http://mobile.todayszaman.com/columnist/i-hsan-yilmaz/can-turkey-return-to-democracy_414043.html
Can Turkey return to democracy?
İHSAN YILMAZ March 04, 2016, Friday
This may be the last or one of the last pieces that I write for this newspaper.
The Justice and Development Party (AKP) regime is planning to confiscate the Zaman daily and Today's Zaman. This is clearly against the Constitution, which states that media outlets cannot be confiscated, shut down, etc. But there is no longer any rule of law in the country. After the Constitutional Court's verdict on journalists Can Dündar and Erdem Gül, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been giving orders to judges to imprison them again and very openly even said the government does not obey all the verdicts of the Constitutional Court and that Turkey will pay the EUropean Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) the fine if the court rules in the future that the journalists' rights were violated. He is simply asking judges to illegally imprison Dündar and Gül and this is not a big deal as the only cost would be the compensation ordered by the ECtHR. Thus, it does not matter if the Constitution states that media outlets cannot be confiscated, Erdoğan will confiscate them anyway.
As a result, about 90 percent of media coverage would directly or indirectly be in Erdoğan's hands. What does that mean? This means no one will ever be able to defeat him and his party in any elections. This means the death warrant of Turkish democracy. No one will have the chance to learn about the mistakes of the AKP. In this Orwellian nightmare, even the mistakes of the AKP will be sold to voters as its great successes. For instance, even though Turkey is now divided into two, the AKP will successfully convince its voters that Turkey has not gotten rid of its ineffective parts and is now ready to be stronger to conquer the world. Even as of today, the AKP has about 40 percent of voters who would swallow these stupid propaganda despite the news coverage of non-AKP media. Imagine how many more would start believing the AKP fabrications after these media outlets are turned into mouthpieces of the AKP.
No one in Turkey would be surprised if one day they read in the AKP media that the 12 members of the Constitutional Court who decided that Dündar and Gül were illegally imprisoned are suddenly caught red-handed with kilograms of heroin hidden in their homes or cars. The AKP's 40-50 percent would instantly tell themselves even before the AKP media starts brainwashing them: “We knew it! It was so obvious that the Constitutional judges are crooked! The parallel state was aware of their drug-related crimes so they blackmailed the judges to release Dündar and Gül, who are spies, working for the CIA, Mossad, MI6 etc.” I am not exaggerating; millions of dedicated AKP supporters already believe similar delusions.
In such a setting, no party other than the AKP will ever be able to convince the AKP's voters who now make up about 50-55 percent of the electorate that they are not working for the CIA. Turkey will continue to hold elections but similar to Iran, only Erdoğan-approved candidates will be able to contest. In the meantime,
Erdoğan will continue to deal with his NATO allies, the West, the EU, etc. with his infamous stick and carrot policies ranging from providing military bases and fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), etc. to flooding the West with Syrian refugees or granting multi-billion government tenders to Western firms. These democratic countries had worked with Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi in the past and are now blissfully working with the Saudis. Why wouldn't they work with Erdoğan despite his actions towards his opponents?
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