Erdoğan’s three-phased social consensus strategy


In the future, when we turn the pages of Turkey's late political history, 2014 and 2015 will stand out by themselves. Those pages will include details of the power struggle to determine Turkey's route, how legal and illegal actors fought with each other and their strategies and tactics. The local elections held on March 30 and the presidential elections on Aug. 10 have made 2014 a special year, while the general election next June is going to mark 2015. Those three elections are milestones for those who want a say in Turkey's future. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) came through those elections successfully in order to reinforce their ongoing power, improve their projects and realize their dreams and enable Turkey to stay on its route.The elections were also crucial for the opposition. Above all, they were required to gain success in the local elections to end Erdoğan's government. If the AK Party's vote rates had decreased to 30 percent on March 30, that would have created a knock-on effect and consequently Erdoğan's leadership in the presidential elections would have been impeded psychologically. If Erdoğan's victory on Aug. 10 had been hindered, the AK Party would have gone into a period of decline. As a result, the party would not come to power alone in the general elections next year and Turkey would return to the period of coalition governments again. If that plan had worked out, conservative names could be discharged in 2019. Nothing would be more usual than for legal opposition agents, political parties and NGOs to prepare for the elections by considering this. The unusual ones were the illegal actors making plans to intervene in voters' choices within the same strategy. In order to influence the voters' choices for the March 30 elections, decrease Erdoğan's vote rates to around 30 percent and become determinant in presidential elections with a knock-on effect, some illegal action was taken on Dec. 17, 2013. Turkey experienced an unprecedented intervention in politics by illegal Gülenist connections within the judiciary and police.It goes without saying how many successive illegal acts took place during the Dec. 17 operations. It became evident later on how politicians, journalists and bureaucrats were wiretapped and the Gülenist ties within the judiciary and police led Turkey to chaos. This was an unprecedented event and a unique fight in Turkish political history. Erdoğan reacted to those attacks with the best method he knew. He addressed the public and persuaded them. In the local elections, he increased his party's votes to 45 percent. He also won the presidential elections held last week with 52 percent. Turkish politics has got over 2014. This trend is expected to continue also in the general elections in 2015. So, what kind of a route does Erdoğan have in mind as the first president elected by popular vote?Erdoğan wants to build a social consensus that would cover every segment of society in Turkey. This consensus has three phases. The first phase is about the resolution process of the Kurdish issue that would end the conflicts going on over the last 30 years. This project will be completed in the short term. High-ranking sources say the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) will start laying down their arms in September; and after the disarmament process, major steps would be taken in the short term for the legal and social stage of the resolution process.The second phase of the social consensus will include projects that would be developed to solve the problems of Alevis. It is useful to note such a step from Ankara while the region is led to instability due to sectarian conflicts. The main target of Erdoğan, however, is to repeal the current restraining Constitution that was made in 1980 by the military government after the coup and form a new, pluralist and democratic constitution that could appeal to everyone. It can be said that while Erdoğan is preparing for his oath-taking ceremony on Aug. 28, his team has started focus on those topics. We will review these three topics in the following days.