Turkey’s strongman

There is a school of thought that the sweeping new powers granted by referendum to Turkey’s president matter little, since Recep Tayyip Erdogan had already managed to grant himself most of those powers anyway.

What little remains of Turkey’s once-thriving democracy has already become a sham, especially since the failed coup attempt last July. How else to describe a nation that has become the world’s largest jailer of journalists, where 4,000 judges and prosecutors have been removed, many of them imprisoned, where rule of law is more slogan than reality.

That the “victory” for the referendum was exceedingly narrow (51.2 percent) and now much disputed also comes as not much of a surprise. International monitors for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe reported a series of irregularities, including more than a million ballots cast without the particular stamp that marks them as official.

Erdogan’s response? “First, know your place! We won’t see or hear the politically motivated reports you prepared.”

The U.S. State Department has echoed similar concerns. Spokesman Mark Toner said irregularities on voting day and during the campaign led to an “uneven playing field” for referendum opponents.

It was a diplomatic way of saying that branding opponents, particularly those in the news media, as “terrorists” for opposing anything Erdogan wants, would indeed create an uneven playing field. So too the jailing of opposition legislators and the state of emergency in effect since mid-July.

Member states of the European Union, which at one point had hoped to bring Turkey into its fold, this week issued a warning that Turkey can only count on economic development assistance if it remains a democracy and continues to eschew the death penalty.

But in his post-referendum euphoria Erdogan — who can now rule until at least 2029 and likely beyond — indicated he’d like to follow up with referenda on the EU bid and on reinstating the death penalty.

Erdogan may soon have the caliphate he has coveted. But who wants to do business with a caliphate?