Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan continues to use inflammatory language to describe the actions of the opposition and of prosecutors and judges who believe that he and his party are trying to destroy secularism from within. Today Erdogan said, in reference to the case brought before the country’s highest court (to close down the AKP): “this is a hesitant approach. History will never forgive this.”

What’s troubling about Erdogan’s words is that nothing has been decided yet; the judges still have to decide upon the matter. Normally, the Prime Minister (and MPs by the way) don’t comment on pending cases, but Erdogan is in such a great panic that he isn’t able to keep his mouth shut for a while. In fact, today is the day that the court will decide whether it will take on the case or not. In other words, the court won’t decide today whether the AK Parti should be closed or not, it’ll only decide whether it’ll accept the case.
He’s clearly trying to influence the outcome of the case, which isn’t something a PM should do. He should wait… and if the court decides to accept the case and later that the AK Parti should be closed, he can speak out against it, appeal, etc. But until that time, he shouldn’t comment on it.

But he does, and this proves that he truly fears that the court may very well decide to give the prosecutor what he wants. As I understand it, this is quite likely indeed. The AK Parti has tried to destroy secularism from within for months and even years now. They started slowly, but ever since Erdogan won the elections last year he has ignored the opposition. Since those elections, Erdogan has been busy transforming the country, thinking that he’s untouchable.

Today may very well be the day that Erdogan starts to realize he’s not.

UPDATE

From the Hürriyet newspaper (h/t reader Kemal): the court has decided to accept the case. “Turkish top court decided on Monday to accept the lawsuit against the ruling AKP demanding its closure. The lawsuit could continue up to one year, raising concerns over a prolonged political uncertainity. Deputy Chairman of the Court Osman Paksut told reporters the court the decision to take up the case was made unanimously.”