Friday’s failed coup in Turkey could give the nation’s president the excuse he needs to grab even more power for himself and plunge the democratic nation into a full-blown dictatorship.
The attempted coup was the result of mounting alarm in the military over the Turkish president’s increasingly authoritarian behavior, and happened when a military faction tried to topple President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. But the coup backfired, and Erdogan was back in power in less than 24 hours.
The chaos happened during a steady progression of Erdogan’s abuses of power including harassment of journalists, the takeover and closure of Turkey’s biggest newspaper two months ago, the building of a lavish 1,000 room presidential palace and lackluster efforts against terror group ISIS.
And now, the coup may provide him with an excuse to grab even more power, in a country normally based on democratic rule and secularism, experts said.
Sevgi Akarçeşme, former editor in chief of Today’s Zaman, told Borderless News Online that Erdogan was already on the road to becoming authoritarian, but blasted the coup, saying that such moves cannot be the way to challenge the president.
“Turkey faces a risk of full blown dictatorship. There is no easy way out. Darker days are ahead of Turkey,” said Akarçeşme, whose newspaper – the largest in the nation – was recently shut down by the government in a move to repress free speech.
Wayne White, former deputy director of the U.S. State Department’s Middle East Intelligence Office, told Borderless: “Turkey’s future is now in grave danger.”
“Erdogan already has vowed the coup plotters will ‘pay a heavy price,’” he noted, adding that almost 3,000 military personnel been arrested and thousands of judges have been dismissed.
And even worse, now Erdogan has virtual carte blanche to sweep away his real and perceived opponents—and he will do so, White said.
Although Western governments talk of the importance of returning to civilian rule in Turkey, civilian rule will now likely mean something a lot closer to an Erdogan dictatorship, he said.
While there was no specific warning of an impending coup, this would not be the first time the military has intervened when it thought the civilian government was running amok – the last time being in 1997.
There clearly has been resentment within the military, but as this failed coup attempt has shown, during Erdogan’s 13-year tenure as prime minister and then president, the military’s leadership largely had been taken over by Erdogan’s men — stripping this coup attempt of needed command and coherence, White said.
The coup happened just weeks after a major terrorist suicide bombing at Istanbul’s international airport, and the government has been blasted for offering little hope to reduce people’s fears, and experts said there are clearly security breaches and grave intelligence failure.
While borders have been secured, nobody knows how many ISIS sleeper cells exist within Turkey. Many ISIS sympathizers had been released while critics of the government are imprisoned on false terror charges.
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