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bne March 2025 Companies & Markets I 17
Many in Turkey have in recent years become even more ill-at-ease with the state of the nation given a series of natural disasters and deadly accidents that have produced high death tolls partly because a lack of regulation left citizens over- exposed to potential dangers.
Aras at the AGM talked of systemic failures behind tragedies in Turkey of this year and recent years, including the Kartalkaya hotel fire that took the lives of 78 people at a ski resort, the Madencilik Copler copper-gold mine landslip accident and February 2023’s catastrophic earthquakes
that left tens of thousands dead, many because they lived
in structures not in any way built to withstand the quakes, massive tremors that scientists said were entirely predictable given seismic faults in the earth.
“These are not accidents; they are the result of a crumbling system where safety regulations are ignored and accountability is absent,” Turan said.
The Tusiad business leaders also hit out at the mass dismissal of newly graduated military officers from the Turkish Armed Forces – critics say many of the dismissed were essentially singled out for infringing codes that might be seen as a loyalty test to the powers that be – and the growing number of politically motivated arrests of opposition figures, journalists and businesspeople. Judicial instability would mean systemic risks for the economy, putting off investors, they warned.
Said Aras: “We’re facing extraordinary incidents in politics. Elected mayors are being removed from office and replaced
with trustees. A political party leader faces an investigation, then is arrested over a different reason.”
The statements made at the Tusiad assembly brought a stern reaction from Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Condemning the remarks, Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc warned that “no organisation is above the national will”. He vowed to respond “with the strongest legal measures”, the regime-critical publication Turkish Minute reported.
AKP spokesperson Omer Celik said Tusiad was attempting to interfere in politics and was intent on undermining democracy. “Tusiad must confront its own troubled history regarding democracy,” Celik said, with reference to the perceived past alignment of the business group to military- backed governments that held sway in Turkey before the AKP’s rise to power three decades ago.
Looking for the trigger that caused Tusiad to adopt a bold stance at the meeting, some analysts, as noted by Turkish Minute, said it could have been the adoption of a law granting Turkey’s State Inspection Council (DDK) wide-ranging powers to remove public officials, including military officers, without judicial oversight.
The law has also provided a government body with the right to appoint trustees to companies without a judicial order. The newly-empowered DDK can dismiss individuals assessed as an “obstacle” to investigations. Observers say the measure could be used to purge political opponents and allow the Erdogan administration more rule by decree.
Aras, who has been placed under investigation, spoke of systemic failures lying behind tragedies in Turkey and referred to "extraordinary incidents in politics" with "elected mayors removed from office and replaced with trustees." / Halk TV, screengrab
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