Coup or not, Turkey’s democracy is dead

A triumphant Erdogan will seize this opportunity to complete his takeover of all the major state organizations and the media.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, pictured second from left during the opening ceremony of the World Humanitarian Summit May 23 in Istanbul, Turkey with his wife, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, and his wife. Sooner or later he would have lost an election, writes Gwynne Dyer, but the officers who led the Turkish coup didn’t trust democracy enough to wait.UN Photo: Eskinder Debebe

Opinion

BY GWYNNE DYER

July 20, 2016

LONDON, U.K.—Turkey’s democracy is dead. It was dying anyway, as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took over media outlets, arrested political opponents and journalists, and even restarted a war with the Kurds last autumn in order to win an election. But once part of the army launched a coup attemp...

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