In my previous article, I wrote about the most significant political dispute in New Turkey, the spat between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government and the Gulen movement. Quarters close to the government argue that the Gulenists are seeking to establish themselves in the military, civilian bureaucracy and the judiciary to install a “new Gulenist tutelage regime” in place of the “old Kemalist tutelage regime.” The Gulenists deny the allegations. Turkey’s democratically elected governments have always complained of tutelage. The debate in the Erdogan versus Gulen context is only a recent development, but the problem of tutelage has a long history in Turkish politics.
In the Old Turkey era, similar rows took place between the Kemalist army and democratically elected political parties. Certainly, the rows at the time were waged not through shadow boxing with subtle language as at present, but through heavyweight boxing with the toughest language. And up until the period between 2007 and 2011, the army pummeled democratically elected parties.
