Erdoğan’s AKP faces new test: The Can Atalay case and Abbas visit

Another test of pluralist democracy and rule of law within President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) will take place next week.

The test is on August 14-15.

The Turkish parliament, currently on summer recess, will convene extraordinarily on August 15 to host Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Following the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31, Abbas has regained power in Palestinian politics.

Before meeting with President Tayyip Erdoğan in Ankara and addressing the Parliament, he will also meet with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. This will be an important contact at a time when the US is turning the Eastern Mediterranean and Persian Gulf into an arms depot to support Israel and pressure Iran.

This visit will also provide a foundation – if it can be used – for a new test of democracy and rule of law for Türkiye and the AKP.

Legal standoff: Can Atalay case

Can Atalay’s election as a TİP Hatay Deputy on May 14, 2023, while sentenced to 18 years in prison in the Gezi Trial, had led to a judicial duel between the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court.

In a political environment where MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli and President Erdoğan’s Chief Legal Advisor Mehmet Uçum supported the Supreme Court, AKP’s Deputy Parliament Speaker Bekir Bozdağ announced that Atalay could not become a deputy by reading the Supreme Court decision from the TBMM podium in a controversial session.

Neither Türkiye, nor the TBMM, nor the AKP could pass that test that day.

However, the situation changed with the publication of the reasoning for the Constitutional Court’s decision taken on December 27, 2023, in the Official Gazette on August 1. Now, TİP wants this Constitutional Court decision to be read from the Parliament podium and the Supreme Court’s decision that he cannot serve as a deputy to be considered “null and void.”

Eyes on Parliamentary Speaker

Following the ruling, a delegation of TİP lawmakers visited Turkish Parliament’s Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş on Aug. 9.

TİP leader Erkan Baş, Sera Kadıgil, and Ahmet Şık, who requested a meeting on this issue held a 40-minute meeting with Kurtulmuş.

They requested the parliament to be convened and discussed the issue of Atalay’s parliamentary status.

After the meeting, Baş said that Kurtulmuş asked them, “Can it be on August 16?” and that they emphasized the importance of reactivating Atalay’s parliamentary registration before Abbas’s speech, giving the message “the Parliament cannot act as if the Constitutional Court decision doesn’t exist.”

What can be interpreted from these words is that Numan Kurtulmuş did not approach the issue with an initial tendency to reject; his discussion of the matter with the TİP members without rushing also shows this.

Kurtulmuş had Atalay’s name read from the podium at the 2023 Parliament opening and allowed him to be written as a member of the TBMM Human Rights Commission, for example.

The test for Türkiye and the AKP

Of course, this also gives room for maneuver to gain time and hold consultative meetings if necessary. Will Kurtulmuş consider President Erdoğan and internal AKP balances when making his decision? Will he also evaluate August 15 as a test of pluralist democracy and rule of law?

And let’s see how the MHP will try to obstruct this process. MHP Deputy Chairman Semih Yalçın already announced that they will not participate in the call to be held in the Turkish Grand National Assembly for Can Atalay.

They say that CHP, DEM Party, Saadet Party groups will support the call for an extraordinary meeting, along with DEVA, EMEP, and DP; indeed, this call was made in the afternoon hours.

As shown by AKP’s Tuğrul Türkeş’s prison visit to Osman Kavala and the Gezi protesters, there is no homogeneous view within the AK Party regarding the concepts of pluralist democracy and rule of law.

The problem is who will pass the test.