With the opposition — by force: how is the political crisis developing in Turkey

Turkey is on the verge of a large—scale political crisis - increased government pressure on the opposition may lead to mass protests, up to a general strike, experts say. Perhaps that is why on September 15, a court in Ankara postponed a hearing on a lawsuit to cancel the results of the congress of the largest opposition Republican People's Party. If such a decision had been made, the party's leader, Ozgur Ozel, would have had to give up his place to a trustee appointed by the authorities. At the same time, the political crisis has a negative impact on the economy: the opposition is calling for a boycott of products and services of government-affiliated companies, the Central Bank is spending tens of billions of dollars to maintain the national currency, and prices in the country have increased by 65% over the past year. How the West and Russia react to what is happening, and why an escalation of the situation seems inevitable — in the Izvestia article.

The aggravation of relations between the Turkish authorities and the opposition

A court in Ankara postponed to October 24 a hearing on a lawsuit to cancel the results of the congress of the largest opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), which took place in 2023. He also did not dismiss the leadership or appoint an interim council to manage the party. Earlier, the prosecutor's office demanded to cancel the results of the 38th annual congress of the RNP, at which a new party leader, Ozgur Ozel, was elected.

On September 2, the city court annulled the results of the 2023 RNP regional congress and dismissed Ozgur Celik, the head of the Istanbul branch of the party. The rationale for such actions: at that congress, Celik allegedly bribed delegates to be elected chairman. The management of the Istanbul branch was temporarily transferred to the trustee from the authorities, Gursel Tekin.

The opposition regarded this decision as preparation for the cancellation of the results of the general congress of the party, which took place in the same year 2023. At the same time, the RNP announced its intention to hold an extraordinary congress on September 21 this year to elect a new party leadership. It was reported that the RNP members wanted to reconfirm the rights to the leadership of Ozel in case the court overturns the results of 2023. The court requested the lists of delegates to the extraordinary party congress, but now, given the postponement of the meeting, the issue of holding the congress is in limbo.

The court decided to postpone the hearing amid growing discontent in Turkey due to pressure on the opposition and the consequences of these actions for the economy, Turkish political analyst Iqbal Durre told Izvestia.

— The situation regarding the authorities towards the RNP is becoming a cause of serious discontent within society. It also has a very strong impact on the Turkish economy and the country's reputation in the international arena," the expert believes.

However, the authorities are fully confident in their actions. "To tell the truth, this opposition is in a state of desolation. They continue to wallow in the whirlpool into which they have driven themselves. Struggle, chaos, crisis," President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on September 13.

Nevertheless, some of the population reacts painfully to the actions of the authorities: for example, on September 14, tens of thousands of people gathered in Ankara. Protest actions also took place in early September, after the court dismissed Ozgur Celik from office. Then the unrest escalated into clashes with the police, almost all social networks were temporarily blocked, and the Istanbul authorities imposed a three-day ban on public events in the central districts of the city. And in March, after the detention of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu (he was running for office from the Alliance of the Nation, an alliance of the Good Party and the Republican People's Party), more than half a million people took to the streets of Istanbul.

Earlier, the RNP called on the population to organize a boycott of companies associated with the ruling elite and compiled a blacklist of such enterprises. Erdogan accused the party of trying to ruin the national economy. According to Bloomberg Economics, in order to support the national currency after the protests in March, the country's central bank had to sell over $25 billion of foreign exchange reserves. All this is happening against the backdrop of rising inflation in the country. The ENAG Group of independent economists reported a 3.75% increase in the consumer price index in July, and prices have increased by 65.15% over the past year.

The appointment of so-called "trustees" from the government to senior positions in opposition parties should be considered as a blow to the very idea of a multiparty political system, an orientalist, lecturer at the Department of World Politics and World Economy at the RANEPA Institute of Management, said in an interview with Izvestia. Yuri Mavashev.

— In any case, we are talking about an attempt to weaken the CHP before the general elections of 2028 (both the president and the parliament will be elected at the same time. — Ed.), which the Erdogan government is preparing for in advance, the expert believes. — The fact that the court postponed the hearings on the case of the cancellation of the ILP congresses to October 24 is seen as a second tactical retreat by the authorities. September 11 was the first time that Ankara's 3rd Civil Court rejected the authorities' claim to annul the Istanbul Congress of the CHP on its merits.

Thus, the interim administration of the trustee from the authorities, Gursel Tekin, has lost its legitimacy, the expert believes. According to him, it is possible that the authorities have now decided not to escalate the situation, but this decision is overdue — the escalation has taken on a large scale.

What is the probability of destabilization of the situation in Turkey

Relations between the Turkish authorities and the opposition have been heating up over the past months. The main reason is the numerous arrests of representatives of the opposition Republican People's Party. More than 350 RNP members and supporters are being investigated for corruption charges, more than 100 of them are in custody. More than a dozen mayors and other municipal employees were arrested, among others.

The most notorious was the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu in March this year. He was accused of bribing and having links with the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which is recognized as a terrorist organization in Turkey. In July, he was sentenced to a year and eight months in prison. At the same time, Turkish police detained the mayors of three major cities — Adana, Antalya and Adiyaman. They are also being investigated for corruption in the administrations. And on September 13, almost 50 more officials were detained, including Hassan Mutlu, the head of one of Istanbul's Bayrampaşa districts.

If the story of the arrest of the mayor of Istanbul looks like the elimination of Erdogan's main rival in the presidential election, then the detention of other opposition members should clearly be considered as attempts to weaken the rival party in the parliamentary elections, Turkish expert Yashar Niyazbayev told Izvestia.

— If Ozgur Ozel loses the chair of the RNP, it weakens the party. According to the authorities, the voter should get the feeling that the main opposition party has problems, so it should not be trusted. but as an observer, it seems to me that this has the opposite result — the opposition is consolidating and rallying around those leaders who are under pressure," the expert believes.

It was Ekrem Imamoglu who was recently considered the main opponent of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The CHP considered his candidacy for the presidential election in 2023, but the chairman of the party, who at that time was Kemal Clicdaroglu, took part in them. Western media, citing a party representative, reported that Imamoglu would be officially nominated as a candidate for the 2028 presidential election.

Now, after the postponement of the court session, the tension between the authorities and the opposition will subside slightly, but it is definitely not worth expecting final stabilization, experts believe. Any steps taken by the authorities against opposition leaders may provoke large-scale protests, and a nationwide strike is possible, which will paralyze the economic life of the republic.

— The political autumn in Turkey is clearly going to be intense. Recep Erdogan has decided to decapitate the opposition, and these plans by the authorities undoubtedly bring a socio-political storm closer. All other things being equal, the country's leadership will face unprecedented protest activity, including not only protests, but also actions of universal civil disobedience," believes Yuri Mavashev.

But in the near future, the conflict between the ruling coalition and the opposition CHP will remain regulated, Ilya Shcherbakov, an employee of the Department of International Relations and Integration Processes at the Faculty of Political Science at Moscow State University, is confident.

"Most likely, Erdogan and the ruling circles will maintain a balance of "manual control" of the conflict, which will also affect the electoral rating of the CHP in the long term," he tells Izvestia.

In this whole situation, it is worth paying attention to the fact that the countries of Europe and the United States have not commented on the pressure on the opposition, Iqbal Durre added. This, he said, demonstrates that Turkey's Western partners support Erdogan, so he will continue to put pressure on the opposition. The Russian side has also not yet commented on what is happening in Turkey. Earlier, the Russian consulate in Istanbul told Izvestia that there had been no complaints from Russian citizens about the protests. At the same time, diplomats recommended that compatriots take precautions and avoid crowded places.