On Sunday, April 16, when most Western and Eastern Christians were celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, a Messiah whose kingdom is not of this world, a slim majority of Turks resurrected the pretensions to one-man rule and regional hegemony of the neo-Ottoman Turkish President, Recep Tayip Erdoğan.
The 51.3 percent “Yes” vote legitimizes and formalizes his powerful one-man rule, ratifying his self-judgement that he is chosen by God to fulfill his aspirations for the Turkish nation. Erdoğan is now much closer to attaining what he apparently sees as his destiny: to lead an Islamic world rejuvenated by the pious Muslim Turks from whose midst he came.
It has been a long struggle, against the impious, the secularists, the Ataturkists (particularly in the military and other state organs), and the “Crusader states” of the West, but his days spent years ago in a cold, dark cell for reciting an Islamist poem have yielded to the prospect of years, decades even, in a warm, bright palace that symbolizes his rising to lead his pious people as living proof of the political power that results from the merger of Islamic devotion and the Turkish nation.
{mosads}This latest outbreak of Populist Nationalism (note that Erdoğan forged an alliance with the xenophobic MHP to secure the parliamentary approval to hold the referendum and bolster his “Yes” campaign) should come as no surprise to political observers. Whether the so-called Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, Brexit, President Trump’s victory, Australian restrictions on worker visas, etc., states throughout the world are manifesting greater nationalist sentiment buoyed by populist rhetoric, from the left or right.
In fact, Populist Nationalism a la Turca has been gaining traction since the success of Erdoğan’s AK party at the polls in 2002. For the referendum, Erdoğan ran a “Turkey First” campaign not unlike the “America First” campaign of President Trump, or the “France First” campaign of Le Pen. In all cases, these campaigns require “others” as threats to be faced, that is, straw men who embody the establishment, the privileged, the elites to be overthrown.
For Erdoğan, these were followers of Fethullah Gülen (his erstwhile partner in reviving Turkish Islam), Kurds, Crusaders (read Westerners, not Christians), terrorists masquerading as journalists, and anyone campaigning to vote “No” on the referendum. And, like the others, Erdoğan’s message was that voting “Yes” to give him almost unbridled political power would make the nation great (again).
It is not surprising then that President Trump congratulated Erdoğan on his victory — birds of a populist feather flock together. It’s worth a digression to note the similar elements to the victories of Presidents Trump and Erdoğan. First, in general terms, both men secured victories from the votes of the hinterlands, while major urban centers voted against them; second, in each country two of the country’s three coastal regions voted for the opposition (not surprising given the urban areas on the coasts); third, it appears that a higher percentage of the better-educated voted against them; fourth, the more pious or religiously observant voted for them; finally, both secured a narrow victory that will be contested for many months by the losing side as the opposition seeks to de-legitimize the victor.
Of course, there are differences too. Turkish voters voted “Yes” because of Erdoğan, while many, though by no means all, of those who voted for the Republican ticket did so in spite of Trump’s presence atop that ticket. The most important difference is that Turks voted to make fundamental and long-lasting changes to the Turkish Constitution, radically changing the Turkish governance structure. Americans voted for change in leadership, but did so knowing that the structure of American governance would not change, wisely ignoring the alarmists’ predictions of the collapse of democracy and the rule of law.
What’s next?
Do not expect Erdoğan to reach out a hand of friendship to those who opposed him or to seek to build consensus. In his mind, he is the winner, the others are the losers. Now he will push forward on the promises he made during the campaign, and the opposition needs to get on board or get out of the way.
For the U.S., he will remain a difficult interlocutor, but not one hostile to U.S. goals to defeat ISIS (as long as the U.S. doesn’t support the Kurds too much) or to increase stability in the greater Middle East. He knows he can count on strict non-interference from the Trump administration regarding Turkish domestic affairs, and, if he respects the judicial process to deal with the request to extradite Gülen rather than making of it a bilateral political issue with the U.S., he likely will enjoy good relations, one winner to another, with President Trump. Relations with Europe will become increasingly bristly with Erdoğan casting the Europeans as Islamophobes dedicated to suppressing the rightful rise of Turkey as the pre-eminent Muslim power of the 21st century.
Ed Stafford is a retired Foreign Service officer whose last overseas assignment was to the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, Turkey (2011-2014).
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