PM Erdoğan Receives Criticism From International Press
As Turkey has parliamentary elections a couple of days ahead, the ruling AK Parti (Justice & Development Party) has almost guaranteed another term in power. The charismatic leadership qualities including the unique body language (often criticized by many), never ending energy and strong determination of the leader have certainly contributed to this unparallelled success of the current ruling party.
Turkey has indeed taken some giant steps on the way to becoming a true European country to cover achievements such as great progress in economy and privatization, democratization, infrastructure etc. This performance displayed by the ruling party has been appreciated by neutral citizens as well as the supporters and even people from the opposition block.
In fact Mr. ERDOĞAN has felt strong support of the western world as well as the USA (Turkey’s long time partner in this part of the world in specific).However as with many similar occasions where too much power and glory has blocked the eyes and mind of the leader in possession of the power, many a people are concerned that Turkey might be due to go through a difficult period should AKP get hold of the power for a third consecutive term.
Among all measures taken and bills passed in the parliament for a more progressive democracy and all, the government has been criticized for several very vital topics such as
- the scary deficit in Current Account,
- the irrational privatization of Turkey’s most valuable assets such as TELEKOM (telephone company),
- unfair recruitment practices by favoring supporters of the party for available posts at government offices,
- manipulating within the security department – police (by recruiting a lot of supporters)
- getting control of the judiciary system by changing the legal code and using it to revenge and oppress opponents and journalists critical of the government and the party
- putting and keeping many journalists (as well as former – and current soldiers) in prison without being sentenced by the court.
The prime minister has in time grown much intolerance and started to display a truly harsh attitude towards any adverse opinion to be expressed by opponents (and even liberal supporters at times, recently).
Within this framework, the Economist which is known to have supported the AKP and Erdoğan in quite a strong manner a short while ago only, has commented that it might (and would) be better for Turkish voters to give CHP and its new leader KILICDAROGLU a chance by not denying their support as this might certainly help the Turkish democracy in the close future by reminding the current power holder that he is not indispensable and has an alternative to take over the authority to run the country. This according to the Economist might help the current PM to have a look in the mirror and review his attititude and performance.
What Economist has tried to express actually could be considered typical for human behavoir and be regarded as a friendly reminder. The reason as mentioned above is that the same magazine had not denied its very strong support to the same group it is criticizing now. The bottom line is, “that is exactly why this criticism should not be taken for a hostile approach” and considered to be part of a big plot put into practice by an international gang, as was expressed by the authorized members of AKP.
On the contrary it should be a truly good excuse to have a good look in the mirror to see what in specifc has deserved such criticism..
Editor
BUSINESS TURKEY TODAY
The Article in Economist
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