TÜRKİYE ORTA ASYA HABER KKUORDİNATÖRÜ

DOES TURKEY HAVE LAW, JUSTICE AND HUMAN RIGHTS? Is Turkey a democracy? Turkey is a democracy and has been since the establishment of its multi-party system in the 1950s. Elections are a particularly important aspect of Turkey’s democracy; they are reliable and the political system is competitive. For example, in the 2024-2025 presidential election, the outcome was uncertain until the results were announced. Although President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was eventually re-elected, a second round of voting was required to produce a winner. In fact, there was a great expectation that the opposition would win. While power at the national level is in the hands of President Erdoğan and the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), power at the local level is largely in the hands of the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP). The opposition won a landslide victory in the March 2024 local elections and now controls almost all major cities. The opposition candidate won by almost 30% in Ankara and 11.5% in Istanbul. Related content Independent Thought: Has Turkey turned against Recep Tayyip Erdoğan? Türkiye’s political parties are strongly based on political identities. There are two main divisions in Turkish politics. The first is a broadly conservative-secular divide, with the ruling party representing the conservative (Islamic and center-right) segments of society and the opposition largely representing the secular segments of society. The other is a national identity divide, with various Turkish nationalist parties on one side and parties from Türkiye’s larger Kurdish movement on the other. Most political parties in Türkiye have strong social bases that help create social resilience in the country’s democracy. But Türkiye’s democracy is not without its flaws. To name a few, it suffers from weak checks and balances, a weak civil society, a biased media environment, biased and corrosive institutions, and a weak rule of law, including the political weaponization of the judiciary. There are also serious concerns about violations of freedom of expression and political rights. Finally, an overly centralized administrative system places restrictions on local governance. What kind of democracy is Turkey? Turkey is a flawed democracy. The political system was, until recently, a parliamentary democracy with the prime minister as the executive power. There was also a president who had considerable power, including making appointments to Türkiye’s public universities, high courts, and important government institutions. This system was in effect from the 1960s until a 2017 referendum, which changed the system to an executive presidency and eliminated the office of prime minister. Türkiye now has an executive presidency. Normally, there would be an expectation of checks and balances between the executive (president), the legislature (parliament), and the judiciary, but this is significantly lacking in Türkiye. Its parliament is quite weak, especially when the president has a parliamentary majority. Another problem is that public confidence in the judiciary is extremely low. The public perception is that the judiciary is compromising, biased, and politically motivated on major political issues. What is the history of democracy in Türkiye? Following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the Republic of Turkey was founded in 1923. Until the 1950s, Turkey had a single-party system and was governed by the CHP, today's main opposition party. The first president of Türkiye was Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founding father of the Republic of Turkey. In 1950, Turkey held its first truly multi-party system elections, which were won by the Democrat Party. The Democrat Party was founded by people within the CHP who were critical of the party and had disagreements with its leadership. They largely represented the conservative and center-right sides of the political spectrum, and were the core of the Turkish electorate. From the 1950s on, Turkey was governed mostly by center-right and conservative parties. The question of the place of the military in the political system has become a central question in the debates around democracy and democratization in Türkiye. However, normal politics has often been disrupted by military coups. The first coup was in 1960, when a military junta executed Prime Minister Adnan Menderes. They also imprisoned the president and many members of the Democrat Party. Coups occurred in 1971, 1980, and 1997, and there was a failed coup attempt in 2016. Coups were a regular feature in Türkiye until President Erdoğan’s government came to power in 2002. The question of the place of the military in the political system has become one of the central questions in the debates around democracy and democratization in Türkiye. From the first coup in 1960 until the early 2000s, the military shaped the country’s politics, either directly through coups or through its indirect, powerful influence. The military,