Good wishes for Erdoğan and Turkey

The nation is praying that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will recover and resume his high performance and Turkey will return soon to its bitter normalcy.

It was so unfortunate for Erdoğan that neither his private doctor nor the hospital where he was operated provided the Turkish public with sufficient and adequate information both on the details of the “operation on the digestion system” of the premier as well as his health condition. It would not be appropriate to list the speculations floating around about what grave illnesses the premier might have developed or how serious his health situation was claimed to be.

It is so unfortunate that the past two weeks could not be managed properly by Erdoğan’s staff.

The apparent cacophony coming out of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) parliamentary group regarding many headings – but particularly the vetoed law on rigging in football – demonstrate in all bitterness that if the glue of the AKP, that is Erdoğan, was to be taken out, probably the AKP would disintegrate and vanish into thin air. Indeed that was one important reason that even die-hard opponents of Erdoğan and his single-handed autocratic style of governance have started praying for his quick recovery and good health.

The labor pains the AKP went through in collecting sufficient support in voting on the draft, giving the well-off segments of society the ability to buy out military service and let the poor die in their place for the defense of the country, as well as the latest cacophony in the AKP over the rigging law vetoed by the president, sufficiently demonstrate that in the absence of Erdoğan, AKP’s huge parliamentary majority cannot go further than an unorganized crowd incapable of delivering anything. At a time when Europe is burning under an economic and financial fire, Turkey maintaining its stability and ability to urgently cater to the needs of the nation has become all the more important.

The illness and the consequent operation on Erdoğan might be considered also as an early warning about post-Erdoğan consequences for AKP. If by then there is a new constitution carrying Turkey to a presidential system of governance, as wanted by Erdoğan, in 2012 or in 2014 – depending on whether the current president’s ambiguous tenure is five or seven years – we may see Erdoğan as president and an AKP majority in total disarray. In any case, even if he opts not to run for president, he will not be inactive in politics in 2015 as he already has declared that he would not seek reelection to Parliament.

Individual undertakings of even great leaders should not pose existential threat in democracies as there ought to be an alternative for everyone and everything. Was it not painful to see the youth and sports minister receiving an order from Erdoğan on the phone during a ceremony that all of a sudden changed the fate of the draft reducing penalties for rigging in football, making it return to the agenda of the country and Parliament, even though only moments before that call everyone was commenting that the president’s veto had to be respected and the draft was “dead and buried”?
Anyhow, let me express once again my wishes for quick recovery for Erdoğan.