The term “ANAP-ization” refers to the process by which ANAP shifted away from its traditional roots and originally advocating conservative values and grew more submissive to the establishment. This process had started when Mesut Yılmaz took the helm of the party from its original legendary founder, Turgut Özal. ANAP-ization evokes the following sentiments in people: the feeling of being deceived, bootlicking the bureaucracy and relations between politicians and mafia members.
As Yılmaz became the ANAP chairman, ANAP created a heavy sense of deception, particularly in conservative voters. While making overtures to the party’s conservative supporters, Yılmaz was actually developing strong bonds with neo-nationalist groups. Eventually, ANAP severed its emotional bonds with conservatives -- the main bulk of the party’s supporters.
In the case of the AK Party, its voters started to experience a sense of being deceived when the party promised to draft a new constitution in election rallies but later established a commission that was designed not to make a new constitution. The AK Party officials turned a deaf ear to prominent constitutional experts such as Ergün Özbudun and Serap Yazıcı, who warned that it is impossible to draft a constitution with this commission. They assumed that no one would heed their warnings. But those warnings undermined people’s trust in the AK Party. Hot on the heels of this fiasco, the AK Party proceeded to pass a new match-fixing law resulting in outrage and negative reaction from its supporters. This further exacerbated the profound sense of deception in the hearts of the AK Party’s conservative voters. Those who had hoped that the AK Party would draft a new constitution no longer believe that this party will make it.
However, in this country, people vote/used to vote for the lies of Süleyman Demirel and the straightforwardness and sincerity of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Now, Erdoğan’s sincerity has been eclipsed by the match-fixing law, and the people who voted for the AK Party are suffering from a profound sense of being cheated. “We have cast our votes for the new constitution, but they have passed a match-fixing law,” say many AK Party supporters.
Also with regard to the party’s relations with the bureaucracy, there is a similarity between ANAP and the AK Party. In its early years, ANAP appointed young and dynamic people who were educated in the US to the key positions in the bureaucracy. These bureaucrats played a significant role in making the first and second terms of the ANAP government particularly successful. However, after a while, the main rule in force in bureaucracy, i.e., bootlicking, overcame “competence,” and bootlicking bureaucrats started to dig a grave for ANAP. The greatest support for these bootlicking bureaucrats came from the Yılmaz-led ANAP.
Now, the AK Party is undergoing a similar process. Initially, the AK Party fought the bureaucratic oligarchy. Despite former President Ahmet Necdet Sezer’s vetoes, the AK Party became successful thanks to competent bureaucrats. However, after Sezer was replaced by Abdullah Gül, bootlicking became the golden rule for the bureaucracy. Thus, sycophantic attitudes started to become more valid than competence in the AK Party-designed bureaucracy. It is such that it is no longer necessary to be ideologically close to the AK Party in order to grab a key bureaucratic position. With a good performance in licking someone’s boots and pretending to be a conservative person, one can get a good position. Even, the bureaucrats who in the past supported the post-modern coup of Feb. 28 were able to preserve their prestigious seats. So we can assert that the AK Party is also becoming like ANAP in this respect.
Perceptions about ANAP’s growing ties with the mafia became entrenched, particularly after the Civangate scandal. From those days, we still remember the remark, “Can there be a document proving bribery?” which has now become idiomatic. Later, someone punched Yılmaz, which further reinforced the public’s perceptions about ANAP-Mafia ties.
Initially, the AK Party was perceived as a party that fought against the mafia. In particular, the fight against Ergenekon, a clandestine organization nested within the state trying to overthrow or manipulate the democratically elected government, had initially created these perceptions. However, the party’s incomprehensible attitude concerning the match-fixing law has created perceptions similar to those about the Civangate scandal. Everyone who is interested in soccer in Turkey knows that the mafia is part of this sector and match-fixing is a mafia activity. With its match-fixing stance, the AK Party has chosen to side with the mafia. In this respect, too, we can say, the AK Party is likening itself to ANAP.
