What’s Left From 2014?

When we will try to remember 2014, we will probably remember it as the year of “leaked voice recordings on bribery and elections”. 

We have seen two elections in 2014. We have heard so many leaked voice recordings allegedly on Turkey’s top leaders. The leaked voice recordings that subsequently led to the forming of a parliamentary commission and the resignation of Economy Minister Zafer Çağlayan, Interior Minister Muammer Güler, EU Minister Egemen Bağış and Environment and Urbanism Minister Erdoğan Bayraktar were leftover from 2013. 

After the leaking of voice recordings on 17 December 2013, the four aforementioned ministers resigned. The leaking continued on February 25, however no progress has been made on the investigation to confirm their authenticity. 2014 will also mark with the slowness of certain things. 

Elections

On 30 March 2014, the local elections were made. The highlight of the news coverage was “the cat that sneaked into the electric plant” which caused “mysterious” power outrages during the elections. It is also not possible to get the statement of leaked voice messages out of my head. 

Energy Minister Taner Yıldız claimed that the power outrages were related to the cat sneaking inside the power plant. For some, it was another controversial election process with several cheating allegations. Even though AKP lost some vote, it kept its authority by amending some of the election system. bianet analyzed the before and after of the elections and tried to cover what was going on.

We have seen Taner Yıldız again on May 14 when he was announcing the dead workers after a mining disaster in Soma. On October 28, we have seen him again in another mining accident in Ermenek located in the central province of Karaman.

While workplace murders occupied the agenda for a while, but they have been forgotten later on. The consequences of leaked voice recordings, on the other hand, lingered till the end of the year. 

PM in Soma, President in Ermenek

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was Turkey’s Prime Minister during the Soma Disaster and he became the president during the Ermenek Incident. 

On August 10, he received 51,80 percent of the votes in the elections. 

A project that initially started as “Prime Minister’s Residence” in the partial area of Atatürk Orman Çiftliği in Ankara has been assigned as Presidential Residence” after PM Erdoğan’s election as president. 

However, a suspension was issued by a court on the construction and different fragments of the society raised their voices against the planned construction. 

Pro-AKP media liked to call the building “White Palace” - a word play referring to AK Party. The question about the spending of 1,37 billion liras for the construction, however, remained in the air in 2014. In the end, some media started calling the building “KaçAk Saray” - a term to depict undocumented buildings.

Authorities denied that the spending was made massively and no bribery was involved related to the four former ministers as it was claimed by  certain leaked recordings. However, we needed a guide to understand why the ministers, then, resigned. 

Kobane

During September, the resistance of Kurds against ISIS in Kobane came to a point that nobody could ignore it. The agenda was full about the advance of ISIS towards Turkey’s southeastern border. 

Initially, the ageda was about the U.S. intervention, then shifted to Turkey’s opening of its border and admitting refugees, and then transitioned to the blocking of Kurdish fighters and humanitarian aid. 

6-12 October 

Blood has been shed during protests to support Kobane. On October 6, police intervened with tear gas and rubber bullets those in Urfa’s Suruç district who waited from their beloved ones on the other side of the border. 

In the meanwhile, photos depicting the infiltration of ISIS militants to Turkey have been released. Between October 6 and 12, thousands took the streets across Turkey. 42 people were killed in the turmoil. 

Situation of the press

While all of this was happening, the media was as you know it: some ignored to cover, authorities issued bans for the media to cover, some followed the ban, some didn’t yield. We knew the pressures on the media, we learnt how it was done in 2014. 

It was bianet’s duty to monitor how some organizations didn’t cover some of the issues. bianet also observed that some covered with an undertone. 

Here is some of them:

* Minister resignations

* Berkin Elvan

* Erdoğan’s presidential candidacy

* 22 July operation 

What is left to 2015

We pretty much closed this year on December 14 with the detention of 27 people including Zaman newspaper editor-in-chief and Samanyou TV broadcasting chairman as well as scriptwriters and police chief. 

Throughout 2014, there was probably not a single day where pro-AKP newspapers didn’t have a headline with the word “parallel state” - the alleged influence of cleric Fethullah Gülen’s group in the Turkish state. We entered the year of 2015 with the power struggle of the former partners. 

One of the other things left to 2015 became the postponing of whether the former four ministers suspected of corruption will face trial within the Parliament’s Supreme Board (Yüce Divan). The decision will be made on January 5. 

In sum, 2014 was such a bad year, the bad news is that the leftovers of 2014 doesn’t promise sunny days for 2015 either unfortunately…(HK/BM)

* Click here to read the article in Turkish.