Erdogan’s presidential start
“Within some time he might become a second Ataturk”
On September 30 the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan became the head of the Justice and Development party for the third time. It happened in Ankara at the 4th congress of the pro-Islamic party, which was created in 2001 and has been constantly winning the parliamentary election since then. According to the party statute, its representatives cannot run for parliament and its leader cannot head the party more than three times.
Many analysts believe that the recent congress of the party opened a way for Erdogan to be elected a new Turkish president in 2014. It should be noted that, according to the amendments to the constitution, the president will be elected by the direct vote.
That is why Erdogan’s speech, which lasted nearly three hours, during the congress can be considered as a start of the presidential campaign. He outlined the short-term tasks of the party he is heading up to the year 2023, when Turkey will celebrate the 100th anniversary of its formation, and up to the year 2071.
By 2023 Erdogan promised to adopt a new constitution, open a new page in the relationship with the 15-million Kurd population and increase Turkey’s export up to 500 billion dollars. To achieve this goal, he added, Turkey will continue modernizing itself, opening to the world and spreading its influence.
“We call ourselves conservative democrats. We have focused on changing basic rights and liberties. This policy has gone beyond our country and has become an example for all Muslim countries,” the prime minister described the ideology of his party.
Touching upon the foreign politics the head of the Turkish government supported the early regulation of the Syrian crisis urging the members of the UN Security Council Russia and China to reconsider their attitude to Asad’s regime in Syria. “The history will not pardon those who support the regime of suppression,” Erdogan claimed.
The Day asked the senior scientist of the Institute of Global Economy and International Relations at the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Pavlo VARBANETS to comment the congress of the Justice and Development party and many experts’ fears of authoritarianism cause by concentration of power in Erdogan’s hands.
“At the congress nothing unusual happened. Erdogan’s party has its program of development up to 2023, which was declared during the previous parliamentary election.
“Erdogan is extremely popular in Turkey. Within some time he is likely to become a second Ataturk. He has authority not only in Turkey but beyond its borders in the Arab world. As for blaming him for being authoritarian, Turkey is an eastern country, it has eastern mentality. That is why there are such concepts as Eastern despotism, eastern form of power with strong institutes in the state. Now we can see a tendency of increasing Erdogan’s personal power, to a center of power that the military used to have. Owing to Erdogan’s policy, the military have been moved aside from the political sphere. The future will show if he will take some steps to reinforce authoritarianism when he will not have the right to be elected, considering the amendments to the constitution. I think Erdogan will remain number one in the Turkish politics for a long time.
“As for folding democracy, it is not going to happen since one of the main ideas of the Turkish ideology of moderate Islam is Islamic democracy considering the local specific.”
