President For Life? Turkey's Erdogan Appoints Legal Team To Draft New Constitution
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The Turkish leader, who is serving as President since 2014 and was Prime Minister for more than a decade before that, has advocated for a new constitution.
Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced that he has appointed a team of legal experts to start working on a new constitution.
The critics say that this decision by Erdogan, who is known for using electoral malpractices to stay in power, could allow him to remain in power beyond 2028, when his current term ends.
The Turkish leader, who is serving as President since 2014 and was Prime Minister for more than a decade before that, has advocated for a new constitution arguing that the current one, which was drafted following a military coup in 1980, is outdated and retains elements of military influence even though it was amended several times.
'As of yesterday, I have assigned 10 legal experts to begin their work, and with this effort, we will proceed with the preparations for the new constitution. For 23 years, we have repeatedly demonstrated our sincere intention to crown our democracy with a new civilian and libertarian constitution," Erdogan told his ruling party's local administrators in a speech as quoted by news agency Associated Press.
Under the current Constitution of Turkey, Erdogan cannot run again unless he calls for an early election or the legal framework is changed. Hence, critics see the push for a new constitution as a possible path for his re-election, allowing legal changes that would bypass the constitutional term limits.
Erdogan's ruling party and its nationalist allies lack the votes needed to usher in a new constitution. Some analysts believe the government's recent effort to end the decades-long conflict with the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, is part of strategy to gain the support of a pro-Kurdish party in parliament for the new charter.
Amid all these accusations, Erdogan denied that he was trying to change the constitution to stay in power. 'We want the new constitution not for ourselves, but for our country. I have no interest in being re-elected or running for office again," he said.
Meanwhile, Erdogan has already started employing tactics of curbing the voices of dissent. Earlier in March this year, Ekrem Imamoglu, the popular mayor of Istanbul and a key Erdogan rival was arrested by Turkish authorities on corruption charges.
His arrest has been widely viewed as politically motivated although the government insists Turkey's judiciary is independent and free of political influence. It triggered widespread demonstrations calling for his release and an end to Turkey's democratic backsliding under Erdogan.
Imamoglu is not the only opponent Erdogan has unleashed his wrath upon. This month, Turkey arrested 65 soldiers and police officers over suspected connections to the late preacher Fethullah Gulen, who was accused of orchestrating the failed coup attempt back in 2016.
(With inputs from agencies)
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STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose — not a Brahmin, anyway — was possibly the most secular nationalist. The chapter fails to explain why many Muslims, including General Shahnawaz Khan, General M Z Kiani, etc, fought in the Indian National Army alongside Hindus and Sikhs if Subhas Bose was 'rabid Brahmin'. This is because patriotism is a virtue alien to the Pakistan army. It fights on the zeal of Islam. Its army is merely a reflection of the Pakistani state, which was founded on religious rather than racial or territorial identity. Islam was the only glue that kept its western and eastern flanks of Pakistan together between 1947 and 1971. The eastern flank (today Bangladesh) was actually more populous than the western flank with its four provinces. Pakistan's army would like to imagine itself as the legatee of the Arab and Turkish armies of the mediaeval ages that carried the victorious banner of Islam through non-Islamic lands. Historically, this might be preposterous because Pakistanis, whether they were Punjabis, Sindhis, Balochs, Pathans, Hazaras or Bengalis (before 1971), were not remotely connected to the Arabs, Turks or Kurds. Their forefathers, if they had converted to Islam, converted mostly under coercion to avoid the humiliation of Jiziya, if not to escape the sword of Islam on their necks. The Muslims of Pakistan were actually themselves frontline victims of historical Islamist military aggression on India. Thus, truly speaking, the garrison state of Pakistan exists not so much on the map as much as in the minds of Pakistanis. During the 1965 War, when the Pakistan Army launched Operation 'GIBRALTAR' on August 7, 1965, to wrest Kashmir from India's control, the historical inspiration was obvious. It sought to recreate the valour of Tariq ibn Ziyad (670-718 AD), the commander of the Arab-Berber Muslim army, who invaded Spain from Morocco across the Strait of Gibraltar. The Rock of Gibraltar is a Spanish derivative of the Arabic name Jabal-Tariq, or the mountain of Tariq. It was this conquest that brought Spain under Islam's control for the ensuing seven centuries. 'The Gibraltar force'—informs the then COAS of Pakistan, viz General Mohammad Musa (1983)—'consisted of approximately 7000 Mujahidin from 'Azad Kashmir'. Most of it was given some guerrilla training within a short time before it was launched' (My Version: India-Pakistan War, 1965, P.36). General Musa admits that the operation ended in a failure. This, however, proves that there was a definite connection between the Pakistan Army and Mujahidin (terrorists) even prior to Zia-ul-Haq's era. The names of the units in Operation Gibraltar were also revealing. Shuja Nawaz informs us that the units were named after historical Muslim military heroes, viz, Tariq (bin Ziad), (Mahmud) Ghaznavi, Salahuddin, (Mohammed bin) Qasim, and Khalid (bin Waleed). Only one unit was named Nusrat (meaning Victory) in honour of the wife of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (Crossed Swords, P.206). The Pakistan Army uses a prayer, which is called Tariq's prayer in honour of the aforesaid Tariq ibn Ziyad. Its English translation, as available on the website of Pakistan's Army (though not accessible from India at present), reads, 'These Ghazis, these devoted souls of your lordship/whom you have blessed with the zeal of your worship/their legions overcame deserts and rivers/and trample mountain to dust with fervour/they care not for the world's pleasure/the love of the lord are their treasures/the mission and the aim of Momim is martyrdom/not the booty of war, nor crave for a kingdom'. This prayer proves that Pakistan's Army is not a normal national army, which, actuated by a sense of patriotism, defends the territory of a nation. It rather likes to imagine itself as the modern-day avatar of Islam's mediaeval army of conquest. In its quest it could co-opt mujahidin, an honourable term in Islam for the automatic weapon-wielding terrorists. Pakistan might like to celebrate the legacy of Islamic conquests. The question is whether such things have a place in the 21st-century world. The writer is author of the book 'The Microphone Men: How Orators Created a Modern India' (2019) and an independent researcher based in New Delhi. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost's views.
