Burden of an angry prime minister
Angry is a polite word to describe the mood of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. He is assaulting journalists, rebuking his own friends, humiliating his own supporters. Interestingly, this mad bull turns into a tame cat when speaking to and about foreign leaders. Recently, in Japan, we heard him denying Turkey's ambitions for greater regional and global activism. In Iran, together with his team of ministers, he posed in front of spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei like a humble student. In Germany, he behaved as if he had not been accusing Chancellor Angela Merkel of blocking Turkey's EU membership for years now.
This lion roars only in his own jungle.
“Fine,” one may say. “This is politics. He is behaving politically correct. What is wrong with this?”
Well, you understand the problem if you are trying to live a decent life in that jungle.
Take the example of Derviş Genç, a young Zaman correspondent who “dared” to ask the prime minister about an alleged report prepared by the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) on Reza Zarrab and his network of corrupt individuals, which contained relatives of certain ministers in the Cabinet. It was a courageous move to ask this question, but Genç was rebuked in front of his colleagues with claims that he was, or rather his bosses were, a part of what the prime minister has been calling the “parallel state.” “MİT works on the condition of confidentiality and [yet] you know about that report. How do you know that report? Come, say it! Say it! How do you know about that report?” demanded the prime minister, turning to the whole press delegation and claiming that this “parallel state has even infiltrated MİT.”
A few minutes later, another journalist dared to ask about a public survey published in the Zaman daily. The findings of the survey showed that the Turkish public prefers current President Abdullah Gül to be the next president over Erdoğan. This unfortunate journalist also received his share of reproach. Only after the journalist, regretting his question, said that he "was not the one who did the survey” did the prime minister remember that he should be attacking the survey and not the poor journalist. Erdoğan claimed that this was a survey made by a parallel structure that is fabricating results with the aim of attaining political power in Turkey. He didn't stop there; he continued on, roaring at Fethullah Gülen, who lives in the United States: “You cannot rule over Turkey while staying on a different edge of the world. You should come back and [try to] do whatever it is you want to do here,” he said.
Why is the prime minister so angry?
Anger is a sign of weakness. If he trusts several other surveys that present different results, ones done by his party or by independent companies, then why is he so concerned with one survey that shows Gül as the preferred choice for future president? The surveys he even mentioned do not actually contradict Zaman's report. Zaman also predicted that the AK Party would still win if people were to vote in a general election last week. Other surveys didn't include questions about the people's presidential preferences. And the question about the presidency in Zaman's survey was an open-ended one. It was not a question of Gül versus Erdoğan. People may wish to see Gül as president, but if he does not run for the post, most of his support base will move to Erdoğan. This reading could also be made about Zaman's survey. But, as Turks say, Erdoğan apparently “didn't want to eat grapes" he wanted to "beat the winegrower."
While speaking in Germany, Erdoğan suggested that the March 30 local election would be one of “moral judgment on his party.” Accordingly, if his party comes first in the election, this will prove its moral purity and disprove the corruption and graft allegations against members of his party. Having turned election day into a judgment day, Erdoğan is understandably under stress. It seems we will suffer more rebukes until society says, “Enough!”
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