The presidency of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan began when Recep Tayyip Erdoğan took the oath of office on 28 August 2014 and became the 12th president of Turkey. He administered the new Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu's oath on 29 August. When asked about his lower-than-expected 51.79% share of the vote, he allegedly responded, "there were even those who did not like the Prophet. I, however, won 52%." Assuming the role of president, Erdoğan was criticized for openly stating that he would not maintain the tradition of presidential neutrality. Erdoğan has also stated his intention to pursue a more active role as president, such as utilising the President's rarely used cabinet-calling powers. The political opposition has argued that Erdoğan will continue to pursue his own political agenda, controlling the government, while his new prime minister Ahmet Davutoğlu would be docile and submissive. Furthermore, the domination of loyal Erdoğan supporters in Davutoğlu's cabinet fuelled speculation that Erdoğan intended to exercise substantial control over the government.
Domestic policy Presidential palace
Erdoğan was criticised for the construction of a new palace called Ak Saray (pure white palace), which occupies approximately 50 acres of Atatürk Forest Farm (AOÇ) in Ankara.Erdoğan's 'Ak Saray' likened to Alamut Castle, Ceausescu's Palace(www.hurriyetdailynews.com, retrieved on 9 April 2016) Since the AOÇ is protected land, several court orders were issued to halt the construction of the new palace, though building work went on nonetheless. The opposition described the move as a clear disregard for the rule of law. The project was subject to heavy criticism and allegations were made; of corruption during the construction process, wildlife destruction and the complete obliteration of the zoo in the AOÇ in order to make way for the new compound. The fact that the palace is technically illegal has led to it being branded as the 'Kaç-Ak Saray', the word kaçak in Turkish meaning 'illegal'.
Ak Saray was originally designed as a new office for the Prime Minister. However, upon assuming the presidency, Erdoğan announced that the palace would become the new Presidential Palace, while the Çankaya Köşkü will be used by the Prime Minister instead. The move was seen as a historic change since the Çankaya Köşkü had been used as the iconic office of the presidency ever since its inception. The Ak Saray has almost 1,000 rooms and cost $350 million (€270 million), leading to huge criticism at a time when mining accidents and workers' rights had been dominating the agenda.
On 29 October 2014, Erdoğan was due to hold a Republic Day reception in the new palace to commemorate the 91st anniversary of the Republic of Turkey and to officially inaugurate the Presidential Palace. However, after most invited participants announced that they would boycott the event and a mining accident occurred in the district of Ermenek in Karaman, the reception was cancelled.
2016 coup attempt
On 15 July 2016, a coup d'état was attempted by the military with aims to remove Erdoğan from government. By the next day, Erdoğan's government managed to reassert effective control in the country. Reportedly, no government official was arrested or harmed, which among other factors raised the suspicion of a false flag event staged by the government itself.
Erdoğan, as well as other government officials, have blamed an exiled cleric, and once an ally of Erdoğan, Fethullah Gülen, for staging the coup attempt. Suleyman Soylu, Minister for Labor in Erdoğan's government, accused the US of planning a coup to oust Erdoğan.
Erdoğan, as well as other high-ranking Turkish government officials have issued repeated demands to the US to extradite Gülen.
Following the coup attempt, there has been a significant deterioration in Turkey-US relations. European and other world leaders have expressed their concerns over the situation in Turkey, with many of them warning Erdoğan not to use the coup attempt as an excuse for crackdown against his opponents.
The rise of Islamic state and the collapse of the Kurdish peace process lead to a sharp rise in terrorist incidents in Turkey until 2016 Erdoğan was accused by his critics of having a 'soft corner' for ISIS However, after the attempted coup, Erdoğan ordered the Turkish military into Syria to combat ISIS and Kurdish militant groups. Erdoğan's critics have decried purges in the education system and judiciary as undermining the rule of law however Erdoğan supporters argue this is a necessary measure as Gulen-linked schools cheated on entrance exams, requiring a purge in the education system and of the Gulen followers who then entered the judiciary.
Erdoğan's plan is "to reconstitute Turkey as a presidential system. The plan would create a centralized system that would enable him to better tackle Turkey's internal and external threats. One of the main hurdles allegedly standing in his way is Fethullah Gulen's movement ..." In the aftermath of the coup attempt, a groundswell of national unity and consensus emerged for cracking down on the coup plotters with a National Unity rally held in Turkey that included Islamists, secularists, liberals and nationalists. Erdoğan has used this consensus to remove Gulen followers from the bureaucracy, curtail their role in NGOs, Turkey's Ministry of Religious Affairs and the Turkish military, with 149 Generals discharged. In a foreign policy shift Erdoğan ordered the Turkish Armed Forces into battle in Syria and has liberated towns from IS control. As relations with Europe soured over in the aftermath of the attempted coup, Erdoğan developed alternative relationships with Russia, Saudi Arabia and a "strategic partnership" with Pakistan, with plans to cultivate relations through free trade agreements and deepening military relations for mutual co-operation with Turkey's regional allies.
