“Recep Tayyip Erdogan will be Turkey's president until 2023, and we will amend the constitution to add powers to the post because he wants to be a real president and not just an honourary one,” said former parliamentary speaker Mehmet Ali Şahin, a prominent member of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) on Saturday. Şahin, his face glowing as he pronounced these words, had no doubt that Erdogan was on the threshold of becoming the twelfth president of Turkey. However, even as he spoke Istanbul, Ankara and other major cities were ablaze with massive anti-government demonstrations. The protestors' anger was not directed at Erdogan alone, but instead was directed at all ruling party officials. It even reached across the Atlantic to the ivied walls of Harvard, where the current Turkish president and first lady were attending the graduation ceremony of their son. A barrage of anti-AKP taunts cast a cloud over the occasion. Erdogan's path to the presidential palace is not paved with roses. But as part of the process of readying himself for the country's presidential elections, set for 10 August, the prime minister set off on a European tour in order to try to bond with his countrymen in countries such as Germany, Holland and France. It appears that there was a change of plan following the first signs that this was not happening. Erdogan's first stop was in the German city of Cologne, home to the largest Turkish community outside Anatolia. The visit occasioned massive demonstrations in which tens of thousands of Turks and Germans protested against the corruption in Ankara and the criminal negligence that had led to the deaths of 301 mineworkers in the Aegean town of Soma several weeks ago. According to a report in the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet and contrary to the claims of his entourage, Erdogan is not in the best of moods. He is irritable and nervous. Western capitals appear to have it in for him. Hardly a day goes by without his media advisors bringing some article or report to his attention that focuses on the dark clouds that AKP rule has brought to Turkey. The satellite television stations are no different, allocating airtime to the ills that Erdogan has brought to the country. At home, the situation is far from as bright as party apparatchiks try to make it appear. In spite of the huge efforts that AKP-controlled municipalities have made to amass crowds to hail the leader in his public appearances, his political adversaries have been gaining momentum. Recent days have brought a spate of meetings and the forging of alliances among opposition forces, the common theme of which has been a resounding no to Erdogan as president. It was remarkable that Ahmet Necdet Sezer, tenth president of Turkey (2000-2007), made a rare public appearance in order to meet with chairman of the rightwing National Movement Party (MHP) Devlet Bahçeli, who has been campaigning furiously to keep Erdogan out of the presidential palace in Ankara. Sezer, previously president of Turkey's Constitutional Court (1998-2000), is an ardent defender of Turkish secularism and the principles of the Republic's founder, Kemal Ataturk, which he believes are threatened by the AKP and its current leader. In the same spirit, the leader of the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Kemal Kiliçdaroglu met with MHP chief Bahçeli to discuss rallying behind a single presidential candidate. Both party leaders have made it clear that the results of the recent municipal elections do not clear the ruling Party and its leader of the suspicions of graft and corruption that have homed in on four AKP ministers. Vice-spokesperson for the CHP parliamentary bloc Emine Ülker Tarhan declared that Erdogan was determined to cling to power through the “use of excessive force against civilians.” A jurist and formerly a judge at the High Court of Appeals in Turkey, Tarhan stressed that Erdogan's involvement in the graft scandals “could not be covered up” by victory speeches on AKP wins in the 30 March municipal elections. On the Soma tragedy, she charged that the prime minister had “not shed a tear” for the victims of the mining disaster. When Turkish children and young people had been killed, she said, Erdogan had “remained unmoved.” If he cried over anything, it was just his personal interests and those of his party, Tarhan said. Kiliçdaroglu also met with a number of civil society leaders in order to sound out their views on a presidential candidate. Foremost among these were the heads of the Turkish Federation of Labour Unions, the Union of Turkish Bar Associations, and the Union of Chambers of Commerce and Commodity Exchanges. The “Soma massacre,” as opposition forces have been referring to the mining tragedy several weeks ago, continues to haunt the government. Last week, the Peoples Democratic Party (HDP), a Kurdish party, announced that it would be submitting a no-confidence motion in parliament against Erdogan, energy minister Taner Yildiz and minister of labour and social security Farouk Çelik on the grounds that they had been “directly responsible” for the collapse of the mine that had caused the deaths of hundreds of workers, though in a parliament dominated by the AKP this is likely to be no more than a symbolic move. Meanwhile, more and more evidence has been coming to light testifying to the government's negligence on mine safety. The Turkish Chamber of Mining Engineers has revealed that four years ago it drew up a detailed report on the Soma mine, listing the shortcomings that put workers' lives at risk and submitting a copy to the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources. The chamber had urged the government to halt work at the mine until the problems listed in the report had been dealt with. It noted that the mine contained high ratios of methane gas, which was extremely dangerous and left no room for error. Many workers lacked training, it said, especially in this kind of mine, adding that the mine posed high risks of fire, collapse, asphyxiation and poisoning. Mehmet Torun, a former head of the chamber, said that he had sent the report to the office of the presidency, the relevant supervisory agencies and the parliament. But no one had taken the warnings seriously. “If only the government had listened to us. If only we had been wrong,” Torun said. The head of that government now has his sights on the country's presidency.
