Reminders | The history of favouritism and fraud
Politics Collective
The AKP government has led the country into a state of widespread corruption and decay. The appointment of a drug dealer as head of the narcotics department, based on fake diplomas and electronic signatures, is indicative of the extent of this corruption.
Under this system, which was established through encrypted exams, money in shoe boxes, and ministers taking bribes, decay is evident in every area. At this stage, a network of looters, ranging from mafias and gangs established under the one-man regime to various companies, is the subject of new scandals every day.
Political Islamism was developed alongside a radical capitalist neoliberal transformation. Starting with Özal and culminating with the AKP, which came to power as the bearer of the IMF programme implemented under the supervision of Derviş, one of the first important steps was to accelerate privatisation. This was followed by the commercialisation of all social and public services and institutions, particularly health and education.
This transformation, accompanied by the ruthless destruction of nature, as seen in the recent mining law targeting olive orchards, has also taken shape as a special looting network within the political Islamist regime. The new exploitation relations that have taken shape around such a network, which extends to the palace and about which no one has any doubts, have been the source of a huge accumulation and transfer of wealth, including tax amnesties for big capital and bosses. The thefts and frauds in the diplomas, all of which are of an encrypted nature, took shape within this network of relationships—which has been removed from any kind of legal oversight—and its sub-connections, which extend from sects and cults to mafia gangs.
Ultimately, one of the main goals of political Islamists, who have been backed by the US since the 1970s as part of state policy, was to take power. With the AKP, they managed to do this and gradually moved towards unlimited power. Under the guise of religion, they have committed every form of injustice and oppression, relying on fraud and brutality, and justifying all of this as legitimate and righteous, driven by a great greed and arrogance to possess everything. They succeeded! In an environment where institutions and rules do not exist, where laws and the constitution have become invalid, they were able to build a paradise for themselves in this world as a small minority; perhaps they even bought deeds to paradise in the next world and set them aside! But this came at the cost of great decay and corruption! Political Islamism, which presented itself as a symbol of justice and morality and was conceived as an alternative to capitalism, is declaring its collapse, never to return! With its powdered sugar-coated luxury cars, their spoiled children; its bureaucrats with fake degrees and three or five salaries, its corrupt ministers; those who sell off land parcel by parcel, its millionaire sheikhs and shaykhs, political Islamism is nothing but a great rot!
All that we have experienced not only reminds us of how vital it is to free ourselves from this one-man regime, but also reveals the vital need for an organised people’s opposition capable of bringing about radical revolutionary change that goes beyond the rise to power of this or that individual.
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THE LOST TRILLION OF REFAH
The 1990s marked the beginning of a period in which political Islamists, centred around the Refah Party, would gain increasing control of the state. While the party's rhetoric focused on a just order and the fight against corruption, its actions were mired in scandal, with funds collected for causes such as aid to Muslims and the hajj ending up in the pockets of party members.
In 1997, a group of Refah Party members, including Abdullah Gül, one of the founders of the AKP, organised a charity campaign for Bosnian Muslims, but the money collected was not sent to Bosnia, but to party members. In 1998, the same Refah Party came to the fore with the ‘missing trillion’ case, and after the party was closed down, the 1 trillion given by the treasury was not returned to the state. While the ‘missing trillion’ remained unaccounted for, Oğuzhan Asiltürk claimed that the ‘jihad’ funds collected for the party had been embezzled by the children of former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan.
The corruption of Refah Party member Süleyman Mercümek also exposed the true nature of political Islamists at the time. It was revealed that funds collected from citizens living abroad under the pretext of sacrificing animals on their behalf (969,000 marks) were transferred to Mercümek's account.
The income obtained from the Hajj organisation described in Soner Yalçın's book Hangi Erbakan (Which Erbakan) amounted to over 300 billion lira at the time.
These years, which paved the way for political Islam in Turkey, opened a new front against the progressive legacy of the Republic. The predatory ideology of political Islam was nurtured and expanded by the ruling powers through their networks of sects and communities.
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F. GÜLEN WAS A MASTER OF CADRE FORMATION
Emerging from among other sects and rising to prominence during the AKP years to become a partner in power, the Gülen community set its sights on all of the state's institutional structures after the 1980 coup. Gülen’s response to the coup in the October 1980 issue of Sızıntı magazine, under the headline “The Last Outpost,” was not without significance: “We once again salute the Mehmetçik who came to our rescue like Hızır when our hopes were dashed.”
