Fears from dreadful implications for the Middle East … What does Erdogan’s victory mean?

Cairo – Mohammed Amer

The results of the Turkish presidential elections received great attention from many observers and the international media who consider these results to be equivalent to more authoritarianism in the upcoming years while expectedly also bearing dreadful implications for the Middle East in light of Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s pursued policies, particularly the regime’s interventions in Syria and Libya.

In fact, Erdogan succeeded in passing the run-off for the Turkish presidential elections by obtaining 52% of the votes while his opponent Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the main opposition candidate, acquired 48% percent in an election that was dominated by the position of the Kurdish population and the nature of dealing with the issues of refugees and migrants.

Fears of calamitous consequences for the Middle East

In this context, Salih Muslim, the Co-President of the Democratic Union Party, which is known under its abbreviation „PYD“ mentioned in his statements to the Target Media Platform that these elections were not fair by expressing his hopes that the results of the elections will not be catastrophic for the Middle East. Muslim further stated that these elections will render Erdogan to become the „Hitler of the Middle East“, meaning that he will proceed with all his policies that he also pursued previously, but in a more harsher way than everyone might imagine, whether domestically and externally.

The prominent Kurdish-Syrian politician additionally pointed out that Erdogan had allied with members of the Hüda Par Party in these elections, also known as the „Turkish Hizbollah“, whose members had been involved in the slaughtering of many people in the nineties. In fact, they are the ones who taught the terrorist organization ISIS to slaughter, the latter which was inspired by them in terms of their brutality and cruelty. Muslim further added in the end of his statements to the Firat Ageny: „This is why I cherish the hope, as I already pointed out before, that the results of these elections will not be calamitous to the Middle East“.

The continuation of Erdogan’s tyranny

The American Time magazine prepared a report immediately after Erdogan’s victory, in which it was said that the era of Erdogan still prevails. The report further quoted Ghalib Dalai, the associate fellow at the Chatham House Research Center in London, who stated that under the rule of Erdogan, who first assumed power as Prime Minister of Turkey in 2003 (a role he served in for 11 years before becoming president in the year 2014), the country reverted to authoritarianism as he consolidated his power through constitutional changes which had led to the erosion of democratic institutions in the country including the judiciary and the media as well as the imprisonment of opponents and critics whereby many of them are journalists.

While the magazine indicates that due to Erdogan’s current doings and activities, Turkey has been ranked as one of the 10 largest authoritarian countries in the world, according to the Swedish V-Dem Institute, the Organization Freedom House downgraded the country’s status from „partially free“ to „not free“. With five more years in office, Erdogan is unlikely to choose an alternation of his course in his domestic agenda and, if anything, will likely even go further and become more authoritarian.

Gonul Tol, the author of the book „Erdogan’s war: The struggle of the strong man internally and in Syria“ said that „when autocrats face an unstable domestic context, they multiply their repression“, clarifying that while Erdogan could resort to pressure in order to return to more traditional economic policies for the sake of restoring the country’s financial stability, he is also unlikely to become more lenient when it comes to the reinstitution of the country’s democratic credibility.

She further added: „We have reached a point in which Erdogan has undermined the rights and institutions to such an extent that Turkey cannot be depicted as a democracy anymore“, while indicating towards the decision of the international election observes that the Turkish elections, in spite of it’s apparently free and competitive gist, however, were unfair. She continued by saying: „We are approaching a point where Turkey will turn into a country where elections may not be considered important anymore”.

Major international repercussions after Erdogan’s victory

The „Time“ Magazine additionally stated that the repercussions of Erdogan’s victory cannot be solely limited towards Turkey but will bear major international implications, at least for the NATO. Unlike other members of the Alliance, Turkey itself has undergone its best efforts in order to establish deep relations with Russia and in 2017, Turkey has controversially acquiesced to the purchase of the S-400 missile defense system from Moscow. While the majority of the other countries had imposed sanctions in Russia following its complete invasion of the Ukraine, Turkey continued its relations with Moscow.

