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- For us, who see Turkey from the outside, the biggest problem in addition to
human rights is corruption and the refugee wave. Is this the same
for an inside observer?
- The Party of Justice and Development, which is more often called Ak parti in short, or the pure and white party that had declared a "zero tolerance" for corruption upon assuming power was renamed "Para aklayan kara parti" by the opposition, which means a black party involved in corrupt schemes of money laundering and "Ayakkabı kutusu parti", which means the party of footwear boxes, because millions of dollars had been given in bribes in such boxes. From "zero problems", the foreign policy of this party has turned into "zero friends" and this has led to the loss of prestige and to international isolation of the Turkish government to some extent. The relations with NATO are strained too due to the unrevised government decision to buy Chinese missiles and to build Turkey’s national air defence system to the detriment of the collective security of NATO. This is raising serious concerns about the future membership of the only Muslim ally in the North Atlantic pact if the auction is not cancelled in favour of another western company. The official number of Syrian refugees is more than 600,000 but the unofficial figure is 1 million because thousands of people are not in the refugee camps of the Turkish Red Crescent near the Syrian border but are scattered in various Turkish cities and mainly in the metropolis of Istanbul. After the anti-corruption operation launched by prosecutors who are close to the Hizmet movement (Service - in English), the government responded with a personnel purge and reshuffling in the police, justice and the institutions that affected people of the Islamist movement which has 50 years of history. The people close to their spiritual leader Feytulah Gulen for years had been deeply integrated into the state machine "by courtesy of the Party of Justice and Development". The war between former allies and present enemies Erdogan and Gulen, who is called "a backdoor coalition partner in the shade" by Kemalists, will probably become even more ruthless and cruel, especially a few days before the elections, unless they agree on the terms for a truce, behind the curtains again. This clash of the titans has provoked the taking of urgent measures, including the forced acceptance of a number of anti-democratic laws by the government. Some of those are the law restricting the use of the Internet, the law on the reorganization of the Supreme Council of Judges and Prosecutors that subordinates all judges and prosecutors to the Minister of Justice who, in turn, will be entirely dependent on Prime Minister Erdogan. A new law on the secret services is being prepared as well, which will provide their employees and associates with super-powers, thus making them untouchable and putting them above the law and under the direct control of the Prime Minister alone. Contrary to expectations in the public domain, President Gul, who is one of the founders of the Party of Justice and Development, has not vetoed those laws, which are the subject of criticism on the part of the opposition, NGOs, human rights activists, the Kurdish faction and the European Union. He thus confirms the suspicions that he is preparing to return to politics and therefore does not dare to confront Erdogan, being unable to act impartially as a figure above all parties. Observers predict that if the law on the secret services is accepted, they could follow every Turkish citizen and define him or her as a potential "enemy of the people". That is why I think that the main problem seems to be the gradual but convincing transformation of the one-party pro-Islamic government into a state party. In other words, we are observing the process of mastering the state by one party and this can lead to a party state, which we witnessed in the twentieth century. This is a big threat to democracy in the country and does not preclude the option of interrupting the dialogue between Turkey and the European Union. The question "Which road is Turkey going to take?" remains open.