Political Islamism, which embraced a model of capital accumulation based on the plundering and looting of public assets, played an active role in emptying all areas of the country.
The number of members of the movement's cadre, organised in cells called “houses of light,” increased exponentially during these years.
Again, Gülen's words, "Until now, Muslims, acting with an Ottoman mindset and behaving with the complacency of the majority, have allowed the Alevis, who are a minority and act with this psychology, to take control of the judiciary, national education, and the army. The real source of the chaos and turmoil in Turkey stems from this. Muslims must fight to regain control of these three institutions." These words reveal the historical roots of a new series of scandals that the public is waking up to every day.
In the early 1980s, students within the network of sects and communities were first advised to pursue primary, secondary, and high school teaching, while long-term plans included the judiciary and military. From this period onwards, an unprecedented level of staffing began in all state institutions, particularly the judiciary, civil service, military, and security forces. In the 1990s, they placed their followers in critical areas of the security forces, such as counter-terrorism, intelligence, and special operations, by directly stealing interview questions. Following the constitutional referendum passed under the pretext of prosecuting the coup plotters in 2010, they achieved full cadre formation in the judiciary with the increase in the executive branch's power over the judiciary. The end of their dominance in the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), which they had gradually built up since the 1990s and which allowed them to act unchallenged in the Ergenekon-Balyoz trials, came on 15 July with the bombing of the Turkish Grand National Assembly from helicopters. The AKP paved the way, and the Gülenists marched forward. Now, new sects and cults, large and small, are following the same path.
ALL RESOURCES TO THE SECTS
SODES (Social Support Programme) projects carried out by public institutions to meet the needs arising from the country's social structure were used to transfer funds to the ‘tutoring centres’ and dormitories belonging to the Gülen sect. The tutoring centres and schools that began to spread became the biggest source of cadre formation in the public sector.
Political Islamists then made intense efforts to ensure that the heads of the Student Selection and Placement Centre (ÖSYM) were also people close to them. The sect's entry into public institutions accelerated after it was revealed that it had obtained exam questions in advance and distributed them to its members. The leaked questions from the 2010 Public Personnel Selection Examination (KPSS) exposed a new scandal years later. Students who protested the theft of the questions at the time found themselves facing state security forces. An investigation into allegations of cheating was launched after 350 candidates answered all 120 questions correctly and nearly 3,000 candidates scored above 110. The investigation into the theft of the questions, which had been hindered at the time due to the close ties between the AKP and the religious sect, was reopened in 2015, and the theft was proven.
The fact that 70 of the 350 candidates who answered all questions correctly were married to each other, 20 of those who scored perfectly were close relatives, and 52 lived in the same apartment building, complex or neighbourhood, is significant in terms of revealing the extent of corruption that political Islamists believe they are entitled to.
On the other hand, the community's cadre formation in the military and judiciary paved the way for today's events.
It was revealed after 15 July that those who answered all the questions correctly in some subjects of the 1986 military high school exam became military students, graduated from military academies in 1994, and then became staff officers.
The 1994 military academy entrance exam Turkish questions were leaked, enabling members of the community to enter these schools en masse. Similarly, Levent Türkkan, a defendant in the coup attempt, confessed in his statement to the prosecutor that the questions for the 1989 Işıklar Military High School entrance exam were given to them by FETÖ members.
According to data from April 2016, considering that there were 358 generals and admirals in the Turkish Armed Forces, it emerged that 46% of all generals and admirals were affiliated with FETÖ.
The corruption caused by political Islamism in the country did not stop there. The ideology that became synonymous with the Gülen community from the beginning of the AKP years continued after 15 July with new sects and cults.
Education, health, the judiciary, the army, the police... Almost every institution was destroyed within this network of relationships, and the AKP's ambition to establish a reactionary fascist regime destroyed all institutional assets.
While the senior cadres of the Gülen community were not removed from their positions, the Nur, İsmailağa and Menzil sects joined the race to fill the vacant positions.
With the transition to a one-man regime, loyalty completely replaced merit in the country.
Being uneducated has almost become an advantage, while a war has been declared on the progressive segments of society. This decay has also had a fundamental impact on the emergence of vital issues facing the people. The effects of the economic crisis, impoverishment and the absence of any rules have led to social decay, while political Islamism has gradually built its own order.
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THOSE FED BY THE PALACE
With its rise to power in 2002, the AKP government established a network of patronage based on gratitude and obedience, particularly among conservative social classes. This not only secured a voter base for the party, but also paved the way for the implementation of neoliberal policies that increased economic inequality. With the establishment of its hegemony, the regime began to systematically dismantle institutions and bureaucracy, paving the way for the creation of a patronage network. Through public tenders, privatisations and various urban development rents, it created and nurtured new capital groups loyal to itself.
