What does Erdogan’s new cabinet say about Türkiye’s future politics?

Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan named his cabinet on Saturday after winning another crucial victory in the second round of the May 28 presidential election, signalling both continuity and assertiveness of his conservative leadership in the 67th government of the Turkish Republic.

Most of the crucial cabinet posts – foreign, interior, defence and finance ministries – were reserved for widely respected personalities known for their experience and knowledge in different fields.

The new foreign minister Hakan Fidan, a confidant of Erdogan, has led Türkiye’s national intelligence agency since 2010, playing a crucial role in different political settings – from defeating the July 15 failed coup attempt in 2016 to carrying out the anti-terror operations in northern Iraq and Syria.

Fidan, an Ankara-born graduate of international relations, had served in the Turkish army as a non-commissioned officer between 1986 and 2001 and is known for his wide knowledge of international security and Eurasian regional politics.

Mehmet Simsek, a former top finance official under Erdogan in 2009-18, will lead the crucial treasury and finance ministry that formulates Turkish economic policy. Simsek also previously worked for some well-known international finance groups, including Merrill Lynch.

The new interior minister Ali Yerlikaya, the former governor of Istanbul, is a seasoned bureaucrat who has served in different local posts – from Gaziantep, a southeastern province bordering Syria, to Tekirdag, a western governorate in European Türkiye, and Agri, an eastern province neighbouring Iran.

Change and continuity

Except for Health Minister Fahrettin Koca and Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, who will continue to serve as ministers, 15 positions out of the 17 ministerial posts have new incumbents, according to Saturday’s announcement.

This extensive change of guard was anticipated as most of the previous incumbents – including Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, Defence Minister Hulusi Akar, and Treasury and Finance Minister Nurettin Nebati – were nominated as AK Party MPs.

Both Erdogan’s AK Party-led People’s Alliance and the opposition-led Nation Alliance did not nominate any of the potential ministers as candidates in the parliamentary elections. This is because of the fact that they need to resign from their parliamentary positions to be part of the cabinet.

In the tight May elections, none of the alliances could take the risk of losing the parliamentary majority due to possible resignations. But this broad cabinet overhaul does not mean a sign of disruption in terms of Erdogan’s pragmatic political style in regard to both internal and external policies, according to Cagri Erhan, a professor of international relations at Altinbas University.

Erdogan has led Türkiye in the last two decades like “a conductor”, Erhan tells TRT World. While some of his leading musicians have changed from time to time due to the shifting nature of politics, the music stays the same thanks to Erdogan's style of management, according to the professor.

“It is the duty of the president to make a large orchestra play in harmony while remaining faithful to the notes. He's doing this. But while doing this, he establishes a cabinet that will display the colourfulness of large segments of society. This is very important in Türkiye,” says Erhan.

Erhan refers to the fact that Fidan, Simsek and Cevdet Yilmaz, who was appointed as the country’s vice president, have their origins in Türkiye’s predominantly Kurdish-populated eastern region.

“Erdogan has consciously created a cabinet to represent Türkiye’s all ethnic communities,” says the professor.

Fidan’s credentials

Despite changes, crucial political actors like Fidan have long stayed in the loop while their function has transformed, says Erhan.

“Despite the fact that Fidan has long been Erdogan’s intelligence chief, he was also a central figure in terms of Türkiye’s foreign policy conduct here and there during this time. As a result, he is no stranger to the foreign ministry,” says Erhan.

This also means that Fidan’s appointment to the foreign ministry marks a general policy continuity, says Erhan.

The president created the team that will best implement his own policies.”

In April, Fidan, accompanied by Akar, travelled to Moscow to meet his Syrian, Russian and Iranian counterparts to develop a political framework to address the Syrian conflict, which not only led to a big refugee crisis but also regional instability.

Previously, Fidan led the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA), which assists more than 150 countries across the globe to develop joint programmes and projects, focusing on Turkic Central Asia and African states.

Fidan, a graduate of the University of Maryland, also has a post-doctoral degree in international relations and has earlier lectured on global issues at Hacettepe and Bilkent universities.

According to Erhan, it’s clear that his upcoming tenure as the country’s foreign minister shows “a logical continuity” in both Fidan’s career and Turkish foreign policy.

Simsek signals major shift

Unlike foreign policy, some changes are anticipated in Turkish economic policy under Simsek.

In recent years, Turkish inflation has been hovering in two-digit numbers, and the lira has continued to lose value against the US dollar at considerable levels. After his appointment to the treasury and finance ministry over the weekend, Simsek, a strong advocate of an orthodox economic approach, pledged to fix the Turkish economy.

Prior to the 2018 elections, Simsek served in several Erdogan cabinets as deputy foreign minister and finance minister.

“Transparency, consistency, predictability and compliance with international norms will be our basic principles in achieving the goal of raising social welfare,” Simsek said during a handover ceremony with Nurettin Nebati, the former finance minister.

Simsek’s signal of a major shift in Turkish finance policy has echoed across global markets. In a Saturday bulletin, Goldman Sachs, one of the biggest global investment firms, informed its clients that Türkiye’s monetary policy “will shift towards a more orthodox direction” under Simsek.

“Reducing inflation to single digits in the medium term . . . and accelerating the structural transformation that will reduce the current account deficit is of vital importance for our country,” Simsek said.

“We will prioritise macro-financial stability,” he concluded.