State of emergency and purges
On 20 July 2016, five days after the coup attempt, Erdoğan declared a state of emergency.Turkey declares a state of emergency for three months (20 July 2016, www.washingtonpost.com) It was first scheduled to last three months. The Turkish parliament approved this measure.Turkey's parliament approves state of emergency (21 July 2016, www.wilx.com) The state of emergency was later extended for another three months, amidst the ongoing 2016 Turkish purges including comprehensive purges of independent media and detention of tens of thousands of Turkish citizens politically opposed to Erdoğan. More than 50,000 people have been arrested and over 160,000 fired from their jobs by March 2018.
In August 2016, Erdoğan began rounding up journalists who had been publishing, or who were about to publish articles questioning corruption within the Erdoğan administration, and incarcerating them.Erdoğan wants to silence all opposition media Deutsche Welle. 3 August 2016. Downloaded 19 April 2017. The number of Turkish journalists jailed by Turkey is higher than any other country, including all of those journalists currently jailed in North Korea, Cuba, Russia, and China combined.Record number of journalists jailed as Turkey, China, Egypt pay scant price for repression, Committee to Protect Journalists (December 13, 2017). In the wake of the coup attempt of July 2016 the Erdoğan administration began rounding up tens of thousands of individuals, both from within the government, and from the public sector, and incarcerating them on charges of alleged "terrorism."After the coup, the counter-coup, 23 July 2016, The Economist As a result of these arrests, many in the international community complained about the lack of proper judicial process in the incarceration of Erdoğan's opposition.Turkey’s bleak media scene: Arrests, closures and closed trials Los Angeles Times. 3 March 2017. By Roy Gutman. Downloaded 19 April 2017.
In April 2017 Erdoğan successfully sponsored legislation effectively making it illegal for the Turkish legislative branch to investigate his executive branch of government.Erdoğan referendum threatens democracy in Turkey American Magazine. By Ryan Richardson. 4 April 2017. Downloaded 19 Apr 2017. Without the checks and balances of freedom of speech, and the freedom of the Turkish legislature to hold him accountable for his actions, many have likened Turkey's current form of government to a dictatorship with only nominal forms of democracy in practice.Turkey's Vote Makes Erdoğan Effectively a Dictator The New Yorker. By Dexter Filkins. 17 April 2017. Downloaded 19 April 2017.Ertug Tombus, "The Fall of Turkish Democracy", Publicseminar.org, 3 March 2017. Downloaded 19 April 2017. At the time of Erdoğan's successful passing of the most recent legislation silencing his opposition, United States President Donald Trump called Erdoğan to congratulate him for his "recent referendum victory."Trump to Erdoğan: Congrats On Your Dictatorship! The Nation. By John Nichols. 18 April 2017. Downloaded 19 April 2017.
On 29 April 2017 Erdoğan's administration began an internal Internet block of all of the Wikipedia online encyclopedia site via Turkey's domestic Internet filtering system. This blocking action took place after the government had first made a request for Wikipedia to remove what it referred to as "offensive content". In response, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales replied via a post on Twitter stating, "Access to information is a fundamental human right. Turkish people, I will always stand with you and fight for this right."Turkey Purges 4,000 More Officials, and Blocks Wikipedia New York Times. By Patrick Kingsley. 30 April 2017. Downloaded 30 April 2017.Twitter post by Jimbo Wales Downloaded 1 May 2017
In January 2016, more than a thousand academics signed a petition criticizing Turkey's military crackdown on ethnic Kurdish towns and neighbourhoods in the east of the country, such as Sur (a district of Diyarbakır), Silvan, Nusaybin, Cizre and Silopi, and asking an end to violence. Erdoğan accused those who signed the petition of "terrorist propaganda", calling them "the darkest of people". He called for action by institutions and universities, stating, "Everyone who benefits from this state but is now an enemy of the state must be punished without further delay." Within days, over 30 of the signatories were arrested, many in dawn-time raids on their homes. Although all were quickly released, nearly half were fired from their jobs, eliciting a denunciation from Turkey's Science Academy for such "wrong and disturbing" treatment. Erdoğan vowed that the academics would pay the price for "falling into a pit of treachery".
On 8 July 2018, Erdoğan sacked 18,000 officials for alleged ties to US based cleric Fethullah Gülen. Of those removed, 9000 were police officers with 5000 from the armed forces with the addition of hundreds of academics. On 17 July 2018, the state of emergency was lifted, eight days after Erdoğan renewed his term as an executive president.
Press freedom
President Erdoğan and his government pressed for court action against the remaining free press in Turkey. One of the targeted newspapers was Zaman, which was seized in March 2016.Turkey Seizes Newspaper, Zaman, as Press Crackdown Continues (www.nytimes.com, 4 March 2016) In response, Morton Abramowitz and Eric Edelman, former U.S. ambassadors to Turkey, condemned Erdoğan's actions in an opinion piece published by the Washington Post: "Clearly, democracy cannot flourish under Erdoğan now."Turkey's Erdogan must reform or resign (www.washingtonpost.com, 10 March 2016) "The overall pace of reforms in Turkey has not only slowed down but in some key areas, such as freedom of expression and the independence of the judiciary, there has been a regression, which is particularly worrying," rapporteur Kati Piri said in April 2016 after the European Parliament passed its annual progress report on Turkey.