The deadly politics behind Turkey’s worst ever terrorist attack

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The deadly politics behind Turkey’s worst ever terrorist attack

PUBLISHED : Sunday, 11 October, 2015, 4:54pm
UPDATED : Sunday, 11 October, 2015, 4:54pm

The Washington Post

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has earned a reputation as a would-be autocrat who has stoked tensions for political gain. Photo: AFP

The twin bomb blasts that tore through a peace rally in the Turkish capital, killing at least 95 people, are being described as the deadliest attack in the history of modern Turkey.

The bombings on Saturday targeted a gathering organised in part by the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), one of the country’s leading opposition parties, just weeks before a new round of national elections are scheduled to be held.

It’s unclear at present who is behind the suspected suicide attack, but the bloodshed is bound to exacerbate tensions in Turkey, which has experienced a deepening and deadly polarisation since elections in June failed to produce a stable government.

The HDP is a leftist, largely Kurdish party that emerged only in recent years. In June, it scored a stunning electoral victory, winning more than 10 percent of the vote - in Turkish politics the threshold a party needs to cross to gain a bloc of seats in parliament. The HDP’s success was a huge blow to the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since 2002.

Critics of Erdogan say the Turkish president and his ruling party have stoked the tensions for political gain, hoping that deepening anti-Kurdish sentiment would undermine the HDP in new elections. It’s a charge angrily dismissed by the Turkish government. Whatever the case, current surveys suggest the HDP will retain its level of support, and perhaps gain more in the November 1 elections.

The question then is: What will Erdogan do? The June election was seen as a referendum on his ambitions for further power. Erdogan, who had served as prime minister from 2003 to 2014, sought a parliamentary super-majority so he could change Turkey’s constitution and usher in a presidential system in which his office would be endowed with greater executive powers.

Placards reading "Killer state" are seen as thousands of protesters take part in a march against the deadly attack earlier in Ankara at the Istiklal avenue in Istanbul. Photo: AFP

The AKP’s worst showing in more than a decade left Erdogan’s plans in tatters. Yet he has not retreated into the ceremonial, non-partisan role usually reserved for the Turkish presidency under the current system, in which the country’s prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, should technically be its most powerful political figure.

Over the past decade, Erdogan has become the most influential Turkish politician since the republic’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. He brought to heel the country’s long-meddling military, ushered in economic reforms that lifted up a new Turkish middle class and has steadily chipped away at Ataturk’s secularist legacy, embracing instead a religious nationalism popular among a wide swath of Sunni Muslim voters outside Turkey’s major cities on its western coast.

In recent years, Erdogan has earned a reputation as a would-be autocrat, playing a majoritarian game to consolidate his own base and hold onto power. Some dissenting voices in the media have been muffled or intimidated. Liberals and others who once supported Erdogan’s reforms now fear attack from elements of the state.

There’s a heated, volatile political climate, where divisions are pronounced and prospects for reconciliation dim. Last month, the offices of the Hurriyet newspaper, one of Turkey’s biggest dailies, were attacked by nationalist mobs for the paper’s supposedly anti-Erdogan coverage.

Young supporters of pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) celebrate in the streets the results of the legislative election in June - a result that gave the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, it worst showing in decades. Photo: AFP

"As spectators of Turkish politics, we are currently watching an end-to-end pileup in slow motion," writes Burak Kadercan of the United States Naval War College.

The current polarisation is also affected by the disastrous conflict in Syria, which has entered its fifth year and impelled as many as 2 million Syrian refugees to flee to Turkey. The successes of Syrian Kurdish factions, who have carved out a de facto rump state along Turkey’s border, have both alarmed Ankara and spurred Kurdish nationalism within Turkey.

As WorldViews noted earlier, hundreds of Turkish Kurds have joined the Syrian Kurdish units fighting the Islamic State and other factions in Syria.

The onus falls on Erdogan to bring Turkey back from the brink. The president may have played a key role in the country’s polarization, writes Washington-based analyst Soner Cagaptay, but "it’s ultimately up to him to tamp down tensions before they explode."