Erdogan premiership marked by domestic controversies and foreign policy blunders

Recep Tayyip Erdogan comfortably won the presidential elections in the first round as predicted. He however does not want to be 'president of protocol' but rather an executive president with the broadest powers. Change from a parliamentary to presidential system will require changing the Turkish constitution. This will only be possible after parliamentary elections in 2015.

Although Erdogan as President can no longer be a member of the AKP (Justice and Development Party) he is likely to exert a powerful influence on its policies through party officials loyal and subordinate to its former master.

From its orginally modest economic performance the AKP turned Turkey into one of the most powerful economic powerhouses. She is now a member of the G20 and is ranked the seventeenth economy in the world. By 2023 Erdogan hopes to make it 10th.

At the domestic level the AKP marginalized the role of the military in politics, relegating it to democratically acceptable limits. In addition, the Erdogan government liberalized the economy, making it more efficient and giving the middle and lower classes the opportunity for equal participation in society that had hitherto been the sole privilege of the secular elites.

In terms of religious freedom the AKP government abolished draconian laws devised by past secularist governments that banned employment, access to public institutions, universities and government affairs to veiled Muslim women. One of the most significant achievements of Erdogan was the opening of dialogue with the rebel Kurds, including negotiations with Abdullah Ocalan, jailed leader of Kurdistan's Workers Party (PKK).

Realizing that Turkey cannot build its future as democratic country without resolving government conflict with PKK, which so far caused 40,000 loss of lives on both sides, Erdogan demonstrated his eagerness to engage PKK despite the fierce opposition of his political opponents.

That the AKP's strategy for dealing with the perennial political question of modern Turkey was on the right track was confirmed by Gulten Kisanak, a leading figure of Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), and the mayor of Diyarbakir, the city in Anatolia with the highest concentration of Kurds. Kisanak, who spoke at the Al Jazeera Forum in Doha recently, along with Faruk Logoglu, deputy chair of the Republican People's Party (CHP), argued that the AKP policy contributed to progress in terms of realizing greater Kurdish autonomy not only in the cultural domain but also in a practical sense, including management of material resources by Kurdish local communities.

In terms of geopolitics Turkey sought to position itself as a major regional player and initially it achieved some influence in the Middle East, the Balkans and the Caucasus. The doctrine of 'strategic depth' which entailed spreading Turkish economic and cultural influence to geographical spheres once ruled by the mighty Ottoman empire, and the 'zero policy of enmity with neighbors', whose architect was Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkish foreign minister, were dealt a severe blow during the past year or so, to the point that some sarcastically described it as 'a country with zero friends among neighbors in the region', alleging a "covert strategy of Turkish domination of geographical areas once ruled by Devleti Aliye (the Ottoman Empire).

Turkey is today isolated by its neighbors in the Middle East and is left with no allies, apart from Qatar and non-state actors such as the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and the Palestinian resistance organization Hamas, both regarded as terrorist organizations by the West.

In addition to its numerous achievements the Erdogan prime ministerial era was marked by many controversies, both domestically and internationally.

In an effort to transform the feeble Turkish economy into a respectable economic powerhouse, the Erdogan government implemented a textbook example of neo-liberal developmental model, the primary goal of which was creating economic wealth and profit at any cost. Some scholars regarded such an approach to economic development as 'developmental fetishism'. Yildiz Atasoy, a Canadian social anthropologist of Turkish origin, described this specific Turkish developmental model that sought to introduce neoliberal reforms simultaneously with increased Islamization and introduction of Islamic conservative values, as a 'marriage of Islam with neoliberalism'.

When it comes to the politics of urbanization AKP, seemed not to accord due respect to environmental protection or show any sensitivity to environmentalists groups. In an effort to transform the dilapidated infrastructure of major cities, particularly Istanbul, and in order to make Turkey a more attractive destination for global investment capital, to promote tourism and hospitality and to improve transportation systems and thus position it as global center for services, AKP enraged a large number of people on the left, triggering the protests of Gezi Park.

The government use of unnecessarily and excessive force and brutal tactics against protesters caused international outrage and condemnation of Turkey by many international human rights organizations and foreign governments, including those of the United States and the EU member countries. Furthermore, Erdogan's confrontational and erratic style in dealing with his political opponents sparked accusations of authoritarianism.

The AKP privatization policies and the concentration of Turkish media ownership in the hands of private interests close to AKP and its crony capitalists, coupled with monopolization of public media and press to advance government policies, prompted observers of the presidential campaign in Turkey to claim that three Turkish state television channels (TRT Turk, TRT-1 and TRT Haber) allotted Erdogan presidential campaign 533 minutes, while the two opposition candidates, Ihsanoglu and Demirtas, were only given four minutes of air time combined. Spokesmen for TRT justified such decision by claiming that Erdogan's candidacy was most important news in its own right.

Last year's corruption scandal involving the highest officials of AKP, including Prime Minister Erdogan himself as well as his son Bilal, was arguably the most serious challenge Erdogan had ever faced during his tenure as Prime Minister. A corruption investigation was launched soon after a rift had emerged between AKP and Hizmet, an influential conservative Islamic movement led by well-known cleric Fethullah Gulen, who has been living in a self-imposed exile in the United States.

Erdogan accused his former ally Gulen and influential members of his movement (who due to their high education and professional skills until recently served in key state positions), the intelligence apparatus, and the judiciary and police, of instigating a corruption probe in order to undermine his government and to compromise his elections chances as president.

'Witch Hunt'

Erdogan accused Gulen sympathizers, who in the past played a major part in helping Erdogan marginalize the powerful influence of the military in fabricating evidence to discredit his alleged impeccable and incorruptible democratic government, in revenge for Erdogan's clamping down on Gulen's movement, particularly closing Hizmet's educational institutions and harsh treatment of financial institutions and business corporations known to be close to Hizmet. Halkbank was one such institution in question.

The AKP conflict with Gulen turned into a witch-hunt and McCarthyist style purge of state bureaucrats and public servants alleged to have been close to Hizmet by the government from which Erdogan emerged victorious. Moreover, Erdogan conveniently used the occasion to attribute the blame for incarceration of a large number of army generals and other senior military officers, journalists, academics and political activists, who were convicted without adequate evidence, exclusively to Hizmet sympathizers.

Truth about this conflict due to the ideologically charged political atmosphere in which it unfolded and particularly because of the concentration of power in the hands of the AKP and Erdogan himself, may only be uncovered by unbiased historians with the passage of time.