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Turkey’s Erdoğan positions himself for more powerful presidential role | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks to the media in his office in Ankara on April 23, 2014. (AP Photo)


Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks to the media in his office in Ankara on April 23, 2014. (AP Photo)

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks to the media in his office in Ankara on April 23, 2014. (AP Photo)

Ankara, Reuters–Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared his candidacy on Tuesday for a more powerful presidency which rivals fear may entrench authoritarian rule and supporters, especially conservative Muslims, see as the crowning prize in his drive to reshape NATO member Turkey.

Supporters of his ruling Islamist-rooted AKP Party cheered, clapped and sang pro-Erdoğan songs after deputy chairman Mehmet Ali Sahin announced the prime minister’s widely expected candidacy in the August presidential election.

“We entered politics for Allah, we entered politics for the people,” Erdoğan told a crowd of thousands in an auditorium in the capital Ankara, where the party faithful chanted “Turkey is proud of you”.

Erdoğan, hugely popular despite a graft scandal he blamed on traitors and terrorists, is very likely to win the August vote.

In so doing, he would bolster his executive powers after 11 years as prime minister that have seen him subdue a secularist judiciary and civil service and tame a once all-powerful army.

“They called us regressive because we said our prayers,” Erdoğan said in speech rife with references to his faith in God after the screening of a film portraying him in his youth and throughout his political career.

“They said we weren’t good enough to be a village leader, that we couldn’t be prime minister, that we couldn’t be elected president. They didn’t even deign to see us as an equal person in the eyes of the state,” he added.

Erdoğan, 60, presents himself as champion of a conservative religious population treated for generations as second class citizens. A new breed of Islamic entrepreneur has arisen, the headscarf, symbol of female Islamic piety, was seen for the first time in state institutions.

The enemy—referred to now in countless Erdoğan speeches as “they”—is the secularist establishment that dominated the country until he came to power a decade ago. It is a foe he has become increasingly open and bellicose in condemning, much to the chagrin of those wary of rapid change in the country.

The presidency Erdoğan would assume if elected would in theory differ little from the largely ceremonial post occupied by incumbent Abdullah Gül.

But his personal authority and the fact of being elected by the people, not parliament, would in effect allow a reading of the constitution that grants broader powers. The possibility exists that his exercise of those powers could be questioned on constitutional grounds but a challenge could prove difficult.

The candidates’ list for the election testifies to dramatic change wrought in Turkey by his premiership, an old secularist elite yielding to two men of Islamist pedigree and a third from a long-suppressed Kurdish minority. No one campaigns now on a secularist, anti-Islamist platform, once the only permissible step to power.

Erdoğan’s Turkey had been held up in the West as a worthy example of a functioning Islamic democracy, on the edge of a volatile Middle East. He has also brought within reach a possible end to a 30-year Kurdish insurgency which has killed 40,000 people.

He has presided over a decade of strong economic growth and rising living standards, bringing stability to a country which for decades was hamstrung by financial crises, ineffective coalitions and a series of military coups.

Whatever his popularity at home, however, in the West it has dwindled. Last year saw a harsh crackdown on anti-government protests and a purge of the judiciary and police as he fights graft allegations against his inner circle which he has portrayed as part of a foreign-backed plot to unseat him.

Political opponents have been branded traitors and terrorists.

“He will bring to the office his own style of aggressively defiant government, typified by micro-management, bullying of opponents and a penchant for polarization rather than conciliation,” said Wolfango Piccoli of risk research firm Teneo Intelligence.

“At best, this setup will preclude Turkey from adopting a more liberal and inclusive understanding of democracy; at worst, it will further push the country towards authoritarian governance,” he said.

Erdoğan’s chief adviser Yalcin Akdogan played down fears of him usurping powers the post does not have.

“Erdoğan will not use any power which is not in the constitution. He will exercise every power in the constitution appropriately,” Akdogan said, adding that the new president was expected to streamline decision making.

“What is expected of the president in the new period is that all state organs act together towards the same goal in a harmonious way according to state policies,” he wrote in Star newspaper.

Aides have said he would rule with a “council of wise men”—made up partly of close allies in his current cabinet—would help oversee top government business, senior officials told Reuters, effectively relegating some ministries to technical and bureaucratic roles.

Parliamentary elections next year could get a two thirds majority allowing him to consolidate even those powers.