TRT World

[Jay]

 

[Jay]

Not long ago, the Turkish Workers Party, a marginal force, ideologically communist and politically fringe, was dismissed as a relic of Cold War nostalgia. Today, it governs Türkiye.

What happened earlier this year was not a coup in the traditional sense, though many are calling it one. It was a collapse of legitimacy, a kind of ideological revolt against decades of economic stagnation, elite dysfunction, and democratic decay. Into that vacuum stepped Ayşe Arslan, a former academic turned revolutionary, now President, backed by a party that until recently struggled to poll above single digits.

Arslan and her Prime Minister, Yıldız, promised nothing short of a reinvention of the Turkish state. So far, they've delivered — but in ways that have left the country reeling. The Turkish economy, already strained, is in freefall. Inflation has returned with a vengeance. Foreign capital is fleeing. And now, Arslan is reportedly preparing to declare an economic state of emergency that would give her sweeping new powers.

This is not just about crisis management. It is about transformation. Twenty-two billion dollars in private assets were recently nationalized under the justification of "wealth redistribution," a prelude, many believe, to a new centrally planned economy. Thai economists, veterans of Bangkok’s post-crisis socialist experiments, are rumored to be advising Ankara. Whether that advice proves visionary or ruinous remains to be seen.

Arslan and Prime Minister Yıldız Demir appear poised to use the deepening economic crisis as a vehicle to accelerate their ideological project. The expected declaration of an economic emergency would unlock extraordinary powers, enabling the executive to bypass Parliament, override market regulations, seize assets deemed vital to national interest, and impose wage and price controls. Already framed in the language of “economic justice,” such a move would legitimize policies that might otherwise be politically untenable under normal circumstances.

Central to this shift is the push to collectivize significant portions of the economy. State ownership of key industries, workers' councils in factories, and the redistribution of land and capital are no longer abstract goals — they are policy priorities being trialed in real time. Business leaders, particularly in Istanbul and Izmir, have responded with a mix of panic and defiance. Several major firms have relocated assets abroad, and a number of CEOs have reportedly gone into self-imposed exile. But Arslan and Yıldız see in this backlash not a warning sign, but validation proof, they argue, that entrenched wealth is resisting the will of the people. For them, the crisis is not merely economic; it is revolutionary.

The institutional structure of the Turkish state, however, is struggling to contain this new ideological fervor. In a moment that raised alarms across Ankara, Prime Minister Yıldız appeared to suggest the government might suspend Parliament entirely, relying instead on presidential decrees to push through reforms. It's unclear whether this was a trial balloon or a warning shot, but it landed with force.

The Turkish military, long seen as the self-appointed guardian of the republic’s secular and democratic order, has been conspicuously silent in the face of the sweeping ideological shift brought on by President Ayşe Arslan’s government. This silence is not without context. In the early days of Arslan’s administration, hundreds of senior military officials were purged or quietly retired, accused of disloyalty or links to past coup plots. What remains is a hollowed-out officer corps, stripped of its historical autonomy and uncertain of its standing under a government that openly distrusts its role in political life.

Amid that void, the creation of the People's Revolutionary Guard Corps (HDMK) has emerged as one of the clearest signs that Arslan’s regime is building parallel institutions not just to govern, but to protect itself from internal threats, particularly the military. Officially described as a “civilian defense force tasked with protecting the revolutionary gains of the people,” the PRGC is, in practice, a new security apparatus loyal to the party, not the state. Many analysts view it as a preemptive shield against the possibility of a military intervention, a lesson learned from decades of military tutelage in Turkish politics. The PRGC’s growing presence in urban centers and critical infrastructure has sent a clear message: this is a regime preparing not just to lead, but to defend itself at all costs.

Unsurprisingly, street protests have erupted, sporadic but increasingly tense. Türkiye's cities are becoming flashpoints. The state, for now, appears unsure whether to crack down or compromise. That ambivalence is dangerous.

The Turkish government, for its part, insists this is a long-overdue reckoning, a rejection of neoliberalism, a pivot to equity. But even officials within the Ministry of Finance privately admit the current path is unsustainable. The tools of economic revolution, nationalization, emergency powers, centralized planning, require legitimacy, efficiency, and stability. Türkiye today has little of any.

What’s unfolding is not just a story of economic turmoil. It’s a test of whether ideological governance, in this case, a deeply redistributive and authoritarian communism, can take hold within the framework of a post-imperial, post-globalization state.

Arslan's government argues that Türkiye can be remade. The deeper question is: At what cost, and for whom?