Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is a man of choleric disposition. The Turkish president has a track record of ruthlessness in dealing with opponents and critics and, thus, his response to Friday’s attempted coup by sections of the Turkish military can be expected to be fierce and brutal..
Erdoğan’s combative outlook is the result, at least in part, of his experiences as a poor child growing up in a working-class Istanbul neighbourhood. He also experienced tough treatment when, as the city’s mayor and a rising opposition figure prior to 2003, he was persecuted and sentenced to jail, along with many of his supporters.
But his tough-guy stance is also the result of his determination to have his own way; his paternalistic conviction that he knows what’s best for Turkey.
Since becoming prime minister and later president, Erdoğan has frequently claimed to be the target and victim of murky conspiracies designed to depose him and destroy his neo-Islamist ruling party, the Justice and Development party (AKP). Usually, in his mind, these supposed plots are directed by hidden enemies based abroad. His particular bête noir is Fethullah Gülen, a former ally now exiled in the US.
In remarks uhis return to Istanbul after the coup was apparently foiled, Erdoğan pointed the finger of blame directly at the army, or at least elements within it who claimed to be defending Turkey’s Atatürkist secular tradition against the advance of Islamism in public life.
He said the coup was a “God-given” opportunity to cleanse military ranks and that those responsible would pay “a heavy price”. The obvious religious undertone carried in his threat suggests another major purge of army personnel may now be a prospect, ostensibly conducted with God’s blessing. This justification will be vital in sustaining public approval for his future actions in a country that is devout but also highly respectful of its armed forces.
On Saturday, the prime minister Binali Yıldırım, said 2,839 military members had been detained. When asked by a journalist, he said the government would consider legal changes to allow the reintroduction of the death penalty.
Previous army purges during Erdoğan’s tenure led to mass trials and jailings of army officers accused of disloyalty and plotting. Now, given the bloodshed and violence on Friday night that seems to have exceeded the infamous coup of 1980, the punishment for alleged coup leaders, real and imagined, may be harsh indeed.
Erdoğan is not a popular figure with western leaders. He has clashed with the US over the Kurds and Syria, with the EU over mass migration and refugees, with his Arab neighbours and Israel over jihadi terrorism, and with Russia over border infringements. His record on human rights and media freedom has attracted growing criticism in the west.
But the sudden prospect of Erdoğan and the AKP being forcibly overthrown, of parliament under bombardment by tanks, and of Turkey’s democratic system – a rare achievement in the Middle East region – being dismantled at gunpoint will have had a rapid, sobering effect in Washington and Brussels.
Erdoğan may be problematic, but the emergence of an unelected military junta in this key strategic ally and Nato member would be infinitely worse. There will be a period of sympathy and support for Turkey’s president that has hitherto been lacking. In the end Erdoğan is a democrat, however imperfect.
He would be wise to use this rare moment of solidarity – for it will not last long – to temper and restrain his natural instinct for revenge and take the moral high ground instead. Better to appear the calm statesman uniting a shocked and wounded nation than to create even greater instability.
The fear is that he will exploit the uprising not only to purge the army but to intensify his undeclared war on the Kurdish minority in the south-east. He may also lash out at pro-Kurdish and other opposition politicians (who have unanimously condemned the coup), to bludgeon through controversial constitutional changes enhancing his presidential powers, and increase his government’s harassment of independent media, journalists and academics.
If Erdoğan goes down this route he will quickly lose the sympathy engendered abroad by the failed putsch, while the solidarity shown on the streets will dissipate. If he continues to blame “invaders” for the coup, and uses this spectre of sinister foreign forces bent on destroying the Turkish republic (as he has done in the past) to justify further repression, he will squander any moral capital he has accrued.
Likewise, if Erdoğan, claiming to be the saviour of democracy, further undermines and diminishes that democracy in his determination to punish the plotters, the contradiction will be only too plain. Overreaction is now Turkey’s and Erdoğan’s biggest enemy.
