Will President Erdogan relinquish power if defeated in the elections? By Güney Yıldız in Forbes on May 9, 2023.
In Turkey, all eyes are on the upcoming elections on May 14. People are checking opinion polls, perusing social media, and talking to those around them to make more informed predictions. However, beneath the surface lies a hidden layer of Turkish politics and power, transcending elections.
Two days ago, during an opposition rally in eastern province of Erzurum, a mob threw stones at Ekrem Imamoglu, the Istanbul mayor poised to become Vice President if opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu wins the election. Numerous supporters, including children, were injured. This event could prove to be a major turning point if things escalate leading up to or on election day. Similar incidents have occurred in Trabzon and other parts of the country.
In response to the stone attacks, Imamoglu acted professionally, exposing the police’s apparent lack of intervention against the attackers and holding the Erzurum governor and police chief responsible. A subsequent Imamoglu rally in Istanbul, organized within hours to condemn the attack, also had strong backing.
Government figures and pro-government media initially condoned the attack on Imamoglu but later changed their rhetoric to condemn it, stating that the attack went against the government’s interests.
Navigating Turkey’s Deep State
It is difficult to determine if these incidents were organized or spontaneous. However, it is not impossible that a faction within the Turkish state orchestrated them. The failed coup attempt of 2016 exposed the potential factionalism within Turkey’s security services. The term « deep state » was even coined by the Turks, as it is widely believed that a state within a state exists, remaining immune from electoral cycles and retaining power.
In Turkey, the government and the state were once separate entities, with an elected government not automatically controlling state power. After 20 years in power, the AK Party is now assumed to be synonymous with the state, leading observers to believe that the party fully controls the state, ending the government-state duality.
The deep state has operated through bombings later blamed on other forces, as occurred before the 1980 coup, or through indirect interventions like military communiqués and statements that changed government behavior or ousted them. The deep state has also directly intervened through military coups, with several successful and unsuccessful coups in modern Turkish history.
The AK Party and the Government-State Duality
Many observers, both in Turkey and abroad, assume that the AK Party, now synonymous with the state, will not relinquish power easily and may resort to deep state tactics to prevent a change in government before, during, or after the election. I argue that there are four reasons why the elections, provided they result in a decisive win for the opposition, cannot be derailed by any faction seeking to undermine the democratic process.
The opposition has been vocal about other potential paramilitary forces and has issued warnings, even confronting the headquarters of SADAT, a private security firm led by a former chief advisor to President Erdogan. Adding to the existing concerns, Devlet Bahceli, the second most powerful figure in the ruling block and chairman of the Nationalist Action Party (MHP), has recently claimed that the bodies of opposition figures could be riddled with bullets.
Recent history highlights the period between two general elections in June and November 2015. On June 7, 2015, the AK Party lost its parliamentary majority but regained it five months later in a snap election. During this time, numerous bombings took place. Attacks on primarily Kurdish and left-wing civilian activists, the bloodiest in Turkish history, were attributed to the Islamic State. While IS did not claim responsibility for many of these attacks, they also did not deny involvement. This period saw escalating conflict in urban Kurdish centers between armed Kurdish youth and the police, resulting in thousands of deaths. The PKK declared an end to the ceasefire during this time, citing Turkey’s construction of fortified military posts and hydraulic dams in the region, which they believed had military value for controlling the territory. In short, an environment conducive to increased tension emerged. As a result, Turkish voters reverted to supporting the ruling party, which had by this time adopted a hardline nationalist political stance that securitized the country’s social and political problems.
