Erdogan’s New Powers Fill Gap Left by End of Emergency Powers

“So what?” is the most obvious response to the end of emergency powers given to the Turkish president in 2014. Since that time, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has succeeded in re-defining the office of president as an executive entity replete with most of the ability the emergency powers had provided. Two years after Erdogan escaped an attempted coup d’état, the bombastic leader is still purging the military and media of thousands whom he believes were complicit in a plot the president believes was concocted by a cleric who lives in a self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania. For Erdogan, anyone who chooses to openly oppose him is doubtless headed for legal woes related to new counter-terrorism laws. He has arrested some 150,000 civil servants and 77,000 others.