The president’s credibility issue

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan took office by taking an oath before the “great Turkish nation and before history, upon my honor and integrity” that he will conduct his duties in impartiality. 

Our Constitution begins its section about the president with the title, “Qualifications and impartiality.”
This is an emphasis on the significance of impartiality that is required after taking office as much as the required qualifications to be selected.

But Erdoğan has continued to act like a party member since he started his term. His speeches are like election rallies; he asks for votes for his former party; he meets with the administrators of his former party and instructs them on how to act.

It is not a secret now that the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) deputy lists for the general elections in June will have their final version after Erdoğan reviews them. 

According to the Constitution, the president is unaccountable. He cannot be held accountable for his proceedings and actions; he has absolute immunity.

For this reason, there is no mechanism to punish him for not committing to his oath, acting like a partisan in enormous indifference and to oblige him to act within the lines of the Constitution.

This is also normal because it could not have been possible for the writers of the Constitution to imagine that a person who has taken an oath “before the nation and history upon his honor and integrity,” to act in violation of this oath.

The president should also not forget this: How are we going to believe his words in other topics as a person who has not kept his pledge he took before the nation?

Is this the ‘zeroing’ lobby?

As a result of the polemics launched by the president and certain cabinet ministers about the head of the Central Bank and on “interest rates,” the American dollar has gained 4.4 percent value in 10 days.

Thus, the Turkish Lira has devaluated against the dollar 10 percent in the past two months.

It was in daily Hürriyet, Şebnem Turhan’s story, yesterday that Turkish companies have lost 18.7 billion liras in the past 10 days because of the fluctuation in the foreign exchange rate.

Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci attributes this mobility in the exchange rates to “speculations.” He said, “Whoever attempts to make speculations, we have all of the power to make them lose money.”
No offense, but what he is saying reflects the mood of someone who whistles to curb their fear while walking past a cemetery.

If you have such a power, then why don’t you use it instead of watching the American dollar approach 2.5 liras? If it is those who were making speculations who have made the exchange rate the way it is, then why don’t you crush them?

But, they cannot do anything but talk.

In this case, I suspect the “zeroing lobby” as much as I suspect the “interest rate lobby.”

You will remember that at the Dec. 17 and 25 of 2013 investigations, we learned that a certain circle had piled foreign currencies.

Those currencies that were stocked at homes, those that were not able to reach zero after intense efforts, in shoe boxes, inside loofas, in the pockets and covers of suits, inside chocolate trays were either dollars or euros.

When the dollar and the euro gain value, it is not too difficult to guess who the winner is because of that. 

Is that the basic motive, I wonder, behind the polemic that looks as if an “interest rate fight” with the head of the Central Bank?

I am curious; really, extremely curious about this.