Erdogan Rising

by Hannah Lucinda Smith

  The headscarf ban was finally overturned in the universities in 2011, in public offices in 2013, and in the police and civilian sections of the armed forces in 2016. Kaplan, meanwhile, is no longer a revolutionary underdog but a firm part of the Erdoğan establishment, sitting at the top of a new journalistic elite. Her private office in Sabah’s building on the European side of İstanbul comes with a sweeping view of the Bosphorus and its soaring bridge. She is often at Erdoğan’s side as he travels around the world, a member of the select press pack allowed on his presidential jet.

  Like the newspaper she works for, Kaplan has two sides. In English, she comes across as polite and reasonable even if it is always clear where her views lie. In Turkish, she can be abrasive, combative and often downright aggressive. Twitter is her domain – she is one of an army of pro-Erdoğan journalists who open fire on anyone who might criticise their man. She churns out dozens of tweets a day to her nearly 500,000 followers.

  Fırat Erez says that when Kaplan approached him to join the Bosphorus Centre in September 2015, she sold it to him as an independent think tank, with no political links or funding. She told him that the money was coming from Medipol, a private business conglomerate with close ties to Erdoğan. But it was clear what the centre’s role would be: to fact-check critical stories about Turkey in the international media, and to highlight the positive things that the AKP was doing in social welfare and for Syrian refugees. Erez was offered the position of creative director, and was made head of the fact-checking department in October 2015. He lasted in the role for just five months. In January 2016, a group of 1,128 Turkish academics signed a petition calling on the government to end the fighting with the PKK, which was mushrooming from street skirmishes into full-blown civil war. Erdoğan exploded, calling the signatories ‘enemies of the state’ and demanding that they be punished. The arrests and sackings started almost immediately. Erez believed Erdoğan was taking the wrong course of action against the academics, and said so openly in the office – to the chagrin, he says, of Hilâl Kaplan. Two months later, in March 2016, he was fired. Soon after, the Bosphorus Centre would soar to national notoriety.

  May 2016

  Ahmet Davutoğlu’s political assassination

  Ahmet Davutoğlu, the foreign minister with whom Erdoğan had forged Turkey’s expansionist Middle East policy, was the man he handpicked to take over as prime minister when he stepped down to become president in August 2014. On paper, Davutoğlu was now the most powerful man in the country – officially, the office of president was ceremonial and non-political (Erdoğan also had to resign from the AKP when he took the job). But when Erdoğan selected his diminutive sidekick the rationale was clear: meek-mannered Ahmet might have ideas, but he would never have the balls to try to outshine Tayyip, the real rock star.

  The parliamentary elections of June 2015 were Davutoğlu’s first test: he must win them for the party, of course, but he must not do so with any great charisma. The AKP’s final election rally on Istanbul’s Yenikapı parade ground a week before the election was a double headliner. Davutoğlu spoke first, but he was just the warm-up for the main act. Erdoğan had been campaigning for the party despite his new non-political role, using endless official openings of public buildings and infrastructure projects as a thin cover to make almost daily speeches. It was a clear flouting of the rules. So too was the party’s use of two fighter jets from the air force’s aerobatics team, the Turkish Stars, which screamed overhead pumping out red smoke behind them as the crowds swelled onto Yenikapı.

  I looked around at the merchandise stalls as I shuffled towards the parade ground with the crowd. There were the usual Erdoğan T-shirts, headscarves and banners, but though I searched high and low for some Davutoğlu tat, there was none. When he took the stage, the prime minister – who always seems to be smiling under his grandad moustache – tried to affect the booming vocal style of his boss. It was comical, almost tragic. His voice is too high and too gentle, and he winced as if his vocal cords hurt. After half an hour, Davutoğlu wrapped up to weak applause and Erdoğan came to the stage to show him how it should be done. The crowd erupted ecstatically.

