Political Scientist Dinçer Demirkent: 'I will launch an attack, let everyone know' notice!

Serif KARATAŞ
İstanbul

There have been dismissals by the sole signature of President and AKP Leader Tayyip Erdogan. The Circular on Printing and Publication Activities, which is interpreted as a censorship circular for the media, has been published.

[Minister of Justice] Abdülhamit Gül expressed his resignation as 'amnesty from office', while Bekir Bozdağ was appointed as Justice Minister, who argued that the Roboskî massacre was an "accident", who defended the law that stipulates exoneration of child abuse through marriage and eliminates punishment as "the consent of the minor".

Social media users reacted to Bozdağ's appointment. Gul's resignation also brought to mind allegations of a crisis with Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu. So far, the number of ministers leaving office has been 7. The president of TUIK (Turkish Statistical Institute), who was much discussed, has also been dismissed. His replacement, Erhan Cetinkaya, is the son-in-law of AKP's Bayrampaşa Municipality Mayor Atilla Aydiner.

"ERDOGAN IS SETTING UP MERGING OF STATE INSTITUTIONS WITH PARTY INSTITUTIONS"

We discussed the breaking news with the political scientist Dinçer Demirkent.

Asked what it meant to remove the President of TUIK, Demirkent replied: "Let's remember the lobbying news that was leaked from the AKP Central Executive Committee recently after Erdogan's 'rip her tongue out' statement against Sezen Aksu. When the president says it's not up to me, the task is given to the relevant authorities and party staff. Who are the relevant authorities, who are the party staff? The important thing is that institutions and authorities in Turkey are now designed according to Erdogan's short-term goal of power. Just as the presidency and the party presidency merged, so did the state institutions and the party institutions, or that’s how Erdogan imagines it. Therefore, compiling the statistics, which is the duty of TUIK, will be performed for the purpose of serving Erdogan. TUIK, like other public institutions, is in the service of the AKP and Erdogan; if there is a defect in the service, it is possible to change the president without justification. He expresses his gratitude for leaving and asks God and Erdogan for help. This is the case of the institutions of the regime, which is the only one that wants to be established in the country and which bases its reference on religion in some way. Presidential changes, along with which religious community they belong to etc., should be understood as Erdogan’s party-state unification, essentially."

"ESTABLISHED PARTY-STATE-CHIEF REGIME IS DESIRED TO BE MAINTAINED"

Asked about Gul's resignation and the appointment of Bekir Bozdag to replace him, Demirkent said, "There will be a lot of speculation about this. Suleyman Soylu-Abdulhamit Gül conflict, balances within the People's Alliance, Bozdag's role in the settlement process,  etc. will be raised. I believe that Erdogan wants these speculations to come out, so it is not good to contribute to this." Demirkent said that all the names counted within the regime, including Suleyman Soylu, have a role and a duty. To make the courts the scourge of government, to maintain political hostages, to ensure the existence of systematic conditions of torture of prisoners in prisons, to close the squares, media outlets where the democratic demands of the people will be heard and spoken, to barricade the workers, the students, the Kurds.  I'm not saying that the religious communities are insignificant, but the main thing is the maintenance of the established party-state-chief regime in Turkey. Bekir Bozdağ will do the service expected of him, as Abdülhamit Gül did both while in office and when he demanded amnesty from office."

"THERE WILL BE NEW ASSAULTS!"

Demirkent's response to our question about the circular for the media was as follows: "I care more about this circular than I do about the change of the President of TUIK and even the Minister of Justice. You have to read this as a signal flare. It is now difficult to distinguish between them, a flare that will be seen by the state and the ruling party as well as by the opposition. This is not done with a letter sent to party organizations or institutions, but with a circular.  'I'm going to launch an attack, I'm going to create the anger of the conservative and the religious, and I'm going to get them behind me, I’m going to let the whole world know', says this circular. We can compare this to the Prime Minister's Circular 2016/4, which was issued by Ahmet Davutoglu in 2016. This circular was the first step in the purge of public dissidents with the declaration of a state of emergency. Now we can say that an attack aimed at mobilisation in its base, both on the press and social media and covering all dissidents, awaits us. It should also be read towards the grounds for the co-operation of opposition  parties."

"DICTATORSHIP CAN BE PREVENTED ONLY BY ORGANIZED SOCIETY"

Dinçer Demirkent said, "These are the most important tools used by the kind of dictatorships we are in. We know these practices from the fascisms of Italy and Germany in the first half of the 20th century, which resulted in the dysfunction, discrediting and finally de facto liquidation of parliament."

Demirkent stated that there were also processes that began with the strengthening of the executive against the legislature and the judiciary through extraordinary means of governance, and commented on the proposal of a parliamentary system by the bourgeois opposition:

"Governing by decrees did not happen suddenly, it is a process that can be taken up to the Constitution of 9/12 and the constitutional amendments made by the 1971 coup. If you have a proposal like a strengthened parliamentary system, the first concrete steps to impose institutional boundaries based on real powers on the limits of the powers of the executive. This cannot be done by writing it on paper. It happens through the movement of real social forces, social classes. The 1971 coup and 9/12 fascism declared war against organised society to prevent it and establish the unconditional dictatorship of capital. This was the aim behind emoting the parliament and strengthening the executive through the powers of the decree-laws. You cannot establish a strengthened parliamentary system without guaranteeing the right of real powers to organize and operate freely in the face of the executive, without the possibility of free organization and activity of political parties, trade unions, democratic mass organizations. Parliament draws its strength from the organized society and the dictatorship can be prevented only by the organized society . A strengthened parliamentary system is only possible with strong and organised social movements that have been guaranteed."