Sanction Erdogan as he tries to steal Turkey election
Michael Rubin
A curious characteristic of many dictators is that they are desperate for the legitimacy of democracy even when unwilling to forfeit power. To pursue this paradox, they pump hundreds of millions of dollars into the façade of elections that are essentially baubles to distract from the consolidation of dictatorship.
This has long been the case in Iran. The Islamic Republic’s elections have long been fiction. A Guardian Council eliminates upwards of 95% of the candidates before the campaign even begins. Those allowed to run are clones in substance, if not in style. The result would be akin to an election in the Soviet Union if only Central Committee members of the Communist Party were allowed to run.
ERDOGAN HEADED TO RUNOFF IN REELECTION FIGHT AFTER FAILING TO GET MAJORITY VOTE
Despite this, pundits speak about hardliners and reformers as if they were Democrats and Republicans and project them on to Iran. In similar fashion, the State Department’s Middle East team talks of factions within both Hamas and Hezbollah as if these might allow openings for either group to abandon its fundamental ideology. In the diplomacy leading up to the 1994 Agreed Framework, some Clinton administration officials even thought they could play the factional game inside North Korea.
Turkey’s dictator Recep Tayyip Erdogan now embraced similar election theater. Erdogan is no democrat. Long ago, he likened democracy to a streetcar: Ride it to the destination and then decamp. He counted on Western commentators to be blind to his ambition. Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried even once likened Erdogan’s Islamist party to Germany’s Christian Democratic Party. Such foolishness only has given Erdogan space. He has always wanted to be the Sunni world’s supreme leader. Today, he believes he is. At his final campaign event, he declared he took his orders from God alone.
This does not mean Turks do not want democracy. A record number of Turks flocked to the polls on Sunday, eager to cast their ballots. This highlights Turkey’s tragedy: The fix was always in. Erdogan has bestowed citizenship upon nearly three million Syrian Sunni Arabs whose presence he uses to dilute Kurdish and Alevi power in key constituencies. He has removed mechanisms to ensure ballots are fairly counted. While internal polls show Kemal Kilicdaroglu won a majority despite having the charisma of lettuce, Erdogan now uses every mechanism in his power to delay, dismiss, or disqualify the ballots of those who tire of his corruption and incompetence.
So how should the West respond? Some commentators urge silence, arguing that criticizing Erdogan only enables him to rally nationalist forces to his side. This is wrong for a simple reason: Erdogan’s media monopoly spreads his lies no matter what outsiders say or do. To count on Erdogan’s good faith to treat opponents honestly is foolish. To treat the election as legitimate gives Erdogan the legitimacy he craves. It is time to recognize that Turkey is not much different than Iran or Russia: It’s a Potemkin democracy in which election day is theater but will never bring change.
To support the Turks who genuinely want democracy, Plan B should be sanctions, and lots of them, on Erdogan, his family, and his cronies. He wants legitimacy; show him nothing but contempt.
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Michael Rubin (@mrubin1971) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential. He is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.