Turkey’s military losing its grip on power
Erdogan moves to bring army under civilian control in wake of failed coup against him
When a breakaway group of military officers attacked Turkey’s main cities with tanks and war planes, it took both the government and the public by surprise.
“It was horrifying,” says Erdeniz Sen, Turkey’s consul general in Toronto. “We didn’t know what was happening. They were attacking the police, the satellite stations, the parliament. They tried to assassinate the prime minister and the president. People were simply shocked.”
But the short-lived coup was put down, when millions answered a call by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to go to the streets, and since then his power appears only to have increased. Massive purges have jailed or dismissed thousands of his suspected foes.
However, the military, which has considered itself a pillar of stability in Turkey for decades, is in tumult, with about 40 per cent of its top general staff jailed or fired, more than 1,500 officers removed and thousands of soldiers charged with supporting the coup.
Under a state of emergency, Erdogan has moved swiftly against suspected supporters of the secretive exiled Turkish cleric Fetullah Gulen, a one-time political ally, and the man he blames for the coup and condemns as a terrorist.
Since the failed coup, at least 6,000 people have been detained, including two Canadians. Some 48 journalists, 755 judges and prosecutors and 62 military schoolchildren have also been arrested. They are suspected members of a broad network of Gulen supporters who have infiltrated Turkey’s institutions.
For Turkey, the most unsettling element of the attempted coup was the involvement of the military, even though its top command remained aloof.
The Turkish military has carried out four previous successful coups at times of repression, instability or threatened civil war, including a1960 overthrow that resulted in a new constitution credited as the most liberal in Turkey’s history.
But its methods have also been brutal, and its powers have been curbed during Erdogan’s terms in office and the requirements of its candidacy for the European Union.
“One difference between this coup attempt and the earlier coups is that this was against an elected government,” says Ozan Varol, an expert in the Turkish military and associate professor at the Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland, Ore. “A coup could never be considered legitimate when you can get rid of a government through the ballot box.”
Nevertheless, the cracks in an institution that was once a unifying factor in Turkish society — bringing together conscripts from all levels of society — is unsettling.
It comes at a time when Turkey is bordering two war zones, hosting millions of refugees, and embattled on several fronts. It is also the base for about 50 NATO hydrogen bombs.
The government insists that after the failed coup the military is unified and the subversive elements purged. But, in a sign of unease, on Friday the Supreme Military Council convened for the first time at the prime minister’s office, secured by plainclothes officials rather than soldiers, according to Al Jazeera.
“The fact that there is a lot of angst within the military is clear,” says Henri Barkey, director of the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center in Washington. “We don’t know if there is a deep cleavage, but there is clearly something wrong with the institution.
“It’s a real crisis for Erdogan because he doesn’t trust any institutions,” he adds.
The president will now restructure the military, moving it under civilian control, and curbing its remaining autonomy.
“This (failed coup) will certainly shake Erdogan’s confidence in the military,” Varol says.
However, it is still unclear if the motivation for the coup attempt was entirely political.
While the government maintains it was masterminded by Gulen, and has confessions from arrested military men, little ideology surfaced on the night of the attack, and some in Turkey theorize that it may have been staged to pre-empt a purge of officers who fell under suspicion and were likely to lose their jobs.
Gulen, who denies any hand in the coup attempt, may have had motivation because he lacked the popularity to defeat Erdogan through the polls. Reportedly a more moderate Islamist than Erdogan, he formed a shaky alliance with the Turkish leader to prevent a more secular government from coming to power. But it collapsed in bitter rivalry in 2013.
Now, says Varol, “I’m more concerned with Erdogan. He has pursued an agenda to consolidate control: eliminated checks and balances and packed the constitutional court in 2010. Turkey is slowly becoming a one-man system.”
The Turkish military, however, is likely to play a much diminished role in the country’s affairs.
“There are challenges ahead,” Sen says. “But the Turkish people have spoken. They have said, ‘No more coups.’ ”