Now, even the “pretension” is over. Only a month ago, the last link to democratic rule ended when Ahmet Davutoğlu was removed from the Prime Ministry. Davutoğlu might not be a real democrat, moreover he had to work under the immense pressure of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, but nevertheless at least there was the pretension of a parliamentary regime, democratic rule and rule of law during his time. In fact, that was why he was removed from office. The president and his supporters ceased to even pretend to act within the framework of a parliamentary regime and commit themselves to the last vestiges of democratic rule. As for the rule of law, a series of new laws which do not even pretend to be democratic are being imposed in order to change the rules of the game.
The new rule of the game is monopoly of power in the hands of the executive, which is none other than the word of the president. In fact, the ultimate goal is to change the system to the so-called “Turkish-style presidential system,” but even before the change of the constitution is realized, a de facto monopoly of President Erdoğan’s power is established. Now, in case there is a failure to change the whole constitution, new laws are being enforced to ensure draconian rule. Even before the judiciary is put under the direct control of the executive presidency, we have witnessed a de facto loss of judicial independence; now the canonization of judicial dependency is under way. Even within the framework of the present education system, the new policy to create a “faithful generation” was enforced by the promotion of religious schools.
Now the whole system of education is about to change. Turkey’s already non-democratic security laws are designed to change in order to implement even more authoritarian control of everyday life and curb already limited political and social freedoms. Despite that the new laws which are proposed to ensure political control of the economic life are needed to be revised for the time being, it is obvious that it is among the major goals of the New Turkey project. In fact, “command economy” is the logical outcome of the new authoritarian political system to ensure allocation of resources according to political loyalties.
