Turkey moved on through a connected series of instability deepened within the society, as the consequences of such a societal disorder are not constrained to the political and economic sides as much as it is relevant to the social ones. Following the failing coup d’etat in 15 July 2016, President Erdogan set himself free to abuse the constitutional and civil rights of all his foes.

The Current situations In Ankara are indispensable from the modern historic path in which turkey went through since its founding in 1923, as its political issues fluctuated ever then. Such an undulation came into being in the aftermath of the Islamists management to push themselves through the office of power, starting with Adnan menderes at the beginning of the 50^th, and ending with Arbakan at the eighties of the same century.

During the intermediate period, the military institution kept playing a dominant and supporting role in favor of the secularism. Later, the Army did find itself under obligation to fulfill its pledges that required it to overthrow Islamic parties by power. In 2002, the political life in Turkey changed dramatically after the success of AKP- originated from the Islamic virtue party- to reach the office depending on its secular and national speech. At that time, AKP was best described as a political block with all different political orientations under its umbrella, like seculars, nationalists and also the Kurds.

Since its first day in power, AKP endeavored to consolidate its rule through economic measures contributed later to achieve a leap in the Turkish economy- Turkey now is one of the best 20 economy over the world, and its estimated to be one of the best tenth by 2023 according to Turkish officials. Such an economic progress motivated AKP to stay in power till now.  Alongside with the economic reforms, there was another political one which mainly aimed at fortifying AKP presence in office through instilling its members in governmental agencies as well as stripping the army off its power in the political game.

Despite all of this, the Turkish opposition was able to endanger the presence of AKP*s consequent governments, till the failing coup d’etat came into light in 2016 to bestow the Turkish president all the needed justifications to wage an unprecedented arrest war against governmental employee, and military ones of all levels.

On the same pattern, the failing coup solidified the AKP lustfulness to turn the political system into presidential after being parliamentary since the establishment of the republic- referendum on that issue has been made in 2017 and 51.5 of citizens approved it. By that action, AKP attempted to activate a new rapid mechanism in the decision making process.

Once again, the political life in turkey was derived into a new path in contrary to the one prevailed before accrediting the result of the referendum.  Also, the map of political parties differed from the well -known one that existed before the referendum, as AKP allied with MHP in the presidential and parliamentary election that held on June 2018, and together they won both the elections with a proportion of 52.59 % and 53.66% respectively.

It shall be noted here, the problematic issue that disturbed the opposition was the concentration of powers in the hands of the president, which indicates that AKP is determinant to exclude all its rivals, specifically after the religious discourse began to be more apparently in the party’s political speech.

One Party’s Dominance

One outstanding outcome of the constitutional referendum is that it contributed to consolidating the powers of AKP. This came clear after AKP managed to win both elections held in June this year. Such matter means that president Erodogan- who became permitted to return to his party in accordance to article 18 of the constitutional amendments- is in possession of extensive powers.

For instance, he shares the same right as the parliament in appointing four members in the supreme council of judges and prosecutors that has the rights to appoint and insulate judges all over the state. That matter represents an overlap between both the executive and judicial branch. Furthermore, subjugation of juries is going to make it easy for the AKP to retaliate against its political opponents.

One of the main causes that coerced AKP to interfere in the judicial affairs lies in its attempts to get the ones who plotted with Gulen movement into court, specifically those working for the judicial branch in which their immunity stood between them and ousted or trial.

Moreover, the president was granted to authority to declare a state of emergency without the approval of the parliament. Also, getting the president accountable requires the absolute approval of the parliament. At the moment, the opposition isn’t capable of doing that as it does not have the majority in the parliament. Besides that, AKP still have popularity in the political street.

We ought to note that, in case AKP lost both the elections in the forthcoming elections after 5 years, the opposition will be having marvelous powers as AKP now, But such a thing is  not expected as the AKP won all the elections it run since 2002, and this what the party bets on.

New Balances

Right now, the Turkish party map differs from what it was in 2015, not only because of the allying between AKP and MHP that share the same perspective of the Gulen movement but also because AKP is doing its utmost to change the demographics in areas locates in southeast east of turkey which is attributed by Kurdish character.

 AKP is doing so through naturalization of the Syrians and then resettling them in the Kurdish areas to weaken the Kurdish electoral bloc. As, accomplishing that issue may require years, the Turkish authorities are adopting a policy of” resettling without naturalization” in preparing for the second round of the process.

