15th July Victory: Deep Foundation of Democracy in Türkiye I
Dr. Syed Mehboob
Senior Business and Political Analyst
http//: www.thenewslark.com
Email:[email protected]
Sincere, able, farsighted, and visionary leadership is very important for the progress, prosperity, integrity, development, and strong defence of a country. Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a visionary, farsighted, able, and sincere leader. He is an asset not only for Türkiye but for the whole ummah. Turkish people love, admire, and like him. They know the importance of sincere leadership and democracy. On 16th July 2016, they proved that they love democracy and can protect democracy and their leader, and people’s sacrifice defeated the conspirators, and the coup was a failed result.
Here is a comparison of economic indicators in 2003, 2016 and 2026.
2003 2016 2026
GDP PPP US$ Bn 789.6 2,116 3,804
GDP Nominal Bn 314.8 869.3 1,477.3
GDP per Capita PPP US$ 11,712 26,513 43,865
GDP per Capita Nominal US$ 4,684 10,891 17,048.6
GDP Growth% 5.8 5.3 3.2
Inflation % 25.3 7.8 19.2
Unemployment rate % 9.9 9.00 -10.4
Recep Tayyip Erdogan has changed the scenario of Türkiye. The data quoted above is self-explanatory. Türkiye today stands in a high position within the international community and the Muslim ummah. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, first as prime minister from 2003 and then as directly elected president since 2014, has flexed Turkey's muscles as a regional power, championed Islamist causes and been quick to outmaneuver political opposition. Although he is the head of a Nato country, he has positioned himself as a broker in Russia's war in Ukraine and kept Sweden waiting in its bid to join the Western defensive alliance. His muscular diplomacy has riled allies in Europe and beyond. He is a proven election winner despite several attempts by the opposition to defeat him, and many Western countries wished too, but they did not succeed.
Born in February 1954, Recep Tayyip Erdogan grew up the son of a coastguard, on Turkey's Black Sea coast. When he was 13, his father decided to move to Istanbul, hoping to give his five children a better upbringing. The young Erdogan sold lemonade and sesame buns to earn extra cash. He attended an Islamic school before obtaining a degree in management from Istanbul's Marmara University - and playing professional football. Erdogan supporters like his tough language and defence of traditional Muslim values.
In the 1970s and 80s, he was active in Islamist circles, joining Necmettin Erbakan's pro-Islamic Welfare Party. As the party grew in popularity in the 1990s, Erdogan was elected as its candidate for mayor of Istanbul in 1994 and ran the city for the next four years. But his term came to an end when he was convicted of reciting a poem publicly that included the lines: "The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers. “After serving four months in jail, he returned to politics. But his party had been banned for violating the strict secular principles of the modern Turkish state.
In August 2001, he founded a new, Islamist-rooted party with ally Abdullah Gul. In 2002, the AKP won a majority in parliamentary elections, and the following year Erdogan was appointed prime minister. He remains chairman of the AKP, or Justice and Development Party to this day.
From 2003, he spent three terms as prime minister, presiding over a period of steady economic growth and winning praise internationally as a reformer. The middle class expanded, and millions were taken out of poverty, as Erdogan prioritized giant infrastructure projects to modernize Turkey.
Erdogan also fell out with a US-based Islamic scholar called Fethullah Gulen. After a decade of his rule, Erdogan's party also moved to lift a ban on women wearing headscarves in public services that was introduced after a military coup in 1980. The ban was eventually lifted for women in the police, military and judiciary.
In July 2020, he oversaw the conversion of Istanbul's historic Hagia Sophia into a mosque. Built 1,500 years ago as a cathedral, it was made into a mosque by the Ottoman Turks, but Ataturk had turned it into a museum. Barred from running again for prime minister, in 2014 he stood for the largely ceremonial role of president in unprecedented direct elections. He had big plans for reforming the post, creating a new constitution that would benefit all Turks and place their country among the world's top 10 economies.
But early in his presidency, he faced resistance; in 2016, Turkey witnessed its first violent attempted coup for decades. Rebel soldiers came close to capturing the president, holidaying at a coastal resort, but he was airlifted to safety. In the early hours of 16 July, he emerged triumphant at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport, to the cheers of supporters. Almost 300 civilians were killed as they blocked the advance of the coup plotters.
The president appeared on national TV and rallied supporters in Istanbul, declaring he was the "chief commander". But the strain was clear when he sobbed openly while giving a speech at the funeral of a close friend, shot with his son by mutinous soldiers.
Under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s success story is defined by a massive expansion of its geopolitical influence, a transformation of its defense-industrial sector, and major infrastructure development. However, Defense and Hard Power: Under Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Turkey has built a world-renowned military-industrial complex. The country has emerged as a major global manufacturer of advanced drones and defense systems, changing the dynamics of conflicts in the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe.
Turkey has transitioned from a passive, pro-Western nation into an independent global power broker. Ankara has aggressively expanded its diplomatic and cultural footprint across Africa and the Middle East, and successfully positioned itself as a critical mediator in international disputes, such as facilitating the Black Sea Grain Initiative with Russia and Ukraine. Erdoğan’s early tenure was marked by rapid economic growth and vast public works. His government has spearheaded massive flagship construction projects, including the sprawling new Istanbul Airport, which have modernized the country's transport and connectivity.
In a departure from the strict secularist policies of the past, his administration lifted long-standing restrictions on public expressions of religion, such as the ban on women wearing the Islamic headscarf in civil service and universities.
Currently, Turkey’s military—NATO’s largest after the U.S.—is actively involved in a number of theaters, including Syria, Iraq, the South Caucasus, Libya and the Eastern Mediterranean, with the intention to either steer the outcome of a dispute in its favor or alter the existing order. This behavior represents a radical change from Turkey’s earlier predilection for a foreign policy that embraced the status quo and that mostly eschewed foreign adventures.
The chief engineer of this shift is Recep Tayyip Erdogan, first as Turkey’s prime minister, from 2003 until 2014, and then as president. While the transformation of Turkish foreign policy under his leadership did not follow a linear trajectory, it was dominated by two overriding features: first, Erdogan’s ambition to thrust Turkey, and by extension himself, into a global leadership role; and second, to always utilize Turkey’s new activist foreign policy as a method to enhance the regime’s domestic legitimacy and ensure its survival. ( Continued)
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