Strangling democracy

Sadly, but all too predictably, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is rushing toward one-man rule.

He is using last weekend’s botched coup to crack down mercilessly — not just on those who plotted the attempted military takeover, but on tens of thousands of others throughout Turkish society.

As of Wednesday, more than 70,000 people had been charged, arrested, suspended, fired or been put under investigation. They include about 100 generals and admirals suspected of involvement in the failed coup. But they also include some 2,745 judges accused of being “complicit” in the plot, as well as 1,577 university deans, 21,000 teachers and 15,000 officials in the education ministry.

Hundreds of schools have been shut down. Academics have been banned from travelling abroad. And late on Wednesday, Erdogan declared a three-month state of emergency to “cleanse the virus from our military.” The purge is widening by the day.

This is what Turkey’s allies feared when it became clear last Saturday that the shambolic coup attempt was crumbling and Erdogan’s government would survive, with widespread popular support from hundreds of thousands of people who demonstrated in the streets against a military takeover.

Erdogan was already on a path toward increasing his powers before the coup, in which about 270 people were killed. Having served the maximum term as prime minister, he won election as president and was turning that office from a mostly ceremonial position into a much more powerful executive function.

Now he seems bent on sweeping away all obstacles before him, using the coup threat as a weapon with which to cow his opponents, all the while claiming to be protecting “the people’s rights and freedoms” from subversion. In doing so, he risks destroying Turkey’s standing as the only stable, properly functioning democracy in the Middle East.

That’s the last thing Turkey’s friends and allies in the west want to see happen. The country’s strong ties with the United States are under severe strain, as Erdogan’s government demands that Washington extradite Fethullah Gulen, the Muslim cleric it accuses of being behind both the coup and a shadowy anti-Erdogan network inside the military, judiciary and education system.

Others, including Canada, are properly worried that Turkey’s democracy may be in the process of being smothered from the top. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday urged that those accused after the coup attempt be able to defend themselves in a “robust and legitimate process.” And he said Canada is concerned that “the democratic institutions, Turkey’s constitution, are respected.”

Those are the right sentiments, but unfortunately, the signs are pointing mostly in the other direction. Not only is Erdogan using the crushed coup as an excuse to purge his opponents, but he is edging closer to Russia’s authoritarian president, Vladimir Putin.

All this will test Turkey’s friendship with its western allies and potentially undermine its position as NATO’s reliable eastern flank. With the military coup decisively defeated, Turks should be celebrating a rebirth of their democracy. Instead, their president seems bent on strangling it.