Turks are bitterly joking that they are now living in “Kayyumistan” or the “Land of Trustees.” The government is expanding its monopoly by appointing cherry-picked trustees to replace the elected ones. By legal and practical definition, a trustee (kayyum) in Turkey is the person appointed by the government to manage institutions, usually publicly traded commercial entities, where corruption and abuses take place, until a new management is in place. But with the state of emergency — declared after the July 2016 failed coup attempt, and still in place today — the trusteeship system has expanded to cover municipal, cultural and religious institutions.

This process began Sept. 11, 2016, with the removal of more than 90 mayors out of 102 elected pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) mayors. This was the first step toward eliminating the HDP, which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan believes has hindered his ambitions. The second phase of the same operation involved detaining more than 10,000 HDP officials and members.

The trustee storms also hit the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and even the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). A number of mayors, including those of Istanbul and the capital, Ankara — whom Erdogan did not want to work with in the lead-up to the elections — have been replaced. Half of Turkey’s population of more than 80 million people are now living in cities managed not by elected, but appointed, mayors.

The main target of the trustee system in the private sphere is cleric Fethullah Gulen. Turkey is seeking his extradition from the United States as Erdogan's primary suspect in the failed coup. As of January, the management of private companies accused of being affiliated with the Gulen movement had been taken over by government-appointed trustees. Moreover, the assets of 200 of these companies were confiscated by the Savings Deposits Insurance Fund.