Thus, in 2021, Turkey, under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the People’s Alliance consisting of his Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Nationalist Action Party (MHP), is on the verge of what could be the culmination of their rule — the adoption of a new constitution. Erdogan addressed the nation with this proposal. The need for a new constitution is justified by the fact that the old one was adopted as a result of the 1982 military coup, and now the country needs a civilian constitution that will be adopted after extensive public discussion. According to Erdogan, the new constitution should serve as an example for the whole world and be supported by the whole Turkish society.
However, the initial reaction to this initiative suggests that this goal will be difficult to achieve, to say the least. The major blocs of Turkish society have different views on at least two aspects. First, the structure of power. While the ruling Peoples’ Alliance is in favor of further strengthening the presidential system, opposition parties from across the ideological spectrum, including Kemalists from the Republican People’s Party, radical nationalists from the opposition Good Party, Kurdish leftists from the Peoples’ Democratic Party, Islamists from the Felicity Party founded by Necmettin Erbakan, and former colleagues of Erdogan from the Future Party and the Democracy and Progress Party, are in favor of strengthening the parliament and limiting the powers of the president.
Second, another major point of contention is whether the new constitution will differ primarily in terms of the structure of power or also in terms of the ideological foundation of the country. This question divides society no less than the first, both within the government and the opposition. For example, the remarks of the chief imam of the Hagia Sophia mosque, professor of Islamic jurisprudence Mehmet Boynukalin, who called for the abandonment of secularism, caused an explosion of indignation among all secularist forces, which began to attack him and demand legal measures. This sparked discussions about Erdogan’s intentions to bury Atatürk’s legacy. The most interesting part, however, is that Professor Boynukalin, on the contrary, proposed to return to Atatürk’s real legacy, namely the phrase from the constitution he adopted in 1924, which reads: «The religion of the state is Islam; the official language is Turkish; the seat of the government is Ankara.
However, we should not forget that similar proposals and reactions to them already occurred in 2016, when the then parliamentary speaker of the ruling party, Ismail Kahraman, made these statements and caused a storm of indignation. At that time, not only the current opposition parties rallied against him, but also the MHP party and even a part of the AKP, whose leadership did not distance itself from Kahraman, but also did not support him, stating that he was expressing his personal opinion. There is a high probability that something similar will happen now, because if the ruling party and the coalition want the new constitution to be a constitution of social consensus, it is unfortunately unlikely to be achieved on the basis of the rejection of secularism in modern Turkish society. Moreover, let’s not forget that the president of Turkey has been opposing the prevailing understanding of secularism in Turkey for many years and has been advocating an alternative secularism.
However, unlike the farce of constitutional amendments in Putin’s Russia, which were drafted behind closed doors and put to a referendum within a few months, Turkey is embarking on a real constitutional marathon. As a result, it is difficult to predict who and what will cross the finish line first. The first step will be the creation of an intellectual committee consisting of representatives of the two ruling parties (AKP + MHP), which will then invite all other parties to participate in the public discussion. However, it is certain that these discussions will take place in parallel, as some parties have already started. Only then will the draft constitution be submitted to parliament and possibly put to a referendum — there are many procedural factors that will depend on this.
The symbolic goal is to adopt the new constitution in 2023, coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Turkish Republic. Then it will become clear whether the new constitution will be a return to the «factory settings» of 1923-1924, as the Imam of Hagia Sophia called them, an overcoming of its ideology as a whole, or merely a cosmetic renovation of its facade under new leadership.