The AKP government, which prioritised incentives for political Islamist capital groups and MÜSİAD, increased both its own wealth and that of its allies with taxes collected from the people. After the purge of the Gülen community, one of the main culprits of political Islamist corruption, the government replaced it with new cult and sect networks.
This network of favouritism and corruption always carries the potential for internal conflict, but it also allows new forces to join the alliance, as long as the dominant relations of exploitation and domination are maintained. One striking recent example of this is the Menzil Sect, which has grown increasingly powerful, particularly in the judiciary and security forces, and has been in the news constantly thanks to the commercial relationships it has established.
The sect, which has been in the news due to countless corruption scandals, has never seemed to lack the support of the palace. Even a few examples that have come to light reveal how sect and community relationships have destroyed institutions.
It is worth briefly recalling the examples:
■ Following the major earthquake disaster on 6 February, allegations emerged that the Turkish Red Crescent had purchased food supplies and aid packages from a company called Nakış Gıda, affiliated with the Menzil Sect. It was also reported that Fatma Meriç Yılmaz, the deputy president of the Turkish Red Crescent, who is known to be a member of the Menzil Sect, had acted as an intermediary in this purchase.
■ After only 13 people were allocated earthquake-resistant housing in a lottery organised for the Göçeri neighbourhood in Kahta district, which is also the headquarters of the Menzil Sect, it was revealed that seven of them belonged to the Elhüseyni family, which runs the Menzil Sect.
■ Following the 6 February earthquakes centred in Maraş, the Red Crescent, which faced criticism for selling tents intended for earthquake victims to aid organisations and companies, was involved in another scandal. It was revealed that clothing sent by citizens for those in need in the Fatsa district of Ordu was being held in illegal dormitories belonging to the Yavuz Sultan Selim Foundation, affiliated with the İsmailağa Sect.
The Republic's roadmap for development and industrialisation, launched by Özal after the 12 September 1980 coup and fully implemented by the AKP, was destroyed by the neoliberal programme. Political Islamism redistributed public resources to sect and cult networks, ensuring the ideological consolidation of their plunder and looting in all areas through a communalist approach.
The destructive result of the corruption in all political, economic, and legal spheres was deep poverty. While the total revenue from the people's taxes should have been returned to society as social policy in areas such as health and education, it was transferred as bribes and rents to capital groups and networks of allies clustered around the palace.
Since the Özal era, right-wing governments, and especially the political Islam-aligned network of favouritism and corruption, have reached a level where all institutions, particularly the military, judiciary, media, education, and health, have been completely taken over and tied to a systematic network of favouritism and an economy that serves this network. This situation clearly reveals the current dominance of the one-man regime. However, the fragility of this regime, which has corrupted all the institutions of the Republic along with itself, is crystallising at this very point. It is essential to keep alive the memory of the fear that the boycott carried out by millions of citizens who filled the squares on 19 March created in the palace and its supporters. Because only a comprehensive people's struggle can clean up this corruption.
Therefore, there is no other way than to destroy the political Islamist and opportunistic order based on plunder and looting. While stopping this order today is a priority task that requires getting rid of the one-man regime, the united struggle of broad sections of the people is the only way out.
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THE SHAMELESS FACES OF POLITICAL ISLAM
The fact that incompetence has been eliminated, justice has been abolished, and nepotism and favouritism have been increased in the country has been acknowledged many times by representatives of the ruling party and members of the sects. At the time, Mehmet Metiner, an AKP MP from Adıyaman, responded to allegations that AKP ministers and MPs had appointed their relatives to government positions through nepotism by saying, ‘Every Friday when we go to Friday prayers, the verse “protect your relatives” is recited in the sermon.’
During the same years, Hayrettin Karaman accompanied Metiner in his column in Yeni Şafak, saying, ‘Corruption is one thing, theft is another.’
Later, Ömer Çelik, who defended Ramazan Can, the AKP Deputy Minister of Justice who was caught red-handed in writing letters of favour, defended the corruption by saying, ‘We are politicians, we all have such lists.’ Çelik described requests for favouritism as ‘one of the channels of communication unique to our democracy.’
