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Is It Time to Celebrate Democracy in Turkey?

(New York Times) Mustafa Akyol - A military regime, like the kind a group of coup-plotters tried to bring about, would have been not only illegitimate but also far more repressive and bloody. The people of Turkey, including many of Mr. Erdogan's political opponents, rightly rejected that. This is not the old Turkey anymore, where tanks could take the streets and the military could scare people into bowing down, as it did in 1960, 1971, 1980 and again in 1997, when its leaders decided that elected governments were not in line with the country's founding vision. No, this time people took to the streets and confronted the rebellious solders. Turkish society has internalized electoral democracy, and Turkey's secularists, despite their objections to the Erdogan government's Islamism, seek solutions in democratic politics. Most of the conspiracy theories Mr. Erdogan has peddled recently - about Western or Zionist plots - are more fiction than fact. The attempted coup will force Turkey to reckon with the Gulenist movement, a secretive Islamist group that the government immediately pointed to as responsible for the insurrection on Friday night. The Gulenists have long had a clandestine presence within the judiciary and the police. One thing is certain: This experience will make Mr. Erdogan more powerful and more popular. But if Mr. Erdogan uses his newfound power to build a more authoritarian political system and to increase the power of the presidency and undermine checks and balances, Turkish democracy is in jeopardy. The author is a Turkish writer and journalist.
2016-07-18 00:00:00
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