Turkey’s President Erdogan is grabbing yet more power

IT HAS been a U-turn to make a stunt driver proud. For the past couple of years, Devlet Bahceli, the head of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the fourth-largest in parliament, had been considered one of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s most vicious critics. Mr Erdogan’s plan to replace the country’s parliamentary system with an executive presidency, he once warned, was a recipe for a “sultanate without a throne” and a system with “no balances, no checks, and no brakes”. Mr Bahceli opposed the constitutional overhaul as recently as October.

Today, the raspy-voiced nationalist is suddenly rolling out the red carpet for Mr Erdogan’s pet project. As The Economist went to press, Turkey’s parliament was poised to adopt a package of 18 amendments that would place all executive power in Mr Erdogan’s hands. In the first round of voting, concluded on January 15th, each of the amendments passed with a majority of at least 330 votes. Of these, no more than 316 came from the ruling Justice and Development (AK) party. Mr Bahceli and his whips, undeterred by a mutiny that has been swelling inside their party for months, provided the remaining votes. Barring a new wave of defections, the new constitution will be put to a referendum in early April or late March.

At present Turkey’s presidency is largely ceremonial—in theory. In fact, Mr Erdogan, who spent a decade as prime minister before being elected president in 2014, has continued to rule almost uncontested. Emergency law, adopted in the wake of a violent coup attempt in July, has removed most remaining checks on his power.

The proposed changes would make this situation permanent. The office of prime minister would cease to exist. Mr Erdogan would manage his own cabinet, appointing senior officials without needing approval from parliament. He could issue decrees and declare a state of emergency. His term in office would last five years, renewable once. Since the changes would kick in after the 2019 presidential elections, Mr Erdogan could remain in power until 2029. AK officials say the set-up would preclude unwieldy coalitions. Critics call it a blueprint for an elected dictatorship.

Analysts—and the handful of MHP members willing to speak to the press—are at a loss to explain what Mr Bahceli gains by backing constitutional amendments that his own voters seem to oppose. (Popular support for the changes has long languished below 50%.) Umit Ozdag, a one-time MHP deputy chairman, suggests that his former boss may have been offered cabinet posts. Others say he is paying back Mr Erdogan for a court verdict that helped him stave off a leadership challenge over the summer. Though he has never won an election, Mr Bahceli has not relinquished control over his party for two decades.

He may be pleased, however, with the direction which Turkey is taking. The government has disowned peace talks with Kurdish insurgents, opting instead for a ruthless military offensive, a solution Mr Bahceli has favoured for years. Since the failed coup, Mr Erdogan and his ministers have revved up nationalist rhetoric to justify a mounting crackdown against Kurdish politicians, socialists and the press. Islamists and nationalists have closed ranks. “Bahceli might be in opposition, but his ideas are in power,” says Asli Aydintasbas, a fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “These might be the happiest days of his life.”

Wham, bam, Erdogan

The vote on the constitutional changes has been a pathetic spectacle. Ruling-party lawmakers openly flouted a rule on secret balloting, then assaulted an opposition MP who used her phone to film them. Punches, notebooks and at least one flower pot flew across the parliamentary floor during the brawls. One AK member displayed a gash on his shin, claiming to have been bitten during the melee.

The referendum, if it goes ahead, risks becoming an even worse travesty. Under the state of emergency, the government has arrested, sacked or suspended over 130,000 people, only some of them linked to July’s coup. Over 100 journalists are in prison. Mainstream media outlets are increasingly wary of airing dissenting opinions. Mr Erdogan, meanwhile, retains the right to close newspapers and NGOs with a stroke of his pen. In late 2016 his own prime minister, Binali Yildirim, opined that the referendum should not take place under such conditions. Yet that is what is set to happen. On January 19th, just as parliament began voting on the amendments, emergency rule went into effect for another three months.