Look at Erdoğan’s past and choose the system

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said, “The presidential system is not a preference; it is a must.” He said the reason for this is that the “current system” cannot shoulder Turkey. 

As a matter of fact, this situation also seriously concerns me but our solutions differ, even though our source of concern is the same: “the democratic system.”

I agree we should not call this parliamentary system, “a system.” We have a “Turkish-type parliamentary system” and that has to change.

However, what Erdoğan proposes as a solution is a “Turkish-type presidential system,” which is not much different than the current system, except for making the elected president some kind of an “elected sultan.”
We have been saying all the time that in a system where checks and balances do not work and which is not based on the separation of powers, there cannot be democracy. 

Let us assume that the constitution is going to be changed and a presidential system is formed as a “Turkish-type” one. After this change, let’s assume Erdoğan becomes the president in the first elections. 
My concerns lie exactly there because we are in hell if there are no mechanisms to control Erdoğan.

First, he is naïve. I’m not saying this, he has confessed to it. He can be deceived easily. 

He has been handed over a country to manage, but he can pass this power to self-evident imams. As a matter of fact, he did this in the 12 years he ruled. He gave them whatever they wanted, whatever. 
He gave the police, the courts, the provinces, education, transportation, universities, whatever you can think of, to these people he now calls the “Number one traitors.”

We warned him, “Don’t do it; please do not do it,” but we were the bad ones in his eyes. He united with the people he now calls “parallel” and came back to beat us. 

If you listen to his speeches, he is the one who knows best about everything but he cannot tell the difference between two documents, one which is genuine and one which is not. This he also said himself. 
It looks as if these people he now calls “parallel” have deceived him with fake documents as if they were authentic ones. He, in turn, has not noticed it and almost all the bright officers in the country’s army have been imprisoned as a result of this cooperation. 

He also has problems listening, reading and comprehending.

He said, “Nobody warned me against them,” whereas if you add all the pieces we have written, there will be enough books to make a separate section in a library. 

We know that he is not very fond of reading, but obviously he also has a problem with listening. 

For this reason, we are saying powers must be balanced and there should be brake mechanisms. There should be mechanisms to say “stop.” 

Otherwise we will all, as a country, go over a cliff.

The all-knowing mode

Former Finnish Prime Minister Esko Aho summed up the developments which led to the selling-off of Nokia’s telephone section to Hürriyet’s Vahap Munyar by saying, “The mode of ‘nobody can do it better than us’ has carried Nokia to the point of withdrawing from mobile phones.” 

It looks as if the mode of “Nobody can rule this country other than me,” will be the end of somebody’s political life. 

If not the end, we can say it will be the beginning of the end. This is the reason he is holding on to this election with all his might and is coming on to the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), which he regards as a threat. 

He knows that if the HDP passes the threshold, then he has to say goodbye to his presidential system dreams. He will have to entertain himself with dried plums and walnuts in the palace as a powerless president. 

For this reason, the clash in Diyadin that resulted with the death of five outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) members and the wounding of four Turkish army soldiers looks “meaningful” to me. This incident is just like the courthouse raid that happened in front of the police and ended in the martyrdom of a prosecutor. 

I could ask, “Could it be that some people have pushed the button?” but I will not because I do not believe in these kinds of conspiracy theories.