The two events were three weeks apart. In both, the protagonists were legal officials and the central theme was defence of democracy, justice and rule of law. On 25 April, head of the Turkish Supreme Constitutional Court, Haşim Kılıç, speaking at a ceremony marking the anniversary of the court, lashed out at the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan for its attempts to undermine judicial autonomy. Erdogan, who was present among the audience on that occasion, remained grim-faced but silent in spite of his well-known intolerance for criticism. Perhaps the chief justice's harsh remarks caught him off guard, leaving him at a loss for words. The second incident occurred on Saturday, during the celebration of the 146th anniversary of the founding of the Council of State. Senior government officials filled the seats of honour in the front row on that occasion. President Abdullah Gül was on hand and to his left was President of the Council of State Zerrin Güngör, and to his right was Erdogan. The prime minister was prepared this time. He displayed visible discomfort during Güngör's speech but he held his tongue, aware that it would not look good before the cameras if he bullied a woman. Then came the turn of the head of the Union of Turkish Bar Associations, Metin Feyzioglu, to speak. It was a longer speech and it contained come critical remarks that Erdogan found difficult to bear. At one point, the prime minister suddenly started to heckle the speaker. His face flushed and the blood vessels in this forehead swelled as he shouted a stream of charges: Fayzioglu had spoken too long, his speech was “political” and he was “rude”. President Gül could be seen trying to calm down his long-term political mate, but Erdogan had made up his mind. He stormed out of the chamber, forcing a train of stunned Justice and Development Party (JDP) officials to follow him and bringing the ceremonies that day to a premature end. Fayzioglu may not have had the last word that day. But a few days earlier he had issued sarcastic remarks about the Erdogan's decision to sue the state for permitting the continued operation of social networking sites that he alleged were slandering him and his family. Erdogan's temper tantrum, which was aired live on state television, reverberated across the political spectrum. The leading opposition parties, the Republican People's Party (RPP) and Nationalist Movement Party (NMP), held that such behaviour on the part of the chief executive had delivered a debilitating blow to Turkey's prestige. Officials from the ruling JDP, on the other hand, were quick to rebuke the head of the Union of Turkish Bars Association. Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag warned that Feyzioglu would be punished for having breached the bounds of propriety in the presence of the prime minister. The visible tensions between the executive and the judiciary are only one of dozens of signs that Turkey of the early third millennium is heading somewhere far away from where it was at the end of the second millennium and that its temperamental prime minister is setting the course. This man, who has even less patience for competition than he does for criticism, believes that he and he alone should rule Turkey and its people. The proof is to be found in those opinion polls the JDP is constantly conducting among its parliamentary deputies and that reflect a virtually unanimous agreement among them that the reins of the party and the presidency should rest in his hands. There is no longer room for Gül. “He has had seven years in the presidential palace. That is enough. We owe him nothing,” say informed sources in the corridors of the ruling party. Indeed, the interests of the 300 JDP deputies who had been handpicked by Erdogan are inextricably linked with his. If he goes, they go. Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu put this in more glorious terms when he said: “The JDP is not just a political party. It is a historical movement, like the Seljuks and Ottomans. It faithfully reflects the wishes and aspirations of the Turkish people.” He then cited the recent municipal election results as proof of “the clear correlation between the fate of the party and the fate of Turkey”. What Davutoglu failed to mention was that the party was Erdogan and Erdogan was the party. Thus, while JDP parliamentary deputies cannot serve more than three terms, so as to promote the advancement through party ranks of younger generations, which means that 73 prominent JDP officials will have to exit from the political scene when parliamentary elections are held next year, exceptions have to be made for the leader. After having served for three terms as prime minister, he now plans to run for president in August. As his disciples and followers are confident that he will sweep the polls, they are already working to change the law governing the forthcoming parliamentary elections. The goal is to reduce the size of electoral districts in the conservative Anatolian heartland, where the JDP has its largest support base, so as to secure a larger parliamentary majority. The plan then is to amend the constitution to introduce a presidential system to replace the current parliamentary one, thereby helping Erdogan to realise one of his dreams, which is to become a president with powers equal to — if not greater than — those constitutionally granted to the US president. In a recent episode in his tenacious struggle for power, the JDP dominated parliament passed what is commonly referred to as the “MIT bill” which greatly expands the powers and immunities of the National Intelligence Organisation (MIT in Turkish). Signed into law by President Gül on 25 April, the new law hands Erdogan enormous leverage over people's lives via the country's top spy agency, and it is not difficult to guess whom he will target with this instrument first. For several weeks, the government's campaigns against the supporters of the Islamic preacher Muhammed Fethullah Gülen have gained increasingly impetus. Hardly a day goes by without news of dozens of police being dismissed or reassigned to positions unrelated to their areas of specialisation, especially those related to counterterrorism. More recently, however, after having targeted police and judges, the purges that the government has launched in reaction to the graft probes that became public on 17 December have begun to strike financial circles. The most salient incident, which one newspaper blazoned beneath the headline, “Earthquake in Istanbul,” involved the dismissal of Ali Çöplü and Mustafa Baltaci from their positions as vice chairpersons of Borsa Istanbul, Turkey's stock exchange. The newspaper went on to predict that the purge would be expanded. This, indeed, occurred last Friday, striking 12 government ministries and departments, most notably the Secretariat of the Treasury, the General Directorate of Revenues, the Ministry of Environment and Urban Planning, the Ministry of Science, Industry and Technology, and the Ministry of Labour and Social Security. Some 400 heads of departments in the Ministry of Finance have been changed and the IT infrastructure has been updated with the introduction of strict legal measures and comprehensive security clearance checks to ensure that employees have no connection with Gülen or his movement. As for the corruption probes, which was why all these purges have been conducted, the cases involving around 60 individuals close to JDP decision-making centres have been dropped on the grounds of insufficient evidence. With regard to sons of the three ministers who had resigned when the graft scandal broke, a parliamentary committee has been formed to conduct hearings. As the majority of its members hail from the ruling JDP, the likely outcome will be to consign these cases to oblivion. Will Gülen and his supporters merely withdraw and abandon the field to Erdogan? It is unlikely that the conflict, which neither began nor will end with the preacher alone, but includes a significant opposition that is determined to expose the mafia of graft and bribery, will end soon. But until some sign of victory appears on the horizon, Erdogan will pursue his ultimate dream, which is monopolise rule over ancient Anatolia.
