More than a week after the devastating earthquakes, Turkey takes stock of the approach of the Turkish government and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The country was insufficiently prepared and the relief and rescue operation did not go according to plan. Erdogan’s control is an important part of the problem, experts say.
In de eerste dagen na de aardbevingen bleek al snel dat Turkije nauwelijks veiliger had gebouwd, ondanks de lessen van de vorige grote aardbeving in 1999. Dat kwam mede door slechte naleving van de regels, te weinig toezicht en een verkiezingsstunt. Dat sommige regio’s tot wel 36 uur moesten wachten op hulp, stond ook niet in het rampenplan van de regering.
Hoe de regering functioneert sinds de invoering van het presidentiële systeem rond Erdogan, is onderdeel van het probleem. Dat zegt Hakan Yavuzyilmaz, politicoloog en onderzoeks- en beleidscoördinator bij het Checks and Balances Network (CBN), een burgerbeweging van driehonderd organisaties. Het systeem betekent dat Erdogan alle touwtjes in handen heeft en de ministeries allemaal naar hem kijken.
“In de wetenschap noemen we Erdogans systeem een competitief autoritair systeem”, zegt Yavuzyilmaz. “De kenmerken daarvan zijn vriendjespolitiek, een gebrek aan transparantie en het feit dat je niemand ter verantwoording kunt roepen. Dat zie je ook elders terug, bijvoorbeeld bij het bureau voor rampenbestrijding, AFAD.”
De AFAD-afdeling die in actie moet komen bij een ramp staat onder leiding van Ismail Palakoglu, een theoloog met een verleden bij Diyanet, de overheidsdienst voor godsdienstzaken. Hij heeft geen enkele achtergrond in hulpverlening en reddingswerk. Zo’n benoeming is volgens Yavuzyilmaz een schoolvoorbeeld van hoe het er onder Erdogan sinds een aantal jaar aan toegaat in Turkije.
Fixed pattern of unpredictability
Another aspect of a competitive authoritarian system is the unpredictability of the leader and government, says Yavuzyilmaz. We’ve seen that a few times over the past few days. This happened, among other things, in the temporary blocking of Twitter and in the behavior of President Erdogan himself. The fact that elections are on the calendar reinforces that unpredictability.
If something dramatic happens in Turkey, for example a natural disaster or a scandal involving a minister or other member of the government, a ban on news about that subject invariably follows. In the worst case, the government blocks platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.
People who write something online (via a secure VPN connection) that the government does not like can also count on a visit from the police. So the authorities seem to be more concerned about what people say about the rescues than about the rescues themselves.
Trial balloon to gauge mood
“You can see that the government wanted to deal with the image surrounding the disaster in the usual way, but the blocking of Twitter in particular has caused a lot of bad blood among the population,” says Sinan Ülgen, a former diplomat and now director of the Edam think tank in Istanbul. .
“You should see that blockade as a trial balloon of the government, to see how people react to it. Because victims used Twitter at that time to make it known that they were still under the rubble, the population reacted very strongly to this decision. After one day it was reversed,” said Yavuzyilmaz.
Erdogan himself is also running
We also saw a turn with Erdogan himself. When the president declared a state of emergency in the ten affected provinces last week, he delivered a thunderous speech. Anyone who would spread disinformation in any way would be in his book. It was exactly the Erdogan as the Turks know him: strict, almost angry. Not much later he mildly admitted the mistakes of his government in the earthquake zone.
“We’ve seen this before from him,” said Berk Esen, an adjunct professor of political science and international relations at Turkey’s Sabancı University. “During election rallies he is very polarizing, and then speaks conciliatory words at the victory speech. Once back in the saddle, he continues to polarize.”
‘Regime now makes political calculations’
Esen and Ülgen are therefore under no illusions about the moderate tone of the president. “Erdogan may seem a bit milder now. But his AKP and their right-wing nationalist junior partner MHP in parliament, through MPH party leader Devlet Bahçeli, still blame everyone for things that go wrong, except the government itself,” says Ülgen.
“We are in an election year, so you see the Erdogan regime now making the political calculations,” adds Yavuzyilmaz. “The tentative conclusion is that the approach of the ‘old’ Erdogan no longer works given the scale of the disaster.”
“Erdogan is an authoritarian leader,” Esen concludes. “Now that there is a poll on the calendar, I suspect that he is gauging the mood in society. He wants to find a way to survive politically on that basis.”
The discussion about a few months’ postponement of the elections has now been started by a party member of Erdogan. That appears to be the government’s next trial balloon, as the constitution leaves no room for delay.
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