Svante E. Cornell
Halil Magnus Karaveli
SILK ROAD PAPER October 2008
Turkey in 2023: the Republic at 100
Scenario Two: Democratic Reconciliation
In a second scenario, the 100-year old republic has managed to reconcile conservatism and secularism. The AKP was fatally hit by the global economic crisis more than a decade ago, and growing revelations of highlevel corruption that were reminiscent of the center-right of the 1990s. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was not re-elected in 2011. Yet, the stumbling of the AKP did not amount to a defeat for Islamic conservatism. A new, untainted leader emerged from within the ranks of the AKP and formed a new party. The new party explicitly positioned itself as a centrist force, appealing to religious conservatives as well as to a significant portion of the seculars. It also received the implicit support of the military, which feared the consequences of political instability, significantly wanting to avert the risk that the Kurds in the southeast would revert to the Kurdish nationalist party, under a new incarnation after being closed down in late 2008.
The crumbling of the AKP served as an encouragement to secular opinion, which had become dispirited by the apparent invincibility of the Islamic conservatives displayed in 2007-2008. When the fears that the republic was about to become an “AKP republic” – where the opposition to the ruling party was destined to be driven to the margins of the political system – were dissipated, the seculars regained a healthy self-confidence. The attraction of extremist alternatives diminished with the earlier desperation; and the civilian secularism that had manifested itself during the mass rallies in 2007 was channeled into politics. When Deniz Baykal was finally persuaded to resign as leader of the Republican People’s Party, he was replaced by Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who had caught the public attention in 2008 when he had contributed to revealing the rampant corruption among AKP dignitaries circles. The CHP re-emerged as a modern, European-style social democratic centrist party. The reformation of the party – as well as the strengthening of civilian secularism – owed a lot to the support given by European parties, EU institutions and European civil society associations.
With a center-right party appealing to the religiously conservative bourgeoisie, to the Kurds of the southeast, as well as to right-leaning seculars, and a social democratic alternative that caters to the center-left seculars while being equally attentive to the economically vulnerable part of the conservative electorate, the centenary republic had been equipped with a political equation that manifested democratic reconciliation and secured stability.
