What could new measures announced by President Erdogan mean, in reality?

President ERDOGAN announced a new measures package with 8 items to combat the new corona epidemic on March 27. When we look at said measures we can see that those expecting a strict curfew across the country were disappointed. Looking at the other side of the medallion though, they are probably not so far from complete isolation and a curfew declaration, really. Because the president also voiced “citizens should voluntarily stay at home except for necessary shopping – if they did not want these measures to reach further points”.

The 8 items in the package are as follows:

1-Inter-City travel is henceforth subject to the permission of the governor.
2-Flexible working system with minimum personnel will be introduced in the private sector as well as in the public sector.
3-Infrequent seating arrangement will be applied in public transport vehicles.
4-Areas such as picnic areas, forests, ruins will be closed on weekends. There will be no collective coexistence in these areas on weekdays.
5-Turkish Soldiers will be subject to subpoena and demobilization in a controlled manner in accordance with the quarantine rule for 14 days.
6-international flights are completely terminated.
7-A Pandemic board will be formed under the chairmanship of our governors in all our provinces with follow-up of the measures taken. If necessary, additional measures specific to that city will also be decided here.
8-These measures will be implemented meticulously in all of our 30 major cities. The governor of these 30 big cities will demonstrate this determination in practice with the following boards.

It might be worth drawing attention to item 8, at this point. The reason is, regarding said item Erdogan is reported to have used the emphasis “this is where it really matters” and when we think it is indeed the most crucial item in the package of measures. It is obvious that Metropolitan governors have been given the initiative to exercise their authority in areas “from the working order of private workplaces to the curfew”. Governors already have these powers, but with this emphasis, for example, the measures applied by the governor of Istanbul, for example Antalya, Trabzon, or Diyarbakir, the applications of the governors do not necessarily need to be the same any more. This could be interpreted as an undeclared martial law to be practiced according to local needs.  It is understood that this practice could be expected to be carried out through Article 7’s “pandemic boards”, where governors can also attribute municipal initiatives to their authority.

And that is exactly why this new action taken by the president could be referred to as one step before a declared curfew.