What's next for Hakan Fidan?
Turkey's recently resigned intelligence czar Hakan Fidan is widely expected to found a new National Security Ministry and redesign the country’s entire security apparatus.
For the past 10 days, Turkey’s political agenda has been preoccupied with the resignation of Hakan Fidan, the all powerful chief of the National Intelligence organization (MIT), to run for a seat in the parliament. Some have interpreted the move as a sign of a major split in the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and beginning of an alliance with Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, while some others insist that despite the resignation, ties between Erdogan, Davutolgu and Fidan are as robust as ever.
The intention here is not to discuss why Fidan resigned, but to give a technical analysis of what it may mean. Until the June 7 general elections, Fidan is expected to contribute to election security primarily by keeping the streets calm.
Fidan is known for his calm and quiet disposition. His colleagues at Bilkent University told Al-Monitor that as a student, Fidan was quiet, disciplined and fully committed to his studies. He should not be expected to deliver fiery speeches to AKP voters during the election campaign.
Fidan, who served as a noncommissioned officer in the Turkish army for 15 years, wrote his master’s thesis on a comparative study of the Turkish, US, British and Russian intelligence systems and his Ph.D. dissertation on the effects of information systems on diplomacy and foreign policy. The common thread was gradual institutional change, which Fidan later became known for implementing.