These acts of corruption, which spread from the highest to the lowest levels of the country, were embodied in the words of AKP Elazığ Provincial Chairman Şerafettin Yıldırım. Yıldırım, during a live broadcast in November 2024, stated that when there was a hiring process in any institution in a district, he left the initiative to the district chairman. Yıldırım responded to criticism of ‘injustice’ with, ‘Well, that's how it goes...’
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ÖZAL'S MIXED ISLAMISM
Favouritism and corruption became the norm during the Özal years, which played a leading role in integrating the neoliberal system into the country. With the phrase ‘My civil servants know their job,’ bribery and corruption were encouraged at the highest levels!
While Özal's ANAP party fully embraced the political Islamist ideology that developed in line with liberal economic policies, special funds established during this period were used to benefit bureaucrats, political allies, or their spouses and relatives.
The Poor Fund Support, established to enable poor children to attend private schools, was used to benefit the children of bureaucrats, businessmen, and politicians; individuals close to ANAP were appointed to the advisory boards of public enterprises (KITs) to receive salaries as a perk; By the late 1980s, the management of cooperatives, which were 90% composed of workers and civil servants in 1983, were filled with wealthy businessmen and bureaucrats aiming to make profit-seeking investments; some of these cooperatives were converted into companies under the guise of tourism incentives, and state lands were transferred to them—these examples, among many others, are worthy of a separate article. Along with these examples, bribery, corruption, and irregularities in tenders, as well as corruption among mayors, became commonplace.
The Özal era played a leading role in establishing the hegemony of Islamism and pan-Islamism intertwined with nepotism.
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MILLIONS IN BOXES
The 17-25 December process is undoubtedly one of the first scandals to surface in the AKP-Cemaat conflict. In the struggle to divide the state, the two political Islamist actors turned against each other. After the AKP's move to ban private tutoring centres through the Ministry of National Education, the Fethullahists, using their power in the police and judiciary, launched a counterattack. On 17 December 2013, they arrested three sons of AKP ministers, Ali Ağaoğlu, Reza Sarraf, and Halkbank CEO Süleyman Aslan. Subsequently, anonymous videos and audio recordings were circulated online, revealing a conversation between then-Prime Minister Erdoğan and his son Bilal Erdoğan about money being stuffed into ‘shoe boxes’ and taken out of the house. The son of the then Interior Minister Muammer Güler, Barış Güler, the son of the then Environment and Urbanisation Minister Erdoğan Bayraktar, Abdullah Oğuz Bayraktar, and the son of the then Economy Minister Zafer Çağlayan, Salih Kaan Çağlayan, were detained on charges of bribery and corruption. Following this, all three ministers resigned from their positions. Zafer Çağlayan's attempt to prove that he did not take bribes from Iranian businessman Reza Sarraf by showing a note written on a napkin became one of the most ironic moments of the corruption and bribery scandal that engulfed the AKP during this period. Ultimately, Erdoğan emerged victorious in the struggle between the AKP and the Gülenist movement to seize control of the state. Gülenists were purged from the security forces and the judiciary, and the 17-25 December process, which developed as a political move and served no purpose other than to demonstrate the power that Gülenists had gained in the state and intelligence services thanks to the AKP, did not turn into a genuine corruption investigation. It was decided not to refer the relevant ministers to the Supreme Court by a vote in Parliament. However, the extent of the AKP's corruption was revealed to the public for the first time during this process.
MONEY SMUGGLED TO MALTA AND PANAMA
One of the most significant cases of corruption during the AKP era was proven by the Panama Papers, which made international headlines in 2016.
The documents, which revealed that millionaires and wealthy politicians around the world had transferred their assets to shell companies established in Panama to avoid taxation, also included critical figures from Turkey. It was revealed that Çalık Energy Holding, owned by Erdoğan's son-in-law and former finance minister Berat Albayrak, also had a company in Panama and had documented its assets there to avoid taxation.
Similarly, in 2017, it was revealed that the Erdoğan family had a company in Malta, which at the time was the EU country with the lowest tax rates. According to the Man Island scandal brought to light by the main opposition party during this period, millions of dollars were transferred through the offshore network of a shipping company owned by Ziya İlgen, Erdoğan's brother-in-law and a retired teacher. Over the past years, various financial transactions, including the gift of a ship to the family by Mübariz Mansimov, who was briefly imprisoned for ties to FETÖ, and a 15 million dollar transfer to individuals linked to the Erdoğan family through Halkbank, came to light following the public release of the Malta documents.
Note: This article is translated from the original article titled Hatırlatmalar | Kayırmanın, sahtekârlığın tarihi, published in BirGün newspaper on August 10, 2025.