Reports issued by the general directorate for citizenship and immigration indicate that numbers of the naturalized Syrians rised to 55 Thousand since 2011. Despite these number may be less than expected; the party’s plans are extremely clear in this issue.

This came clear when the president Erodogan declared in January 2017 that his country is going to naturalize Syrians and Iraqi refugees, but his fears from the popular reactions prohibited him from uncovering the targeted numbers for naturalization.  In case this plan worked, the electoral bloc of the Kurdish is going to decline and consequently the Kurdish party of HDP won’t be able to get the 10% of overall votes that is required to be in the Parliament.

The decline of freedoms

No doubt that concentration of more authorities in the hands of the president and the subjugation of the judicial branch to the executive one is going to contribute in rooting the deteriorating situation of freedom in turkey.

In this matter, freedom house organization classifies turkey as “Not Free” according to its index in 2018, as turkey got 6 out of 7 on civil liberties index, and 5 out of 7, 5.5 out of 7 on both political rights and freedom indexes respectively, with a note that the number 7 refers to the ” least free” according to the index of the institution.  In addition to that, turkey got an overall number of 32 out of 100 which makes it not free.

The deteriorating rating of freedom in turkey comes as a result of arresting journalists and closing TVs. To be clearer, a journalist report issued by middles east newspaper indicated that 16 TVs, 3 news agency, 23 radio stations and 45 Newspaper were closed after declaring the state of emergency in the aftermath of the failing coup in July 2018.

More integrated foreign policy

It is expected for the Turkish foreign policy to more intrusive in the coming years, specifically after the AKP solidified its presence in power.

Also, Turkey is going to work on expanding its military activity beyond its borders, as well as intensifying its presence in northern Syria where it confronts a real threat to its national security as the Kurdish main strongholds rests in the north. We cannot ignore that the Turkish attempts to isolate the Kurds from any political settlement in Syria will be fiercer.

Furthermore, turkey is exhausting all its efforts to exploit the intellectual and ideological convergence with the Sudanese regime to find itself a place on the red sea through Suakin Island.  Despite the Turkish confirmations and assurances that its actions are limited to the rehabilitation of the island, we can conclude from the latest Turkish behaviors in the region that turkey is going to use the island for military purposes to keep its eye on the navigation in the Red Sea.

Its believes that the Turkish regime will not stop its funds oriented to the political Islam movements in the Middle East, in particular in tunsia and Syria where the instability in the first and the civil war in the second makes it easy for regional powers to intervene and deliver its funds easily.

Future Scenarios

The future of the Turkish regime ranged through 4 scenarios as on the following classification:

1) Concreting its presence:if the situation stays as its right now and the alliance between AKP and MHP persisted, both parties will achieve electoral sovereignty in the forthcoming elections. But the alliance is being confronted by so many challenges, like security threat and economic crisis that may overthrow them from power, if they could not manage to put an end to its bad effects.

2) Coup d’etat: it is not probable for any coups to happen at the moment as AKP dominate the army right now, particularly after annexing the General staff into the ministry of defense. Furthermore, the president issued a decree to restructure the military consultative council to guarantee that thee civilian members over number the military one.

Dominating the military consultative council makes the executive authority capable of promoting officers and insulating them. In July 2018, the president issued a decree that fired more than 18000 employees working for governmental agencies, security forces, the judicial institution as well as the army, which makes it hard for the army to make any movements against the regime.

3) Strife between AKP and MHP: there are no indications that cracks may happen in the near future between the two parties, as both of them adopt the same views about the current issues inside and outside turkey.

Turkish Studies Unit*

 References

– أردوغان: تركيا سوف تمنح الجنسية للسوريين والعراقيين. روسيا اليوم،

– Freedon House, freedom in the world 2018, Turkey profile.

– جريدة الشرق الأوسط.

– Erdugans New Sultanate, the Economist, Special Report, February 2016.

– History & Culture of Turkey: From Anatolian Civilization to Modern Republic A guide created by Chatham students for Chatham students for our 2010-2011 Global Focus, Casham University, 2009.

– Civil-Military Relations and Authoritarianism in Turkey (2007-2017), MA Thesis International Studies, Avaliable on. https://openaccess

– Leman Basak Ari, Civil-Military Relations in Turkey, An Applied Research Project , Master Thesis, Texas State University , 2007.