JULY 1 — Was there ever any doubt that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan would sweep the Turkey presidential and parliamentary elections?
The fact that Erdogan managed to grab more than 52 per cent of popular vote would continue to baffle observers, especially outsiders.
There is no question that whatever democracy Turkey had, it was hardly liberal.
For one, Erdogan’s camp overwhelmingly controlled the country’s media, where he and his AKP party received most of the airtime on taxpayers’ money.
Over 120 journalists have been detained, some for life. More than 180 media outlets have been shut down.
Ever since the failed coup in 2016, tens of thousands of Turks have been arrested, while hundreds of thousands have been fired from government jobs.
And lest we forget, the country was still in a state of emergency during the election. It was never lifted ever since the coup attempt.
Advocacy group Reporters Without Borders ranked Turkey 157th out of 180 countries in its World Press Freedom Index this week.
By comparison, Malaysia was 145th, which means however repressive we thought our media landscape was prior to the 14th general election, Turkey had it worse.
Just like Turkey, we know what it felt like to be under an illiberal democracy.
For most citizens, the sliding economy would be the first to be felt. The value of Turkey’s lira was nosediving while inflation grew to around 11 per cent. Similarly, Malaysia’s ringgit was flailing, and cost of living was spiralling out of control — it has now been revealed that Putrajaya has around RM1 trillion of liabilities.
To be in the media industry is like having an axe over your head. It can fall at any time to destroy your life and livelihood, should you be found saying the wrong things.
Dissenters can expect to be hauled up under various excuses. Minorities were not just marginalised, they were practically oppressed.
Which was why Malaysians overwhelmingly voted for a new government, as a backlash against Najib Razak and his family’s extravagance, and Barisan Nasional’s tactless governance.
But six decades was too long. Massive structural and institutional damages have been done, that would perhaps take generations to remedy and rehabilitate.
Yes, we know how damaging an illiberal democracy is.
PKR president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail knew this too which was why she led what was then an Opposition party into the battle for Malaysia; she later became deputy prime minister after the Opposition bloc won.
Her husband Anwar Ibrahim knew this, which was why he became the darling of the Reformasi movement and the de facto leader of the Opposition movement then. He even got jailed twice, allegedly political persecutions, in such an illiberal democracy.
And yet both not only praised Erdogan’s win, but had astoundingly endorsed him prior.
Anwar visited Erdogan in Turkey just before their election, and in an interview with Gerçek Hayat magazine, lauded Erdogan as a “vocal leader”, labelling him “sincere” and “honest”.
Praising the results afterwards, Anwar said Erdogan’s victory was also a victory for the Muslim world — to portray a modern and progressive face of Islam.
“I am convinced of your commitment to democracy, the continued betterment of the Turkish people, the promotion of peace and the eradication of subversive elements,” he said, the last part being particularly ominous.
Did Anwar not know about Turkey and Erdogan while he was imprisoned? This is surely impossible for someone as well read as him, and yet he sounds like someone who last saw Erdogan when he was the Muslim world’s great hope, instead of the despicable authoritarian he currently is.
But what was Dr Wan Azizah’s excuse?
Later after Anwar’s statement, she also tweeted her congratulations to Erdogan — and she made it clear that she made it in her position representing the country.
“The government and people of Malaysia offer their felicitations to the President and people of Turkey on this win which is a testament to the strength and vibrancy of democracy in the country,” she said.
Anwar has since defended his praise, telling The Australian that: “Erdogan persists on a democratic agenda.” So it is prudent to examine how he will benefit from this endorsement.
There was a possibility that among the two, it is Erdogan who would benefit from Anwar’s endorsement. After all, the latter was a prisoner of conscience, a former leading light of regional democracy. A thumbs up from Anwar would only solidify Erdogan’s Islamist image.
But Syed Farid Alatas of National University of Singapore (NUS) rebutted me in a conversation, saying his observation over several annual visits there showed that Anwar is less known there than Erdogan is here.
There is a possibility that Anwar was simply trying to consolidate his political power and influence, ever since he was pardoned. After all, he does not even have a government role in the new historic government. He was cooped up in his hospital room when the country voted for change, and a new dawn was announced.
Should he ever come into power, he may see it as a prudent move to align Malaysia with Turkey, that is trying to position itself into the third major Muslim power, jostling into a position against both Saudi Arabia and Iran.
After all, Saudi’s image is already tainted by the “donation” to Najib, and Malaysia itself has withdrawn from its local conflict.
But perhaps Anwar was just trying to get back his old mojo as a rising “Muslim democrat” star, among the so-called “Erdogans” in Malaysia.
And yet none of the “Erdogans” who quit PAS to form Parti Amanah Negara said anything about Turkey, bar its Youth chief Sany Hamzan. Neither did Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, perhaps even more of a “strongman” than Erdogan.
As Turkish writer Mustafa Akyol wrote in New York Times, most of Turks did not mind anything else, as long as “after a century in the wilderness, Turkey has become great — and Muslim — again.”
This is a path we must tread carefully, and as a plural nation, not be drawn into this folly.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
