Mr Erdogan is to be inaugurated as president of Turkey for a second term today after his victory in last month's presidential elections. Surprisingly, he has chosen to begin the new term with a purge of more than 18,000 'traitors'. The dismissed people are made up of police, soldiers, judges, academics and other civil servants.
The people to lose their jobs were suspected of involvement with organisations that acted against the interests of national security. Without a doubt, this was a reference to the attempted coup in 2016.
The purged include 1,052 civil servants, 8,998 police officers, 3,077 soldiers, 1,949 from the air force and 1,126 from the navy. In total, more than 100,000 civil servants have been fired since 2016.
More than 75,000 people have been arrested for connections to the Gulen movement, and many have been sentenced to long jail terms, including for alleged involvement in the coup.
It appears that Recep Tayyip Erdogan is building a throne of bayonets. It would be interesting to see if he will be able to sit on it. Time will tell.
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