Oh the lust of high office
To deny Turkey’s new president – Recep Tayyip Erdogan – his long list of achievements as prime minister for more than a decade would, of course, be unfair. But some of his promises at the oath taking ceremony, like upholding Turkey’s secular traditions and Kemal Ataturk’s political ideals, can no longer be taken at face value, and do his increasingly dubious credentials no favours. Granted, his people owe him a debt of gratitude for bringing stability to the political system, streamlining governance and improving the economy four-fold in the eventful decade of the AKP’s rule. His foreign policy – zero problems with neighbours – coupled with economic credentials, made his Turkey the ideal to be aimed at in the Muslim world. During the early days, he would make sure any objections to his policy were settled by the people, and few could justify assaults on his style and system.
But the Arab Spring affected Turkey in a strange way. Erdogan had already begun drawing criticism for reversing the country’s long established secular ideals – an outlook they have guarded jealously since Ataturk’s days. He also betrayed a likeness for mixing his own Islamist leaning with the political system. And he also offended the military by trying dozens of generals for treason. But by the time the Spring reached Syria, he openly sided with the Saudis, ditched his Ba’athist friends in Damascus, and facilitated al Qaeda’s deep penetration into the Levant. Out went the zero problems policy and internal divisions followed. And since AQ exposure is never without its influences – sectarianism etc – there was blowback inside the country. He also became more like his new GCC friends; autocratic and intolerant of criticism, dealing very strictly with dissent. His biggest prize, the economy, also suffered since the Istanbul stock exchange leveraged hot money flows that his policies had facilitated, but which wastes little time offloading amid signs of trouble.
As president he faces serious challenges, but he also has a truly historic opportunity. He must realise where he has crossed the line and since he knows how easily the economy can be compromised by wrong external choices, he must undo some of his alliances very quickly. But when he speaks of restoring Turkey’s Ottoman glory, he also exposes a tendency that his opponents call lust for power. Now he has a choice of either leaving a legacy as one of his country’s greatest reformers, or someone who believed too strongly in his own legend, and thought he was one of those Pashas that eventually ran the empire into the ground.