Kaja Puto: The Mayor of Istanbul Ekrem İmamoğlu was arrested on corruption charges a fewer days ago. Is this a political gesture, or does İmamoğlu actually have something on his conscience?
Mateusz Chudziak: Not just corruption, I think he's been charged with all the charges that can be attributed to a state official. It is, among another things, the management of criminal organisations, fraud, embezzlement, irregularities in tendering and terrorism, which in Turkey is simply a very large concept.
Is İmamoğlu completely innocent – I am incapable to settle this with absolute certainty. Turkish political culture abounds in patron-client relations that consequence in corruption and another irregularities. The organization of president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan over the past 20 years has thus built a business clientele that receives public procurement and then buys out media to become loyal to power. And now the power accuses İmamoğlu of what it does itself.
We have reason to believe that the substance is political. Since İmamoğlu was elected mayor of Istanbul in 2019, his life has inactive been hampered and he had to act peculiarly cautiously and not supply arguments against himself. He has already been dragged through courts in another cases – and this is an insult to the counterpart of our State Election Commission, and this is an insult to the head of state. He defeated the organization of power 3 times in local elections and this encroachs the ruling elite, especially Erdoğan. So the axe hanging over it for a long time yet fell.
What's Erdoğan for? The presidential election is not scheduled for 3 years.
According to the Constitution, Erdoğan presently holds his second word (counting from 2018 erstwhile the presidential strategy was introduced). To keep power, he has 2 options. It could lead to a change in the constitution and thus again bypass the limitation of 2 term. There are small chances of that, due to the fact that he lacks a majority of 2 thirds of the vote in parliament. It will so be easier to shorten the current word of office so as not to finish it, due to the fact that this in turn will mean – according to the current laws in Turkey – that the incumbent president can run for office again. Imamoğlu, on the another hand, had to be eliminated early adequate so that the possible opposition and emotions that this maneuver would origin could be suppressed.
But isn't this arrest gonna politically strengthen İmamoğlu?
It's already strengthened. erstwhile İmamoğlu was arrested, the Republican People's Party, of which he is simply a associate and informal leader, organized primaries and announced him as a future presidential candidate, as announced earlier. The vote was open to all citizens in Turkey and as a result, 15 million people signed the vote. To a serious legitimacy in a country whose president has consistently referred to the "national will".
What kind of Turkey does İmamoğlu and the Republican People's organization want?
The Republican People's organization is simply a kemalist party, which refers to the ideas preached by Mustaf Kemal Atatürk. This father of the modern Turkish nation postulated Republican Turkey, secular and based on social solidarity. In the 1970s, under the leadership of Bülent Ecevit, inspired by the Western European left, she turned towards social democracy. So we can call the RPL pro-European social democracy, although their current programme is rather vague – for example, it refers to the concept of "third way" between capitalism and socialism, which in the circles of the European left is alternatively discredited, it besides met with the harsh criticism of left-wing intellectuals in Turkey. Even conventional Kemalist media accused her of deficiency of horizon and inertia.
İmamoğlu adds religion to this – he is simply a practicing Muslim, which goes beyond the conventional Turkish division into the secular left and spiritual right. It can be said that he is simply a Muslim social democrat, but above all it is not an ideologist type, alternatively a man of action.
For the last six years, as mayor of Istanbul, he has implemented social democratic policies: he has opened daycares, he has improved urban transport, he has taken steps towards a green transition, specified as the announcement of an ambitious plan for Istanbul to accomplish full climate neutrality by 2050 by withdrawing combustion cars from the city or expanding the proportion of public transport users utilizing at the expense of a car. However, the programme issues are now on the another side – İmamoğlu becomes a symbol of opposition to Turkish authoritarianism.
The current protests are referred to as the largest in a decade. More than half a million people were gathered under a master’s degree in Istanbul. What do they want?
The most popular slogan of these protests is “hükümet istifa‘government to resign’. The Republican People's Party, on the another hand, demands that earlier elections be written down.
And this election, Erdoğan could actually lose?
On the wave of current social discontent, it is very likely. The question, however, whether he would quit power peacefully, and this is – to put it mildly – very dubious.
Who are the protesters?
There are students and trade unions on the front line, and besides a wide scope of citizens. Erdoğan claims that the protests are attended by “stranged Jacobic supporters of secularism”, while the opposition tries to show that it is not true. During 1 of the protests, iftar was organized, or Ramadan dinner, which is eaten after dark. Protesters wanted to show that adequate Erdoğan regulation besides had conservative and spiritual Muslims.
Protests in defence of persecuted politicians frequently have a second bottom in the form of social frustration. Is this the case?
Yeah. Turkey has had major economical problems since 2018; citizens are struggling with advanced inflation, which is presently at 49%. The government boasts that unemployment has fallen to evidence low levels of 8,5 percent, but it is inactive a lot – and especially felt by young people who protest the most fiercely.
In addition, Turkish society has survived the earthquake very much 2 years ago, to which state institutions did not respond decently – slow to organise rescue actions or ineptly to supply assistance to the victims, not to mention the infamous "amnesty" for construction companies (often from my already mentioned clientele), which removed their work to comply with regulations on building safety in case of seismic emergency.
In addition, there is real fatigue in the 20 years of Erdoğan's regulation and the expanding insolence of the government. There is no state institution in Turkey that would no longer be subject to Erdoğan, not democracy, but democracy.
A fewer weeks ago, Kurdistan Workers organization leader Abdullah Öcalan laid down his weapon. How will the current situation affect the peace process? And are Kurdish organizations active in the protests?
For now, only the DEM party, the legal Kurdish party, has reacted. And it was a alternatively restrained reaction, although mostly this organization is critical of Erdoğan. Its members have late mediated in talks between the Turkish government and the imprisoned leader of Kurdish militants, Abdullah Öcalan. They hope for a room, so they find themselves between a hammer and an ashtray and, at least for now, effort to stay low.
And as the current situation affects the possible approximation of Turkey and the European Union, We talked about 2 weeks ago.?
It is hard to regulation on this case, due to the fact that it is not known whether the Turkish government will survive. On the part of individual European countries – for example Germany or France – there were voices condemning the arrest of İmamoğlu and calling for Ankara to comply with the regulation of law. However, it was not a coherent communication at European level – e.g. the UK and Poland are silent on this issue, as if they wanted to analyse the situation and whether there would be a shock that would undermine the existing plans for cooperation with Turkey on safety and resolution of the conflict in Ukraine. Europe seems to be looking at developments.
Such a rapprochement with Turkey would not put Europe in a good light, although justified by military reasons. possibly the talks that will be held in April will be postponed. But that doesn't mean that we're not working together anymore. erstwhile the EU and Turkey concluded a migration agreement in April 2016, the Turkish army brutally pacified the Kurds in south-east Turkey. possibly this time the Union will say, well, politics is the art of dirty hands.
* Oh, my God *
Mateusz Chudziak - Doctor of History. She works at the Department of the mediate East and Central Asia of the Warsaw School of Economics. He deals with Turkey's latest history. In 2015–2021 analyst of the Center for east Studies. Author of analyses devoted to Turkey's interior and abroad policies and studies on Turkish culturally intertwined themes of religion and secular nationalism.
