Erdogan consolidates control over AKP

After a 998-day interval, Turkey’s larger-than-life President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, thanks to the constitutional amendments passed in a highly contested April 16 referendum amid allegations of fraud, formally reacquired the chairmanship of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). No one ran against him, and he received 1,414 votes from the delegates assembled at the AKP’s extraordinary congress.

Previously, whoever was serving as president of the republic was supposed to be apolitical and not be affiliated with a political party, much less be a party leader. The recent constitutional amendments not only are going to equip Erdogan with extraordinary powers, but also are enabling him to firmly grasp the reins of the AKP.

For many people, this may not seem that significant a development. Although Erdogan held no formal party affiliation, it was public knowledge that he had never severed his links with the AKP and was leading the party from without. But Erdogan, who seems to have an increasingly control freak personality, wanted to exercise formal leadership.

Some new rules were added to the AKP charter. According to the amendments, the AKP is committed to the principle of “one nation, one flag, one homeland, one state”; the last term accentuates the “unitary” nature of state, rejecting any notion of autonomy or federalism as a mode of governance. The changes were made at Erdogan’s demand. He has long been very fond of repeating the phrase, no matter how much its words resonate with Hitler Germany’s “Ein volk, ein reich, ein fuehrer” — "One people, one state, one leader." Instead of Nazi trinity, the AKP adopted four terms, with an allusion to the Muslim Brotherhood’s Rabia gesture, which connotes four in Arabic and which has become Erdogan’s favorite salute. He bends his thumb of right hand and salutes people with wide-open four fingers. Indeed, implicit in the AKP’s new “Rabia” is “ein fuehrer” — one leader — and that is Erdogan.