Could the graft investigations that, since Dec. 17, have all but overwhelmed Turkey’s political-legal system and have led to resignations of three cabinet ministers change the power balance in the country and push Turkey back to its factory settings? Or, to speak bluntly, will the political earthquake we are living through nowadays bring back the days of the “military tutelage"? Could Turkey wake up to yet another military coup?

Defensive tactics the government has deployed to downplay the corruption investigations seem to have prompted unexpected reactions from the military. The government, in its response, has counterattacked the police and the prosecutors carrying out the investigations. Accordingly, the objective of those police and prosecutors affiliated with the Islamic faith community of the Gulen movement is to topple the government. This “police-judiciary” gang — a title pro-government media came up with — is charged with developing false evidence to bring down the government. No wonder there are a dazzling variety of conspiracy theories being circulated nowadays, with pro-government quarters claiming that the operations are the brainchild of some power centers of the United States, Israel and Europe and their Gulen movement extensions inside the state of Turkey.

It appears that to garner support for its counterattacks the government is now trying to get its once-ferocious foe, the military, on its side. “False evidence” charges were earlier on the agenda of the Ergenekon and Sledgehammer cases — trials concerning military coup plots. The defendants in those cases had claimed that a “gang” within the police was manufacturing evidence. Amazingly, the grievances of the Ergenekon and Sledgehammer trials are now supported by pro-government quarters.

A Pandora’s box was opened by Yalcin Akdogan, a leading adviser of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in his daily Star column of Dec. 24, 2013. In this article, Akdogan alluded to Gulen’s extensions within the police-judiciary, saying, "Those who are engineering intrigues against the army of their country, against its national intelligence, its national bank and the civil authority that is embraced by the people cannot be serving the interests of this country.” Turkey’s chief of General Staff responded immediately and, quoting remarks Yalcin Akdogan made on Dec. 27, informed the prosecutor-general that a crime has been committed and asked for legal action against those who have been “targeting the Turkish Armed Forces [TSK] and its personnel.’’