Government Wages War On All Institutions As Presidential Race Approaches

There were no plans on the horizon to make changes to Turkey's judicial system, which gained a certain degree of independence after a 2010 referendum in which the public approved over 25 amendments to the 1982 Constitution dictated by the then-junta regime two years after the bloody coup of Sept. 12, 1980.
But out of the blue, the first legal step taken by the government -- which itself enabled the judiciary's independence, though limited -- was to bring the judicial board under its control in violation of the separation of powers immediately after the disclosure of a high-profile corruption and bribery scandal almost four months ago on Dec. 17.

Many judicial experts, including Professor Mustafa Erdoğan, are of the opinion that the government has changed the structure of the judiciary, though it was not on the agenda, ending its already limited independence and impartiality, soon after the corruption scandal.

“If there was no corruption scandal, the judicial board's structure would have remained the same,” he told CNN Türk during a roundtable discussion earlier this week.

In addition to ongoing massive purges in many institutions, including the police and the judiciary, which together conducted the graft investigation, the government's measures to permanently put an end to corruption investigations have now widened in a way that is believed to further destroy the structure of institutions, including the top court, i.e., the Constitutional Court.

In a recent decision, the court partially annulled amendments made to a law on the 12,000-member Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK). The Constitutional Court found the provisions transferring certain powers from the plenary to the justice minister to be against the Constitution.

Similarly, the court lifted a ban on access to Twitter, categorizing it as unconstitutional and violating free expression. The court's decision came after the government blocked access to the social network because of a series of damaging leaks on corruption that surfaced on the site.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan directed his criticisms this time at the court's judges over their latest rulings, while the court's top judge, Haşim Kılıç, responded to the prime minister, saying court members are simply doing their jobs.

Kılıç's name has been circulated as one of the candidates for the presidential election due to be held in early August, which is also understood to have annoyed Erdoğan, who does not want to see any potential rivals for this post. This is because any potential names as presidential candidates will hinder his plans to manipulate the presidential race in his favor.

Erdoğan has a plan to remain in power either as president or prime minister of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) until 2023. However, his long-term plan has already been jeopardized by the massive corruption scandal which has implicated not only some former Cabinet ministers but also himself and some of his family members. This is despite the fact that Erdoğan's AK Party emerged as the winner of the March 30 local elections, grabbing around 45 percent of the vote.

Encouraged by the majority vote in the local elections, Erdoğan will decide in early May whether he will run for president or whether he will remain as prime minister. Whether current President Abdullah Gül will run for the post or will return to politics will also be answered in the coming weeks as time is running out for political parties to decide on their presidential candidates, who will be elected for the first time by a public vote instead of by Parliament.

The presidential election will be held on Aug. 10. If any candidate fails to receive 50-plus percent of the vote in the first round, a run-off will take place on Aug. 24.

Taking into consideration the AK Party's power in all elections since the November 2002 elections, which brought the party to power, all the calculations over who will become the potential presidential candidates center on two men: Erdoğan and Gül.

Being among the founders of the AK Party, Gül served as prime minister and foreign minister for the government before being elected president by Parliament in 2007. He can run as a candidate for president for another five years depending on his consultations with Erdoğan due to take place in the coming days.

The bargain between the two is speculated to center on a guarantee to be given by Erdoğan to Gül that Gül will take up a senior position within the AK Party, such as its leader, if Erdoğan runs for president, which has highly symbolic powers as opposed to the prime ministerial post.

The critical question is whether Erdoğan, who has growingly become authoritarian and who could not earlier succeed in amending the Constitution to introduce a presidential system in Turkey, would like to run for president who only has symbolic powers, in particular at a time when he is waging a serious war against a system that stands as an obstacle to killing legal proceedings on the graft investigation.

Will Erdoğan be powerful enough, if he is elected president, to kill the graft investigation? The answer is most likely no.

At the end of the day, it is understood that Erdoğan would prefer to retain his current powers to destroy the structure of state institutions to prevent them from pursuing the corruption scandal. The Constitutional Court's recent decisions on Twitter and the judiciary which are in line with universal democratic norms also stand as a big obstacle to escaping from illegal activities such as corruption with impunity.

LALE KEMAL (Cihan/Today's Zaman)