On June 24, early presidential and parliamentary elections were held in Turkey. Incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan received 52.6 per cent of the vote. Amendments to the Turkish constitution turning the country into a presidential republic are set to become effective after the snap election. The amendments, which give the president more powers, were approved at the fraudulent referendum held in April last year.
The works on the new presidential system of Turkey are expected to pick up speed, three new decrees as to the new system are anticipated – two from the current government, and one from the President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
While the decree no 3 is thought to be issued until July 8, three columnists of soL, Kemal Okuyan, Ali Rıza Aydın, and Oğuz Oyan, have commented on the new system and what it brings for Turkey.
Interviewed by the journalist Utku Zırığ, soL columnist and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) Kemal Okuyan said that Erdoğan might make use of the new system for "normalisation."
Okuyan maintained: "Nothing will change from most aspects. There has been a government in Turkey who has made it a law to act lawlessly. Now, they have disguised the lawlessness with the Constitution."
Stating that Erdoğan might also use this transformation in order to persuade those with whom he has a tension, Okuyan said: "I do not mean the fury he has caused in half the country by 'tension'. He has a crinkled relationship with some of the imperialist countries and Turkey’s capitalists, and it is obvious that he experiences tension. The new system provides Erdoğan with more opportunities, a larger space, and more authority. Due to the new Presidential system, Erdoğan will perhaps make more assuring moves for the real owners of this [capitalist] order in the coming days."
Kemal Okuyan also answered a question about the "division of powers": "It is peculiar to bourgeois societies to divide the legislative and executive powers." Calling it an "illusion" to see those two powers as checking each other, Okuyan maintained: "Now, they are boosting the authority of the executive power, pushing legislation aside. In socialism, however, legislation is everything, and it encompasses execution. Therefore, there aren’t any presidents elected by the people in socialism. Everything, including the cabinet and the president, is inside the parliament, and the parliament, which symbolises the union and organisation of the people, can dismiss anyone anytime – nothing like the parliament we have today."
In his article for soL, former rapporteur of the Constitutional Court and member of TKP Central Committee Ali Rıza Aydın wrote: "There is not a parliament that creates an executive organ that comprises of the prime minister and other ministers anymore – because there isn’t a prime minister or a cabinet anymore."
Warning the readers so that they shouldn’t be fooled by the fact that there are ministries, and there are ministers responsible for them, Aydın summarised the new system: "On top of the undersecretary, who is appointed to be the top-level civil servant of a ministry, another top-level civil servant will be appointed (by the president). That civil servant will be named a 'minister'."
Aydın also explained that the president alone will be authorised about the preferences of expenses and administration and financial issues, and said: “If the [presidential] budget law cannot be passed in time, a temporary budget law will pass. The problem will start with the temporary budget law, and the former year’s budget will be applied after being increased according to the re-appraisal rate until the new law passes."
Ali Rıza Aydın also pointed out the president’s authority to pass decrees and declare the state of emergency, and stated that legislative decrees will leave their places to presidential decrees which, unlike legislative decrees, will not be controlled or restricted by the parliament.
Oğuz Oyan, soL columnist and former deputy of the parliamentary opposition CHP party, wrote for BirGün daily on the structure and organisation of the new presidential system, likening it to galaxy system centred by a black hole.
Oyan stated that the new system would make the decision-making processes much more centralised, while also creating a chaotic web of interaction between the committees, offices, and ministries that overlap in authority, function, or workshare. "Moreover," maintained Oyan, "there is not the position of prime ministry that can sometimes coordinate or function as a buffer among them.”
Also indicating that the new system has been organised in order to emphasise the indispensability of the "one man," Oğuz Oyan said: "When there is a conflict of decisions, one may gladden one’s heart by thinking that the final decider is the one man shining like the sun right in the centre; one may even consider that this chaotic structure was designed deliberately to underline the indispensable role of the one man (or the decision-making processes in public institutions have been advertently made tortuous, so that the capitalists won’t look for any authority other than the Palace). The result is the same – it is a preposterous organisation schema here."
Reminding that Turgut Özal, a former president of Turkey in late ‘80’s and early ‘90’s, had "paved the way for a financial crisis in 1990’s by creating a tangled-up funding and financial management, by preferring borrowing over collecting tax," and by corrupting the economy systematically, Oğuz Oyan asked: "Is the [country’s] direction different now?"
