour of his "democratic" rule. 

names, please.

Raz, Sheilbh, Zanza and (I think) Timmy.

[Razgovory]

Martinus do you think of military coups as "democratic" process?

[Norgy]

Turkey is one case where a military coup would be a good idea as I would think the military there used to be one safeguard of the democracy in that nation.

The military have mostly been concerned with keeping the secular nature of the state intact. Democracy, not so much.
If it weren't for the fact that Turkey's a fairly important regional player, Erdogan's delusions of grandeur would mostly funny. This Atatürk v. 2.0 malarkey is just worrying.