Turkey turns

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan crowed triumphant after his Justice and Development Party (AKP)’s Sunday election victory, but the rest of the world should mourn. The AKP victory confirms not democracy, but rather dictatorship.

The election was a farce. In any election, AKP cheating gives it an extra five percent or so bonus. That figure, cited privately by Turkish politicians, diplomats, and veteran Turkish journalists, takes into account stuffed ballots, lost ballot boxes from opposition-held areas, voter suppression and — in yesterday’s election — enough registered dead people to make a corrupt Chicago politician blush.

People wave flags and hold a portrait of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan as they wait for the arrival of Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in Ankara, Turkey November 2, 2015. REUTERS/Umit Bektas.

Erdoğan long ago became the Turkish equivalent of corrupt Russian leader Vladimir Putin, minus the polonium tea (at least until he gets his hands on some polonium). He has sworn “to raise a religious generation,” and he will now succeed. Now, he seeks to change the constitution to confirm his position as sultan-in-chief. Some diplomats comfort themselves with the fact that Erdoğan’s new parliamentary majority falls short of that needed to simply impose constitutional change, and even short of that needed to call a referendum. These analysts make the mistake of assuming that Erdoğan respects institutions or plays by the rules. He is within easy bribery of the additional 15 votes he needs for a referendum, and can fix any ballot to conform to his desired results. It’s just a matter of time.

So what next for Turkey?

• Prolonged Kurdish conflict. Erdoğan first legitimized PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan by opening negotiations with him, and then undercut the Kurdish peace process for his own short-term political gain. Suppressing the Kurdish vote also convinced many Kurds that they had no democratic outlet; it is hard to blame Kurds for concluding they have no choice but fight. Regardless, time is on the Kurds’ side. Erdoğan once benefited from the high birth rates of his followers but now it’s the Kurds’ turn. Demography is on their side. That the Turkish Army is a shadow of its former self and that many Turks don’t want to send their children to die needlessly fighting the Kurds underscore the inevitable.

• Terror sponsorship. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry may believe themselves sophisticated for denying the obvious, but Turkey is a state sponsor of terrorism. It has become Pakistan on the Mediterranean. Erdoğan supports the Islamic State, Hamas, jihadist terror in Sudan and, to some extent at least, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Boko Haram. Erdoğan is an ideologue, and he will not hesitate to kill people to promote hatred and intolerance.

• Turkey as terror victim. Every country that has sponsored Islamist terrorism ultimately has suffered blowback. Saudi Arabia did not crack down seriously on Al Qaeda until Bin Laden’s minions turned on their former benefactors in the years immediately following 9/11. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad transformed his country into an underground railroad for foreign fighters seeking to wage jihad in Iraq, never recognizing they could just as easily turn on him. Turkey’s support for the Islamic State and Al Qaeda affiliates inside Syria will, in the long term, claim the lives of thousands inside Turkey. The recent bombings in Ankara and beheading in southeastern Turkey should send chills down the spine of anyone betting on Turkish stability.

• Gender segregation. The chief victims of Erdoğan’s strengthened rule will be women. Erdoğan has made clear his view that women should have three babies, and he has called birth control “treason,” and systematically excluded women from government service. He has even declared a war on Caesarean sections, as they deny God’s will.

• Further erosion of press freedom. Erdoğan despises the press. He has not only transformed Turkey into “the world’s largest prison for journalists,” but has been increasingly shameless in his efforts, seizing opposition newspapers and shutting down independent television stations mid-broadcast. Many journalists will retire or flee; others make moral compromise. Cengiz Çandar, for example, a columnist for Radikal and a veteran of both the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the US Institute of Peace, went so far as to endorse the arrests of his fellow journalists. Turkey has already fallen behind Russia in press freedom, no easy feat; it is well on its way to falling behind Iran. How low it can go is anyone’s guess, as Erdoğan even turns to punishing thought-crimes.

• The economic bubble will burst. The Turkish economy is on borrowed time, and perhaps a covert Qatari line of credit. When the Turkish economy imploded in 2000-2001, Turks turned to Erdoğan, who promised an end to corruption and a technocratic fix. This time around, they will have nowhere to turn. To invest in Turkey is akin to investing in Russia: Expect to lose money. The question for the world is, what might Erdoğan do to distract from the looming disaster?

Obama at first embraced Erdoğan and then chose to ignore him. The new US president will not have such a luxury.

He or she will have to answer some very basic questions about the US approach to Turkey. It’s time to plan for a world where Turkey is an adversary and a catalyst for regional instability, not a pillar upon which to rely.

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