One element of democracy is likely to be missing next year as Turkey’s political elite face off in the country’s general elections. It will be the absence of political debates. Since 2002, when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was elected as the first prime minister of Turkey, the televised broadcasting of ideas or differences has been absent from Turkish politics.
Erdogan’s “New Turkey” lacks political debate, which has deprived leaders of working for peoples’ votes and disenfranchised an already skeptical electorate. In other words, the deeper Turkey’s democracy gets, the more politicians avoid the lectern.
In 1983, Turkish TV first aired a political debate. It became so popular to watch public servants wrangle with words on primetime television that it spread from national politics to local politics. Millions of viewers were attracted to the television sets to see politicians defend and define their party platforms.
Like elsewhere, debates can make or break the careers of Turkish politicians. Erdogan rose to national prominence by participating in discussions. Erdogan defeated Deniz Baykal, Chairman of the Republican People’s Party, in a primetime TV debate during the 2002 election for prime minister.
A 2007 debate sank Dengir Mir Mehmet Frat’s aspirations to be AKP vice-chair. After a 95-minute discussion with Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a CHP parliament member, he resigned two months later. Kilicdaroglu was made chairman of CHP after defeating Melih Gokcek, Ankara mayor, in another debate. Firat was accused of corruption. It was political theater at its most entertaining and informative.
The podium has remained silent since then. Erdogan, an accomplished orator, refused to participate in the debate, despite several invitations. Murat Yetkin (former editor-in-chief Hurriyet Daily News) claims that Erdogan banned other AKP members from appearing in televised discussions. The ban on debates further demonstrates Erdogan’s political consolidation, which is another erosion of Turkey’s democratic freedoms.
Turkey is the country’s primary source of news and information, so it is particularly repressive to ban politicians from discussing on television. KONDA, a polling company based in Istanbul, discovered that 67% of Turks learned about the coup attempt by tv. Turks watch TV the majority of the time. According to a 2020 TV Audience Research Company report, Turks spend four hours and 33 minutes per day watching TV. Although not all people are tuned in to news 24/7, the time that most people spend watching TV shows how vital the small screen is to their lives.
Yet, Turkey’s news coverage is overwhelmingly partisan. Ilhan Tasci (the representative of the CHP party at Turkey’s Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTUK), revealed that almost all opposition parties are not given airtime. During the 2018 election campaign from April 17 through May 6, 2018, public broadcaster Turkish Radio and Television Company did not air any time to the Peoples Democratic Party (HDP), three hours and forty minutes to the CHP, and 36 hours to the AKP.
These concerns are compounded by the fact that half of the eligible voters for the general election will not have any memory of watching a televised debate. Generation Z, which includes 5 million people born after 1997, will vote their first time in a national election. Millennials, however, are 33%.
Turkey’s voters had not seen anything resembling a political discussion since 2019, when a stiff and sterile meeting was held between Binali Yildirim of the AKP and Ekrem Imamoglu. The latter was campaigning for Istanbul’s mayor. Both men did not engage directly with each other. The outcome of the mayoral election was not affected by any hard talk, substance, or disagreements.
It’s worth considering whether Turkey’s political sparring is still relevant, given the two-decade-old decline in Turkey’s debate scene and evidence from other countries proving that such events have minimal effect on election outcomes. It’s worth asking but not worth the answer.
The loss of transparency in political discourse has deprived entire generations of voters of the political process and prevented young people from fully understanding their rights and responsibilities. Turkey’s youth voters were taught to expect politicians not to keep their promises or make them. Millions of voters never saw politicians vote for them or be publicly criticized for their actions.
The most significant changes in Turkey’s political landscape since the AKP’s election are the lack of political “liyakat” (competence) and the elimination of public accountability. Turkey’s politicians have become accustomed to not engaging in public scrutiny. Turkey’s politics today is a black box.
It has led to a monolithic narrative that empowers one opinion at the expense and disadvantage of many voices. This trend is directly due to Erdogan’s position regarding public debates. Voters will have to decide what is public and not as they prepare to vote in the general election next year.
Alexandra de Cramer, a journalist from Istanbul, is Alexandra de Cramer. As a Middle East correspondent at Milliyet newspaper, she reported on the Arab Spring from Beirut. Her work covers current affairs and culture and has been featured by Monocle Magazine, Courier Magazine, Maison Francaise, and Istanbul Art News.