Last week, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan made a public remark that gave shivers to Turkey's liberal democrats. After complaining about the obstacles that Turkey's archaic-minded judiciary has raised against elected governments, he took on something more fundamental: “Time and again,” he said, “the obstacle we face is this thing called separation of powers.”
In the next few-days, senior names in Erdoğan’s party spin-doctored this comment. What the prime minister actually opposed, they explained, is the judiciary’s overstepping into the political realm — such as blocking the privatization of state companies out of a commitment to “Atatürk’s principle of statism.” About a week later, Erdoğan himself confirmed that his intention was to condemn not the separation of powers, but its misuse.
