Politics and prevention of corruption

The AK Party entered the political arena at a time when cases of corruption, fraud and favoritism were at their peak and even caused a massive economic and political crisis in the entire country. The party stressed the word "AK" in its acronym, meaning "white and clean." What the nation primarily expected the AK Party to do was to introduce a style of politics and governing that is clean, transparent, free from corruption and uses public resources only for public benefit. However, it must be acknowledged that the AK Party's report card is considerably free from guilt with respect to fraud and corruption when compared to previous governments.

How do we know? Simple: The public resources of a country will not radically increase or decrease in a short time. However, the proportion of these resources' being spent in services for the benefit of the public can considerably change depending on how they are used and whether they are wasted or transferred to undeserving people. For this reason, given the benefits created by the AK Party's terms in government and the economic and social development it brought to the country, we can conclude that the AK Party's involvement in corruption has been insignificant compared to previous governments. This stems from the fact that if this government is able to provide the public services that other governments failed to provide or if it is able to spur development that other governments could not manage, it is perfectly fair to assert that this government is able to spend national resources in a healthier manner than other governments.

This is the conclusion that I arrive at, but not everyone thinks like me. A group of people, whose numbers are small, continue to argue that the AK Party is involved in a great scheme of favoritism and that AK Party members tend to give preference to their close circles in public tenders. It is sufficiently meaningful for me that these complaints are generally voiced by groups who were favored by the previous governments. What they are indeed trying to say is this: "Previous governments would comply with our wishes. They would look after our interests and find a way to award public tender contracts to us. This government does not maintain this tradition, a tradition with which we were happy and addicted to. This makes things difficult for us."

It would be a great injustice to say that the AK Party government is entirely characterized by big cases of corruption. Yet, we must accept the fact that the AK Party put an end to the practice of always transferring public resources to certain groups, but opted to ensure that a wider array of groups can benefit from these resources, thereby creating a new group of capitalists. Of course, no one would be worried about this except for the former bourgeoisie, which was accustomed to keeping a monopoly on capital for decades.

On the other hand, to claim that the AK Party is cleaner than previous governments does not imply that no corruption or fraud can be seen in the AK Party government. The claims of corruption raised by the CHP about AK Party Deputy Chairman Şaban Dişli should be viewed from this angle. Moreover, the AK Party is obliged to be much more sensitive about corruption claims than other parties. Indeed, the nation does not hate anything more than a government that is stained by cases of corruption. Unlike the CHP, supported by the bureaucracy and the military, the AK Party has nowhere to turn other than the nation for its legitimacy and capability to become a government. In this context, the speech Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan gave in Rize, his home city, on Friday is of considerable importance:

"We have allocated resources to the provinces, but we have never pursued the management concept of 'let them use them as they wish.' We have our follow-up programs in order to monitor how these resources are spent. This monitoring is done personally by me, by ministers and by deputies. This is because we will never allow an ounce of injustice in the spending of public resources. If anyone from among us is inequitably using these resources, we will kick him out. To this end, we will implement internal control mechanisms. … In our government, Ankara has always been the place to turn to for a solution. During our terms in office, the purging of mafias and gangs began. … We are not ruling Turkey by sitting on our chairs or behind closed doors; rather, we are managing this country together with the nation."