TURKEY: Turkish election and Central Asia

BISHKEK (TCA) — Looking from Central Asia, the defeat of President Erdogan’s party in last Sunday’s parliamentary election in Turkey can be seen with mixed feelings. Turkey is one of the major investors of Central Asia and Turkish businessmen and contractors are present everywhere in the five Central Asian countries. It is not only a matter of cultural connection between countries that draw their roots from the Turkic language and origin, but also the fact that Turkey has always been interested in keeping special relations with Central Asia before and particularly after the collapse of the Soviet Union. At that time Turkey abolished any visa requirements for citizens of the former Soviet Union, obtaining in exchange a boom in its trading relations and tourism development. For twenty years Turkish contractors have been able to achieve considerable results and Erdogan’s open and aggressive policy has helped Turkey to put a foothold in Russia and Central Asia markets irrespective of whatever was happening at home.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, former Prime Minister of Turkey from 2003 to 2014 when he became the country’s first directly elected President, was very much behind the success story of the export boom of Turkish companies. There is also no doubt that with the years Erdogan has become more and more authoritative and was looking to a concrete change of the Turkish constitution in order to join in one person the presently ceremonial position of President with executive powers of Prime Minister. Regretfully, his actions in the last 12 months were directed at asserting his power and curtailing human and civil rights while the handling of several foreign politics issues caused a serious confrontation that was not accepted by foreign partners as well as the majority of the Turkish people.

During the election campaign, President Erdogan, instead of acting as a neutral figure in his position of President of all Turkey, started campaigning very strongly for his own party, the Justice and Development Party or AKP, even insulting his adversaries, knowing very well that last Sunday’s parliamentary elections were of utmost importance to achieve his final goal to change the constitution from a parliamentary to a presidential system of government. It was no secret that if the election gave Erdogan a clear majority, the next step would be calling a referendum to change the constitution in order to transform Turkey into a Presidential country, joining the club of autocratic countries of Central Asia with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan, not to mention Russia.

Now that the plans and ambitions have been brought to a different result it is time to look to the overall situation with a humble approach but according to Stratfor it is possible that “Turkey will slide into a familiar and dangerous period of political instability reminiscent of the 1970s, when inconclusive elections and stalemated coalitions characterized the country’s politics”. Today President Erdogan has no alternative but to form a coalition government with the opposition but it is also possible that his own party may split.

For Central Asia the fact that Erdogan cannot rule alone and will have to achieve a compromise with other political parties is good news since things will continue more or less in the same way as today, with Turkish companies continuing to play their role in local business and many Turkish people working and trading with Central Asia. Turkey’s foreign policy would remain unstable and show more than before: on one side, the heritage of the secularist and democratic approach of Ata Turk and on the other, the new Turkey as Erdogan would like to see it — a new Islam driven country with an autocratic essence.

Erdogan’s dream to rule the country at least for another ten years at the helm of a Presidential Government has been stopped for the time being. Radical changes in the constitution will not take place, and probably a more democratic approach will have to be introduced reinstating those human rights to the media that have been abolished and coming to different terms on several controversial issues including the membership of the EU and various machinations with Russia. Whatever result in forming a new Government, Turkey would remain an important player in the geo-political arena of the Mediterranean and Middle East, as well as a party whose direction is still undecided, with frequent changes in a pragmatic approach that mainly satisfy the interests of a specific moment irrespective of an overall long-term strategy.

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