The magazine further notes that, in a recent interview with CNN, Erdogan promoted his “special relationship” with Russian President Vladimir Putin and reaffirmed Turkey’s sole opposition to Sweden’s accession to the NATO. In fact, Ankara had previously prevented Finnland and Sweden from joining the military alliance, indicating its concerns about their respective support to Kurdish militants whom Turkey and the United Stated consider to be terrorist organizations, pursuant to their claims, while eventually raising its opposition to Finnland which has become the 31st NATO member and making use of its veto against Sweden.

The possibility of expelling Syrian refugees

From his side, Ahmed Al-Anani, an International Relations researcher, said to the Target Media Platform that „if we talk about Erdogan’s victory in terms of the Kurdish cause and the issue of Syrian refugees, then, I believe that Erdogan, in his alliance with Sinan Ogan, certainly made him some promises in these regards, especially concerning the deportation of some Syrian refugees“, indicating that Erdogan’s alliance with Ogan gave him an advantage during the run-off.

Al-Anani further added that the Turkish foreign policies will witness relative changes after Erdogan’s victory as it suits him regarding the economic situation because his previous policies had difficult economic repercussions for his country that caused an economic crisis as well as a significant decline in the value of the Turkish Lira and the stagnation of the Turkish market. Therefore, there might be a great openness towards the Arab countries with Erdogan desiring to increase the level of coordination and trade exchange with the Arab States, especially with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia whereby he also will embark on a tour that encompasses numerous countries in the Middle East.

Moreover, Al-Anani believes that with regard to the current issue of the rapprochement between Egypt and Turkey, the pace of normalizing relations will be quiet speedy regarding the economic uses and political understandings in many aspects, particularly those outstanding issues such as the current situation in Libya, adding that Erdogan regards Egypt as a factor has influence on the Eastern Mediterranean region. Therefore, he attempts to respond in here to many of the criticisms that he received from the opposition in terms of Turkey’s foreign policy.

He further emphasized that Erdogan may tend to intervene more in Northern Iraq and Syria in the framework of the confrontation with the Kurds, stressing that in general, the foreign policy will not witness major changes in light of Erdogan’s victory, but it may incline towards rapprochement with some countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia as indicated by the movements in Northern Iraq and Syria.

It was not a fair fight

In turn, the “Fox” network said that Turkey’s elections were not a completely fair battle, as Erdogan largely controls the media and state resources and he exploited these matters before the elections, reaffirming that Erdogan’s exploitation of State resources with the existence of additional electoral irregularities ensured victory for Erdogan and he afterwards certainly won the elections.

The network further stated that Erdogan’s reelection has profound implications for Turkey and the rest of the world as he has tried to exert Turkish power in the region and beyond whereby Erdogan seeks to expand the country’s domestic defense industry as a proof for its global independence, in addition to launching operations in Northern Iraq and Syria, engaging in battles with the NATO, embarking on a rapprochement with Russian President Vladimir Putin, purchasing Russian weaponry systems and continuing to buy Russian oil after Moscow launched its war on the Ukraine even when Kiev sells battlefield drones.

OSCE: “A team without shoes.”

At the same level, the observers of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) refused, in a joint statement, yesterday, on Monday, to consider the second round of the Turkish presidential elections that took place as “free and fair.”

Furthermore, Farah Karimi, head of the delegation of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, said: „In the difficult situation that we currently are in Turkey, but with the high turnout and the realization that people had a choice between real political alternatives, it would be shortsighted to say that the elections were free or fair”, emphasizing the „necessity to take into account the comments of the OSCE regarding what it called the „biased“ media coverage of the elections and the opposition’s lack of access to the media“.

In turn, the head of the observer mission of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Frank Schwabe, said: “It is difficult to describe a complex process such as elections in one or two words. If I ask my children: When two teams play football, and one of these two teams has shoes and the other does not, will this be fair or not? I do not know, it is not easy, we had to evaluate many aspects, and we do not want to reduce this evaluation to a word or two“, pointing out that “the second round of voting took place in conditions that were not always in conformity with the conditions for holding democratic elections.”