A Lieutenant Gen. clearing table; foreign powers’ election interference

The photograph above is taken on March 9, 2023 in Brussels. President Tayyip Erdoğan’s Chief Foreign and Security Policy Advisor and Spokesperson, İbrahim Kalın, with Deputy Foreign Minister Burak Akçapar on his left, holing a press conference. The topic is whether Türkiye should give its approval to Sweden and Finland, two countries that want to join NATO for fear of Russia – a strategic issue. But someone thinks that the cups of tea and water piling up on the table do not look good for the government’s international reputation, so someone starts collecting them.

Among them is a man in uniform. Journalists cannot believe their eyes. Because while Spokesperson Kalın is speaking, the person making an effort not to pollute the image with empty glasses is Air Lieutenant General Göksel Kahya, the officer representing the Turkish Armed Forces in NATO.

He is in the process of becoming a general, and perhaps he wants to be appointed as the future Commander of the Air Force. You can watch it at this link.

Upon the criticisms, Kalın stated that the issue of Lieutenant General Kahya’s collecting empty glasses “had nothing to do with him,” and that “it should not be interpreted as a situation in which the government had undermined the military.”

There is no need for the “foreign powers” to carry out a credibility assassination against Türkiye on behalf of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), since Ankara has been sawing off the branch it has been sitting on for some time.

Cancelled trip to Germany

Shortly before the devastating earthquakes happened in Kahramanmaraş, which claimed 47,000 lives according to official figures, President Erdoğan was to travel to Germany for a meeting with Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Scholz had one condition: Erdoğan would not hold any rallies while in Germany. At the joint press conference, he was to criticize Nevşehir MP Mustafa Açıkgöz, whom he accused of campaigning for the AKP in Germany. Germany would not allow either the ruling or the opposition parties to take the May 14 elections in Türkiye to their country, which in previous years had led to a crisis between the two countries. Kalın spoke to Scholz’s advisor Jens Plötner, “they could not agree on a date” and the trip was cancelled.

The earthquake pain made them forget this fiasco. Otherwise, this cancellation could have been spined in the domestic media as an intervention of “foreign powers” against Erdoğan in the elections.

Postponed EU Conference

In the aftermath of the earthquake, the European Union decided to organize a Donors’ Conference to raise funds for the needs of earthquake victims. Scheduled for March 16 in Brussels, the Conference was postponed at the request of the Erdoğan cabinet. The official reason was that on the same day the Summit of Turkic States was to be held in Ankara and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Mauritania, and it was not possible for President Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Çavuşoğlu to be in Brussels.

However, the dates of both meetings were set when Erdogan gave his approval for a conference to raise money to help earthquake victims in Türkiye to be held on March 16. Moreover, Erdogan was not obliged to attend the conference.

Answering upon question, Erdoğan’s spokesperson Kalın stated that Türkiye had not yet approved the March 16, and it was announced as a result of a mistake of a European bureaucrat. He stated that the meeting will be held on March 20 upon the request of the EU side.

At the diplomatic backstages, it is said that another problem is the EU’s insistence that the donations be used for projects to be jointly determined and jointly supervised. There is concern that the donations will turn into an electoral investment for the AKP through the Treasury and Urban Planning ministries, but the EU’s hypocritical “don’t send us any Syrians and do whatever you want” bargaining also plays a role in this.

Interference of foreign powers in the election

As far as the AKP is concerned, as seen in the Russia-Ukraine crisis, Türkiye is shaping world politics and getting its own way, which is why foreign powers who don’t want this are trying to interfere in the elections.

The AKP propaganda teams seem to be in dire need of anti-Erdoğan rhetoric from “Western powers” these days. Because they are still trying to keep in circulation the words of Joe Biden as a US presidential candidate before the 2020 elections, the opposition in Türkiye should be supported.

So, can it be argued that there aren’t “foreign powers” that want to mess with our elections? No.

Spokespersons for Russian President Vladimir Putin, for example, have made it clear that they want Erdogan to stay in power. The official TASS agency recently noted that CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, now the opposition’s presidential candidate, “opposes energy dependence on Russia”.

In the months leading up to the elections, Russia sent $20 billion to Ankara in exchange for getting Turkish companies to start building the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant again. Moscow, which is under an unprecedented Western embargo over the Ukraine war, nevertheless eased Erdoğan’s hand by postponing BOTAŞ’s $20 billion debt until after the elections.

Which foreign powers intervened?

Russia is the country most accused of interfering in elections, including through cyber-operations, by countries from the US to Europe, but it denies these allegations as Western slander. In Türkiye, it is openly taking sides.

It is not only Russia that wants Erdogan to stay in power.

Saudi Arabia recently transferred $5 billion to the Central Bank, which government sources say does not mean “use it however you want.” Riyadh’s support for Erdogan’s impoverishing economic policies amounts to $10 billion.

Another 10 billion dollars are promised from Qatar, and another 10 billion from the United Arab Emirates. In the same period, the UAE, which issued a publication ban on Sedat Peker’s allegations of corruption in government affairs, promised the same amount to Israel. These amounts are not that important for these oil- and gas-rich countries, but they are important for the recipients, and just in time for the elections.
But pre-election support from Russia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE does not count as foreign interference in the elections, does it, as long as it benefits Erdoğan?