Cengiz Çandar: Ending the Erdoğan era essential for Turkish democracy

With an extensive personal and professional network throughout Turkish politics, Çandar has been a renowned columnist and a prominent media personality whose voice was amplified on television channels that proliferated since the early 1990s, adding to his credentials.

He interacted directly with several top Turkish political leaders, including former president Turgut Ozal, for whom he served as a political adviser. Prime ministers Bulent Ecevit and Mesut Yilmaz regarded him as a regional and domestic affairs expert.

A change of heart

Çandar initially supported President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan but went on to become one of his most vocal critics and even faced criminal prosecution over a tweet sent from his personal account. 

After spending seven years in voluntary exile outside Turkey – during which he remained influential within political and popular circles back home – Çandar recently returned to run for parliament.

He is a candidate for the Green Left party in the province of Diyarbakir. With a predominantly Kurdish voter base, the party includes several intellectuals, media personalities, and Turkish opinion leaders on its election lists.

Here, Çandar shares his observations on the Turkish politics and public life after his years of absence with Al Majalla.

Easing fears and turning polls

He says people are no longer frightened of Erdoğan, and says that this change is the clearest indication of a complete transformation in the public mood in a country in which the president has dominated the public sphere for years.

Çandar points to public opinion polls and other early signs of a growing opposition to the president and his party among the electorate. He thinks a significant portion of the public now feels empowered and believes that it is possible Erdoğan's rule could end in the foreseeable future.

The prevailing tensions, Çandar says, amount to a pyramid of interconnected factors. They start with "destructive" economic and financial crisis that has engulfed both the state and society in recent years, with inflation and price hikes becoming a daily occurrence.

The country's people feel that Erdoğan's regime has grown "tired" – exhausted after two decades of rule – and that it has become an urgent matter to put an end to it.

Opposition parties up their game

And then there is the remarkable political success of Turkey's opposition. Rival parties have put aside their political differences to form a single political platform – known as the "Six-Pointed Table" after the number of parties in the coalition – and presented a single presidential candidate, Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu. He has established dialogue with the People's Democratic Party, which supports the Kurds.

For the first time in two decades, opinion polls suggest this revitalised opposition is capable of defeating Erdoğan in the upcoming elections.

A disaster that laid bare the "incompetence of authority" in Turkey

Çandar points to the devastating earthquake that struck the country in February and exposed the "incompetence of authority" in Turkey, including all its institutions, apparatuses, and mechanisms of work.

First, the earthquake destroyed an area larger than Portugal. Then it revealed the corruption, regulatory violations, and cronyism in the administrative system established by Erdoğan over the past two decades.

Rescue efforts were unsuccessful in saving thousands trapped under rubble. Infrastructure, housing and services were left shattered or fallen, like dominoes across the affected regions.

Read more: Sifting through the rubble and political fallout of Turkey's quake

The response to the disaster looks likely to have a clear political consequence according to Çandar: "Erdoğan's regime itself will be a victim of this earthquake, which exposed and reduced it to rubble".

Regarding the current political divisions in Turkey, Çandar distinguishes between President Erdoğan and the Justice and Development Party (AKP), the Islamic political party, on the one hand, and Kiliçdaroğlu, the presidential candidate and leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP), the secular/Ataturkist party, on the other hand.

Read more: Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu face off in tight race for Turkish presidency

Authoritarianism versus the rule of law

He says the key difference between them is Erdoğan's authoritarianism – the "rule of one man" as a political and ideological formula which has become increasingly prevalent over his years in power – and a return to the rule of law, as sought by the opposition.

Erdoğan's rivals want to bolster parliamentary democracy, and reinstate the independence of the central bank, as well as the judiciary, in a wider efforts to  restore the supremacy of public law.

Without this, the measures designed to separate and balance powers become meaningless, and the democratic system is drained of its significance, as Erdoğan has done during his years of his rule. 

Çandar has serious concerns about what may happen next if the opposition do not win. He warns that if the current president holds on to office, there may be no more democratic elections. He says:

 "Erdoğan's regime cannot afford to risk losing power in another election, especially given the current economic and financial crisis.

Read more: With a lot to lose, Erdoğan canvases for votes with grand gestures

The earthquake has imposed additional financial burdens worth $113 billion, according to the World Bank estimate. Therefore, Erdoğan must turn the country into a partisan state governed by repression alone, without allowing any opposition, and he will most likely do so to control public life."

As someone who has witnessed many cycles of governance in Turkey, Çandar takes a nuanced approach to what might happen if Erdoğan loses, and does not believe that the opposition can guarantee a full cultural change over how the country is governed.

