Turkey's presidential system debate as farce

"Populism is primed to open the door to a plebiscitarian transformation of democracy insofar as it makes the role of personality essential in representing the unity of people and elections through a plebiscite that crowns the leader. For this reason, presidential democracies are more exposed to both the populist style of politics and a plebiscitary kind of relation between the leader and the people." (Nadia Urbinati, Democracy Disfigured, Harvard University Press, 2014, page 175)

Urbinati's book, which brilliantly elaborates the crisis of contemporary democracy, has a lot of relevance for the problem of Turkey's democratic regression in general and for the recent "presidential system debate" in particular. The adoption of a presidential system through a new constitution is the last bastion of efforts to build the "New Turkey," which will be the culmination of "authoritarian one-party/one-leader under God" project. 

Urbinati writes that "Representative institutions and constitutional rules enter the scene at this point as strategies for stopping the plebiscitarian democratic leader from becoming a plesbicitarian dictator," but unfortunately these things have either lost their power or are under threat of complete demolition in today's Turkey. Indeed, President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an himself recently stated that the system he has in mind (unitarily centralized and presidential at the same time) has been experienced in history, as in Hitler's Germany. Worse, those who are shocked by Erdo?an's statements have been accused of "distorting what the president said," despite video recordings of the press conference clearly showing what he said and what he meant. All in all it has turned into a complete farce.

All authoritarian regimes end up being...