Turkey’s Main Opposition to Fight Erdogan’s ‘One-Man Regime’

(Bloomberg) -- Turkey's main opposition party will resist imposition of one-man rule “with all our might,” chairman Kemal Kilicdaroglu said in an interview, as an expanding government crackdown deepened concerns at home and abroad about the country's direction.

Kilicdaroglu, head of the Republican People's Party, or CHP, accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of using emergency powers declared after the failed July 15 military takeover to shape the country to his liking by bypassing the parliament. The government says emergency decrees -- including the firing or suspension of about 110,000 civil servants on national security grounds and the shuttering of more than a dozen media outlets -- are subject to parliamentary approval later on.

In the wake of the coup attempt, Erdogan stepped up his efforts to push for an executive presidency through a constitutional amendment, arguing that the takeover plot proved the nation would be more stable if ruled from the presidential palace. His call to reinstate the death penalty was quickly endorsed by Nationalist Movement Party leader Devlet Bahceli, whose backing is crucial for the ruling AK Party to win at least 330 votes in the 550-seat parliament to send a referendum on the presidential system to the public. Erdogan and Bahceli are scheduled to meet on Thursday, Haberturk television reported.

“Tayyip Erdogan wants to turn us into a Middle Eastern country,” Kilicdaroglu, a fierce opponent of an executive presidency, said in the interview in his office Tuesday night. “Calls for the return of the death penalty in Turkey would mean a complete break with the West.”

Turkey's parliament abolished the death penalty in 2002 to meet one of the conditions of its bid to join the European Union. Turkey hasn't executed anyone since 1984, although courts regularly imposed death sentences for years after.

Not Realistic

Turkish government actions since the coup attempt have drawn international criticism and encumbered the country's already troubled efforts to join the EU. On Tuesday, the co-leader of German's opposition Greens party, Cem Oezdemir, warned that the crackdown is driving Turkey “far away” from the bloc.

“For the time being, it's not very realistic to expect Turkey to join,” Oezdemir said in an interview with Bloomberg Television in Berlin. “I don't see it with President Erdogan.”

Kilicdaroglu, the Turkish opposition leader, said the emergency rule is also scaring away investors. Turkey is planning to increase spending to escape an economic slowdown as analysts caution that the government is overly optimistic about the future of the economy and prospects for growth.

“Today the government can confiscate the property of any businessman, declare them a terrorist and ban them from meeting a lawyer,” he said. “They might not even be able to learn why they were arrested, because there could be a secrecy order. Of course it's a fantasy to expect large-scale foreign investments in such an environment.”

--With assistance from Selcan Hacaoglu and Benjamin Harvey To contact the reporter on this story: Firat Kozok in Ankara at fkozok@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alaa Shahine at asalha@bloomberg.net, Amy Teibel, Stuart Biggs