  The AKP had all the advantages and took the largest share of the vote, but not an outright majority of parliamentary seats. It was the first time since 2002 that this had happened – and the first time Tayyip had tasted anything less than total victory since he last lost an election in 1989. Selahattin Demirtaş’s party, the Kurdish-rooted HDP, had managed to bust through ethnic identity politics to build a broad coalition of leftists and social liberals. It was roughly a partial and evolved Gezi movement, two years on. Demirtaş opposed Erdoğan’s plans to introduce to Turkey a presidential system, and included gay rights in his manifesto – a first for any party in the history of the republic. The HDP took more than 13 per cent of the vote, crashing through the 10 per cent threshold that had previously kept the narrowly focused Kurdish parties out of parliament. Their gain came at the AKP’s expense. In the south-east, and the liberal neighbourhoods of the western cities, street parties stretched into the night as the results were called.

  Now the AKP had to form a coalition in order to govern, for the first time in its history. Davutoğlu got to work, sitting down to endless meetings with the CHP, the nationalist MHP, even the HDP. All the talks failed – Erdoğan, alien to the idea of sharing power, opposed them all. Another election was called, and in the meantime the PKK called off its ceasefire. As the casualties started mounting, the HDP’s Turkish voters in the west of the country waited for the party to oppose the PKK’s new violent campaign. The denunciation never came. By the time the fresh elections came round in November 2015, the HDP’s support outside its Kurdish base had withered and the AKP took back its majority. June’s heady optimism gave way to a glum sense that nothing ever really changes in Turkey.

  Davutoğlu had finished the job and restored the AKP’s majority, but his own political future now looked bleak. He had started to speak his mind and wanted to shake things up – to reconstruct Turkey’s entire political structure and culture to make it more democratic and less personality-led. Everyone could see that a collision was coming.

  ‘Davutoğlu is a bureaucrat. He is intelligent and he is hard working. But he is not a politician and he will never be,’ said Davutoğlu’s former adviser, Etyen Mahçupyan. An Armenian Catholic by descent and a liberal ally of the Islamist centre since the Refah Party era of the mid-1990s, Mahçupyan was perhaps the last outspoken voice within the AKP. His tenure with Davutoğlu lasted just six months, from October 2014 to March 2015. In that time he managed to repeatedly irk Erdoğan’s inner circle by loudly criticising many aspects of the party’s workings and policy.

  ‘Erdoğan’s advisers had decided that the person to be chosen’ – that is, chosen to become prime minister once Erdoğan stood down – ‘was also going to be the leader of the party. One of those advisers came to me and asked my opinion on Davutoğlu. I said I thought he would be a very good prime minister but an awful leader … He cannot manage the semi-corrupt rules of the politics of the party. There was also … a clash between Erdoğan and Davutoğlu; a mismatch of characters. Davutoğlu is full of himself. There is no doubt in his mind that whatever he says or thinks is the ultimate truth. He has this disadvantage. On the other hand, he is the most educated and knowledgeable person. Without anyone to challenge him, he started to believe more and more in himself. I have spoken to Davutoğlu many times and he said that the job of prime minister was not in reality as it was promised to him. Erdoğan could say something today and change his mind tomorrow. Davutoğlu was frustrated so he stopped giving information to Erdoğan. That pissed Erdoğan off, and it escalated … But what happened then was very humiliating.’

  In May 2016 the AKP’s executive board voted to strip Davutoğlu of his powers to appoint provincial officials. They moved while the prime minister was out of town, and when he returned to Ankara to face his party it became apparent that this was really a power tussle with
Erdoğan. Following an hours-long meeting with the president, Davutoğlu then faced the AKP’s executive committee. In the press conference that followed he appeared shaken and defeated. He would be stepping down, he said, at the party’s upcoming congress, scheduled for just two weeks later.

  ‘I decided that for the unity of the party, a change of chairman would be more appropriate,’ said Davutoğlu as he gripped the podium with white knuckles. Ever the diplomat, he betrayed no malice towards the man who has always remained his boss. ‘I will not accept any speculation over my relationship with Mr Erdoğan. We have always stood shoulder to shoulder. His honour is my honour.’

  The blog post

  Pelikan Dosyası – The Pelican Brief, named after the 1990s book-to-film legal thriller – is 2,700 words of pure bile and intrigue, published on the most basic WordPress template a week before Davutoğlu was ousted. In florid and often opaque language, it outlines twenty-seven points of conflict between Erdoğan (whom it dubbed Reis, or boss) and Davutoğlu (Hoca, or teacher). There is the jailing of critical journalists and academics, which Davutoğlu was known to be uncomfortable with. There is the Dolmabahçe agreement to permanently end the war with the PKK, which Davutoğlu announced and Erdoğan then retracted. And there is the proposed switch to a presidential system, on which Davutoğlu is far from convinced.

