Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s rule over Turkey should end – that’s what the opposition wants to achieve in the elections. But is the long-term ruler even willing to let go of power? Turkey expert Maurus Reinkowski doubts it.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan took office in 2003 as a supposed reformer, but he is governing Turkey in an increasingly autocratic manner. Now the Turks will decide on May 14 whether they want Erdoğan to continue as president at the head of state. But how much did the long-term ruler change the country? And will he give up power? Islamic scholar Maurus Reinkowski answers these questions in an interview.
t-online: Professor Reinkowski, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been rebuilding Turkey according to his ideas since 2003. Could his rule end in the forthcoming elections?
Maurus Reinowski: Defeat is unacceptable to Erdoğan, nor is his AKP going into the opposition. The only thing that stands in the way of this is the historical self-view of Erdoğan and his supporters: After decades of rule by a Western-oriented technocratic elite, the actual majority of people finally gained power when the AKP took power at the beginning of the millennium.
In 1923, Kemal Atatürk, who is still revered to this day, not only founded Turkey, but also prescribed its own ideology, Kemalism. How much of it did Recep Tayyip Erdoğan leave?
Kemalism is a very vague ideology – and therefore quite adaptable. Above all, he has strong nationalism, and Erdoğan really has no problem with that. In addition, in Turkey it is almost impossible not to come into contact with Kemalism. For decades, children were brought up in the spirit of Kemalism in kindergarten and school.
Maurus Reinowski, born in 1962, teaches Islamic Studies at the University of Basel. Reinkowski is an expert on the history of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey, in 2021 his book “History of Türkiye. From Ataturk to the present“.
So Erdoğan is simply reshaping Kemalism according to his ideas?
That’s the way it is. In his rhetoric, Erdoğan constantly distances himself from Kemalism. But he only does it for show. On the contrary, Erdoğan shares some aspects of Atatürk’s ideology. Among them, in addition to nationalism, not least the belief that a society can be formed.
What about populism, which Ataturk defined as politics based on the interests of the “people”?
Erdoğan is a flawless populist. He constantly points out what was bad in earlier times – and what he created in return for great things. This is a typical populist line of argument. But he is also a demagogue because he uses the power of words to distort facts and manipulate people. Describing Erdoğan as an autocrat is certainly also correct.
Similar to Vladimir Putin in Russia, the question arises for Erdoğan as to whether he had such plans from the start.
That would be one explanation: Erdoğan was just waiting for the right opportunity from the start. The other theory assumes that he gradually became radicalized.
Which explanation do you think is more likely?
Erdoğan has always had autocratic tendencies, but then he actually became more and more radicalized. Let’s look at the facts: At the beginning he was quite open to advice and spoke to a wide variety of political actors. Then, in the late 2000s, Erdoğan shut himself off and was no longer accessible.
When Erdoğan became head of government in 2003, he also had to beware of the then powerful military, which has successfully staged coups several times in Turkish history. The generals considered themselves the guardians of Kemalism.
Correct. The power of the military was still unbroken back then, and there was still internal competition. In 2016, another coup attempt failed after the successful coups of 1960 and 1980, since then Erdoğan has felt completely safe.
Just this year, the satirist and member of the European Parliament Martin Sonneborn dubbed Erdoğan the “lunatic from the Bosphorus”.
Erdoğan is certainly not crazy. However, he calculates without scruples and achieves his goals in many cases. He repeatedly stokes up the historic conflict with neighboring Greece or threatens the European Union with the refugees that Turkey has taken in from Syria, for example. This even earns him applause from his own followers – no matter how reprehensible these actions are. On the other hand, Turkey was able to mediate the grain agreement between the warring parties Ukraine and Russia.