Four reasons why Turkey’s democracy will be resilient
Opposition political analysts and politicians largely view this episode as a demonstration of how the government employed non-electoral tactics to win back voters. Some expected a similar pattern to re-emerge. When a bomb attack against civilians occurred in one of Istanbul’s busiest areas in November, some observers were suspicious about the electoral impact of the attack. The Interior Minister quickly blamed the attack on the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria, a predominantly Kurdish militia that forms the backbone of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The YPG denied any involvement in the attack, and the subsequent evidence presented by state officials failed to convince the public of the group’s responsibility. The political landscape and context were not conducive to stoking further tensions. Today, the PKK declared a ceasefire in the run-up to the elections, and it would be even more unlikely to blame the Islamic State for potential attacks on the opposition, given the organization’s depleted status and lack of political motivation to do so. Regarding the PKK, the interior minister recently claimed that the group has only 85 armed members in Turkey’s mountains. The current political environment, which is not conducive to introducing political violence to derail the electoral process, is the first and most important reason why a decisive victory against the ruling party might be final. There are simply no strong ongoing political violence campaigns or potential culprits to blame in the case of a false flag attack.
A second reason why the elections, if they prove a decisive win for the opposition, cannot be derailed by any faction seeking to disrupt the democratic process, is the need for a faction to secure backing from across the state with main actors such as the intelligence organization and the military. There is not enough evidence to suggest that there would be consensus within these organizations to blindly support one or the other side of the election blocs. The opposition alliance includes leaders and political cadres with strong historical links to security institutions, making it less likely for consensus to be reached. It is also unlikely that the security establishment, which acts according to the laws and the state hierarchy, will lose their influence significantly if the existing government loses elections, so they don’t have much reason to fear a change in government. However, smaller factions that act independently of the existing state hierarchy might fear a government change, but they are not powerful enough to steer the country their way if they can’t enlist support from the hierarchical security establishment.
A third reason lies in the lack of ideological cohesion. For a group to organize professionally against a state structure, with people risking their lives to conduct illegal acts, ideological unity is necessary. The most significant ideologies in Turkey are Turkish nationalism, Kemalism (which follows the principles of the country’s founding father Mustafa Kemal Ataturk), and, as a distant third, Islamism. The ruling coalition does not exhibit strong coherency in connecting with ideologically core nationalist or potentially Islamist cadres from within the state. Especially in foreign policy the government failed to coherently adhere to the principles of Islamism or nationalism. As a result, it is less likely that a faction with strong ideological unity would emerge to disrupt the electoral process.
A fourth reason is that members of the ruling coalition have recently resorted to threats of actual violence against the opposition and incited violence by accusing the opposition of terrorism. It is common wisdom in Turkey, expressed in idioms, that if a group is powerful enough to carry out an illegal or illegitimate operation, they are unlikely to announce their intentions through threats. They have also asked people not to hand over power to the opposition, suggesting that even if the opposition emerges victorious in the elections, they may refuse to accept the results. However, threats and limited incitements to violence, unless designed to test the reactions of the opposition or the security services, are methods used not by the strong but by the weak. If a faction had the power not to give up power to the opposition, they wouldn’t necessarily resort to threats.
The backfiring moves
Such threats and violence, coupled with an apparent lack of trust and respect for the democratic process, might backfire, consolidating the opposition and dissuading the AK Party base from going to the polls to vote for their party. I think that the recent event in Erzurum, where Imamoglu and opposition supporters were attacked, may backfire on the ruling coalition. If the public regards such attacks as infringing on their right to vote and elect a government, it would be very difficult to legitimize. During the 2019 Istanbul election, when President Erdogan disputed the results and forced a rerun, Istanbul’s voters turned out in larger numbers for the opposition, while the AK Party’s supporters stayed away from the polls.
In conclusion, while the threat of the deep state and factions within Turkey remains a concern, there are reasons to believe that a decisive victory for the opposition in the upcoming elections would be difficult to derail. The current political environment is not conducive to introducing political violence to disrupt the electoral process, and there are no strong ongoing political violence campaigns or potential culprits to blame in the case of a false flag attack.
Moreover, the lack of consensus within key state institutions, as well as the absence of a cohesive ideological faction willing to risk it all to maintain power, also contribute to the reduced likelihood of electoral interference. Finally, the ruling coalition’s resort to threats and violence, which can be perceived as a sign of weakness, may actually serve to strengthen the opposition and weaken the AK Party’s electoral prospects.