  ‘This is a fight,’ the blog post ends, addressing Davutoğlu directly. ‘It is certain you will lose!’

  Pelikan Dosyası went viral on Turkish Twitter almost as soon as it was posted. Suspicion about who wrote it fell immediately on Soheyb Öğüt, Hilâl Kaplan’s husband and the director of the Bosphorus Centre. He had written a strikingly similar article eleven months earlier – three weeks after the AKP’s humiliation in the June 2015 elections – in the now-defunct magazine Actuel. Titled ‘Bravo, hocam, bravo!’ it accused Davutoğlu of betraying Erdoğan in starkly similar tones to the later Pelikan Dosyası. As Twitter speculated, I requested a meeting with Hilâl Kaplan.

  Six days after Davutoğlu’s dismissal I arrived at her Sabah offices. Kaplan is pale-skinned with hypnotic green eyes, and if it were not for the tight headscarf and full-length buttoned-up coats I am sure she would turn heads. Despite her reputation as an attack dog, she was disarmingly likeable and funny, chain-smoking as she told me why Davutoğlu fully deserved his cruel fate.

  ‘They have been working together since 2009 – Davutoğlu was Erdoğan’s adviser, then his foreign minister. They were working very closely and Erdoğan trusted him. Davutoğlu is not a good orator, but he has the image of a Hoca. He smiles a lot, and Erdoğan wanted him to use those qualities. But in the end he had a know-it-all attitude. Erdoğan won the November 2015 elections, but Davutoğlu acted like it was all his success … Erdoğan has huge credibility among the AKP. The opposition may hate him, but he has huge credibility. He is the centre of the state because he takes his power from the people.’

  Kaplan dismissed the possibility that there might be another round of elections to give the public stamp of approval to whoever was anointed Davutoğlu’s successor: ‘Erdoğan does not like snap elections. During Gezi Park some members of the party thought it would be good to hold snap elections. He said no, we should follow the routine elections.’

  To replace Davutoğlu there were three options, Kaplan told me: Bekir Bozdağ, the justice minister, Binali Yıldırım, the transport minister, and Berat Albayrak, Erdoğan’s son-in-law and energy minister. All three are arch-Erdoğan loyalists.

  She thought Yıldırım would get it. He had worked with Erdoğan since the 1990s, when Erdoğan was mayor of Istanbul and Yıldırım his loyal ferries chief, in charge of the passenger ships that criss-cross the Bosphorus. ‘He has great support among the party’s base,’ she said. ‘And great experience.’

  Whether she was involved in Davutoğlu’s end or not, Kaplan was right about Yıldırım’s rise. Days later, the AKP’s executive committee appointed him prime minister and leader of the party. He quickly established himself as a wider-smiling, more jovial, even greyer figure than Davutoğlu. And as for the former prime minister, now gazing down his path into the political wilderness?

  ‘Davutoğlu will go on being a party member,’ Kaplan said. ‘He will rebuild his credibility. He will continue a path in politics. But I don’t think he will succeed.’

  The son-in-law

  Berat Albayrak, the smooth-browed, half-smiling businessman who married the president’s daughter Esra Erdoğan in 2004, was perhaps too young and inexperienced to take the job of prime minister after Davutoğlu’s ousting. It would have been hard for the party ranks to swallow, too openly nepotistic a move. But there was no doubt that he was at the start of a sharp ascendant.

