If you still have any doubts about the strength of the cycle of corruption and impunity in today’s Turkey, look at the extraordinary session of the Parliament that convened on 19 March.
The main opposition party CHP, with the support of the other two opposition parties, recalled the Parliament in order to read and discuss prosecutors’ files against the four government ministers that left the government following corruption allegations.
First, the speaker of the Parliament Cemil Çiçek used his authority to change the deputy speaker managing the session. According to a previously published list of rotation, the session should have been presided by the opposition National Action Party’s Meral Akşener. Mr Çiçek replaced her with a Justice and Development Party member Sadik Yakut.
The governing party deputies initially stayed out of the chamber but once a quorum of 184 lawmakers was obtained with the opposition members being present, AKP deputies filed in.
Amid raucous scenes, the deputy speaker turned down the opposition demand that proposals to be read out.
The Parliament TV has refused to broadcast the session.
The governing party claimed that the contents of the proposals were already in public domain and there was no need for them to be voiced again in the Parliament. Their representative denied the government was derailing the investigation, parliamentary privilege did not apply and the law prevented reading of the charges before an indictment has been submitted to court.
The opposition called the decision a “black stain on Turkish democracy”.
As well as being a scandal, I would call it “power with impunity”.
In the meantime, The High Election Board banned an election ad produced by the ruling Justice and Development Party, saying that it violated the Election Law.
Using religious and nationalist symbols, using the Prime Minister’s voice reading the national anthem of Turkey in full, it is a bizarre Hollywood movie World War Z and PlayStation 2 Mountain ad inspired film.
When asked about the ban, the Prime Minister replied “We will have to ban the ban”.
Sure enough, despite the High Election Board being the highest authority on election campaign rules, the television stations continue to broadcast the ad.
The Erdoğan government violates every principle of the law of the land and if pushed into a corner, it does not hesitate to change the rules of the game.
The leaked recordings of the Prime Minister and his fellow politicians already made it crystal clear that almost all of the country’s institutions exist to serve the government even if what is demanded of them is unconstitutional.
Now, the Parliament is also nothing more than a rubber-stamping body.
In Turkey, the atmosphere has become so dangerously toxic right now, almost anything seems plausible.
Therefore, when the leader of the main opposition party, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu gives a warning that the Prime Minister may send Turkish troops to Syria before the 30th of March local elections, using the pretext of protecting a historic Ottoman period shrine which was designated as a Turkish enclave in 1921, we should not dismiss it lightly.
This post is also available in: Turkish
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