A "long and winding" path

The only certainty to an opposition win would be the end of Erdoğan's rule. Çandar also acknowledges that Turkey's path to economic and democratic recovery may be "long and winding", and it will not happen immediately under any Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu.  presidency.

Subsequent economic and democratic renaissance will not be fast. But a general sense of relief will undoubtedly prevail, and it will increase the confidence of those who are currently doubting their ability to take the initiative to end the Erdoğan era.

No time for neutrality

While identifying some "cautious optimism," Çandar is also critical of many members of the Turkish cultural, social, artistic, and media elites who are staying neutral in the political fray, implying that there is no important distinction between the two sides.

Contemporary Turkish history has examples of two rival sides that ended up replacing one form of totalitarian rule with another, including the conflict between Sultan Abdul Hamid and members of the Union and Progress movement in the early 20th century.

Turkey has witnessed many other examples of such changes of rule, as one form of dominance has been swapped for another. Erdoğan is both the latest and the clearest example of such a figure, and Çandar does not deny that history could repeat itself should he leave power.

But Çandar believes it is likely that this time around, there will be meaningful change. He says:

"The Turkish people are currently looking for a future characterised by openness and full of hope, occupying the current polarisation position, using tolerance, dialogue, and national unity, by restoring democracy and its institutions and looking forward to a better life by solving economic problems radically, which no authority can surpass in the future, even in the foreseeable future."

The Kurdish issue will be key

Cengiz Çandar has been one of the few Turkish intellectuals and political figures who have supported the search for a political consensus to solve the Kurdish issue in Turkey.

He has been doing so for many years. He played a significant role in mediating between former Turkish President Turgut Özal and the leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, Abdullah Öcalan, during the early 1990s due to his special relationship with former Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

Drawing on his experience of many years spent in the "turbulence" of the Kurdish issue in Turkey, Çandar highlights the challenges facing the prospects for a solution to the issue in the near future, which he views as the "Siamese twin" of democracy in Turkey, as neither can thrive without the other.

Çandar believes it is better to adopt a "wait and see" approach in determining the paths that the Kurdish issue will take in Turkey in the coming years, even if the opposition wins the next elections.

Parliamentary support for Kurdish rights

He cites a number of factors that increase the complexity of finding solutions to the Kurdish issue, noting that "the Kurdish file has become heavier and more complicated, especially due to developments related to northern Syria over the past decade."

Çandar expanded his answer, saying: "But we must not forget the truth of the slogan: 'unless the Kurdish issue is resolved, Turkey cannot become a democratic system and state.' The Kurdish issue is Turkey's fundamental problem."

He notes the rare state of consensus that unites the Atatürkist party, the Republican People's Party, with its Kurdish rights-supporting counterpart, the Peoples' Democratic Party, which has not occurred at any other time in modern Turkish history:

"There is agreement between Kiliçdaroğlu and the pro-Kurdish party, which will become a major player in the new Turkish parliament and the entity that will carry the Kurdish issue within the parliament and demand its resolution."

"Expectations are that the pro-Kurdish party will gain 100 seats out of 600, which will be crucial in providing a majority for the coalition of Kiliçdaroğlu to pass any legislation, including constitutional changes."

"Therefore, the new parliament will be a promising and hopeful start to resolving the Kurdish issue, but it will require a long road to reach a solution. However, as long as Erdoğan and the alliance between his party and the Nationalist Movement Party continue, resolving the Kurdish issue is completely impossible."

Çandar is in the lead in his election campaign in Diyarbakir, a province in the far southeast of Turkey, that has been the spiritual and cultural centre of the Kurdish nationalist movement for almost a century.

He speaks to villagers and residents in the city's peripheral neighbourhoods in Kurdish, which is still banned in many areas of Turkey, including courts, the military, educational institutions, all official documents, and government agencies.

Fateful juncture and a return to the political fray

Çandar sees his campaign as a clear expression of democracy's persistence in Turkey. He intends to direct various "conclusions" and "advice" to any new ruler of Turkey, whoever they may be, if he finds a way to meet them.

That leader will not be short of work. Issues in front of him will include deepening democracy, addressing the legacy of political Islam, dealing with the refugees in Turkey, wider protection of human rights and advancing gender equality.

Although various Turkish political leaders had asked him to engage in political work for over six decades, Çandar had previously refused. His return to politics now comes because he senses that the country is at a fateful juncture – one of the most important in its modern history – and he feels an urgent need to contribute.