  Albayrak is well connected, and his addition to the Erdoğan family has allowed the president to reach out into areas beyond the state. Albayrak’s brother, Serhat, is general manager of Turkuvaz Media Group, which owns Sabah, Hilâl Kaplan’s newspaper, and a clutch of other virulently pro-Erdoğan news outlets including the shouty, caustic television news channel A Haber, always the first to land the political exclusives. Turkuvaz’s titles were once left-leaning opposition voices, before the group was seized by the government in April 2007 as part of a debt-collection action against the conglomerate that owned it. A year later Turkuvaz was sold at auction to Çalık Holding, the conglomerate of which Berat Albayrak was then CEO, a quarter of its $1.1 billion price tag being covered by a state loan (the other bidders had all dropped out by the time the deal was awarded). Serhat Albayrak was appointed vice-president of the board of Turkuvaz, and instantly, Sabah and A Haber became Erdoğan’s principal media flag-wavers, though they failed to bring in profits for their owners. Over the next four years, they accrued losses of $200 million, and while international media giants including Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp and Time Warner Inc. expressed interest when Çalık Holding put Turkuvaz up for sale in 2012, they backed off when they saw the books. In the end, Turkuvaz was sold in a closed deal brokered in Erdoğan’s house. The buyer was the Kalyon Group, a Turkish conglomerate that is one of the major contractors for Erdoğan’s huge state construction projects, including Istanbul’s new airport. Kalyon set up a subsidiary called Zirve Holding to buy Turkuvaz, and the sale was approved by Turkey’s competition commission in December 2013. Eleven days later, Berat Albayrak resigned as CEO of Çalık, and began writing occasional columns in Sabah.

  Today, Turkuvaz also owns Fotomaç, the biggest-selling football weekly, which often carries AKP adverts in its pages, and the downmarket Takvim, which once carried a half-page picture of me claiming that I was a British agent. That puts me in good company with other foreign journalists; those who have displeased the president’s circle have often enjoyed the same treatment.

  Berat Albayrak and the Bosphorus Centre

  Eighteen months after he resigned from Çalık Holding, Berat Albayrak’s political career took off – he was handed an AKP seat in the June 2015 elections. The Bosphorus Centre launched two months later, in August 2015. Two months on again, in October, Albayrak was appointed energy minister, and soon it was whispered that Erdoğan was grooming him to be his heir. Finally, in May 2016, Davutoğlu as prime minister was toast.

  In December 2016, the web of ties between Berat Albayrak, Soheyb Öğüt, Hilâl Kaplan, Turkuvaz and the Bosphorus Centre was revealed when WikiLeaks spilled a tranche of Albayrak’s emails – a cache it dubbed ‘Berat’s Box’.

  One email, from an executive at Turkuvaz to Berat Albayrak and dated 5 October 2015, revealed that Turkuvaz was employing a network of more than 600 people to bump up the circulation of its titles. ‘A total of 200,000 newspapers are distributed every day in 79 cities and 290 districts,’ the report reads. ‘The distributions are mainly made in cafés, coffee shops, patisseries, restaurants, taxi stands, town halls, hairdressers, private hospitals, hotels, bus companies, various artisans, student dormitories, etc.’

  An attached spreadsheet details the exact locations, and the number of
each title distributed in each, the kind of painstaking detail the AKP excels in. The freebies push Sabah’s real circulation down to just 100,000 – fourteenth place on the newsstands, rather than first.

  On 5 September 2015, Soheyb Öğüt emailed Berat Albayrak, just weeks before the launch of the Bosphorus Centre and two months before Albayrak was appointed energy minister. ‘One-off costs,’ Öğüt’s email begins, before moving into a delightfully pedantic list.

  All the details on it, from the staff to the location of the office to the furniture, match those I have seen on four separate visits to the centre. It includes £4,550 for ‘high quality furniture as possible to accommodate the ambassadors, international media representatives and politicians in comfort’; a regular monthly budget for ‘Foreign and Domestic Transportation; reception of guests (food, drink, transportation, gift); printing banners and booklets’, and a ‘vettori chester sofa set’ at £777. According to the exchange rate at that time, the whole lot – from teaspoons to the director’s salary – totalled £70,000 in set-up and first-month operating costs, followed by a monthly stipend of £27,250. This was the sum requested by a purportedly independent think tank of a man who was already a parliamentary deputy and Erdoğan’s son-in-law, and who two months later would become a high-ranking minister.

  Hilâl Kaplan, although often present at the centre and deferred to as a boss by its staff, flatly denies any official involvement. Another leaked email suggests otherwise, at least in the conception stage. Again addressed from Öğüt to Albayrak and dated 8 September 2015, this one lists the suggested names for the centre’s management board. Kaplan’s is at number four.