Is Erdoğan's Power Turkey's Power As Well?

A critical era for the political future of Turkey has started since the election of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as president. Even though Erdoğan argues that Turkey will become more powerful under his presidency, the concrete data invalidate this argument.
It is already obvious that Erdoğan will not be an impartial president. He will not disconnect from his party. He will make sure that he focuses on manipulating the government. Thus, political tensions will be escalated. For instance, the opposition parties tend to hold their relations with Erdoğan at a minimum level; they have even considered boycotting him. In the meantime, the balance within the Justice and Development Party (AKP) will not remain the same. There will be objections to the campaign launched to undermine the image of Abdullah Gül. Therefore, there will be some consequences from it. You would have to be an Erdoğanist to argue that there will be a more powerful Turkey in spite of these facts.
It is not easy for us to believe that the current state of social polarization will be overcome at a time in which Erdoğan is president and Ahmet Davutoğlu is the prime minister. There is no initiative to address the victimization of Alevis and meet their demands for equal citizenship. There is no obvious reason for us to believe that the mentality that described the young Alevi people who were killed during the Gezi protests as terrorists will change any time soon. The only thing that has changed in the sentiments of the substantial amount of people who oppose the AKP and Erdoğan out of concerns about a threat to secularism is that their hatred has grown. Nobody expects Erdoğan to adopt a new profile through which he will serve as a president who embraces all people. This is our current social reality; so how can we refer to a strong and powerful Turkey in these conditions?
Confidence in justice and the judiciary has been undermined in people's minds because of the response of Erdoğan and his party to the bribery and corruption investigations of Dec. 17 and 25, 2013. The measures they took to cover up the bribery and corruption led to a serious crisis of confidence and trust. The AKP is creating a party state to deal with a so-called parallel state. Public officers are acting as though they represent the AKP. This has never been witnessed before; bitter partisanship and arbitrary actions do serious harm. Even though the discourse of a "new Turkey" is being promoted, everybody knows that what we have is the seizure of the state by the AKP. Claiming that Turkey is becoming a powerful state at a time when the state's image is being undermined so severely is an insult to people's intellect.
Those who refer to a so-called powerful Turkey are aware of these facts. What they really mean is the power of Erdoğan. If Erdoğan is powerful, then Turkey is powerful; this is what they are trying to promote. But does a powerful leader really mean a powerful state? If the leader wields his power to improve rights and freedoms, work for further democracy and ensure that people can exercise their fundamental rights, then this means that his power is also the power of the state.
Erdoğan's leadership has become a type of leadership that weakens Turkey rather than empowering it. Erdoğan's leadership is the type of leadership that seeks to preserve the oligarchic order he created because it drives Turkey towards greater authoritarianism rather than greater democracy.
This is a new state of affairs, and it is not easy to cover it up by relying on demagogy and ungrounded slogans. Erdoğan's presidency has referred to a new era for Turkey; and this era will most likely teach us the value of a genuine and working democracy.

CAFER SOLGUN (Cihan/Today's Zaman)