Five Reasons for the Failure of the Military Coup in Turkey

The Turkish army has carried out three military coups since 1960 and forced a government to resign in 1997. But why did the recent coup fail? Lack of public support: The previous three coups had public backing due to the people's desire for 'peace and order' after a period of social struggles and violence. In the recent case, there was no such public support for the coup plotters, and only a few came out to encourage and support them. In fact, a much larger number of people responded to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's call, who urged them to take to the streets and show opposition to the coup via a FaceTime connection to a news network. This time, (apparently) secularists were not the coup plotters: The Turkish army traditionally presents itself as the guardian of the country's secular constitution. In previous coups, power was seized from civilian governments on the grounds that they posed a danger to the secular system. However, this time, Turkish officials pointed fingers at religious forces linked to Fethullah Gülen - a religious leader critical of Erdoğan who currently resides in voluntary exile in the United States - as the instigators of the coup. Mr. Gülen denies involvement in the coup. On the other hand, the two main opposition parties clearly expressed their support for the government against the coup plotters, stating that the bitter experience of previous military coups should not be repeated. Police and coup plotters were on different fronts: In previous coups, the police had stood behind the new ruling forces after the military took power, but this time, it seems that the police were closely allied with the government. Police forces acted against a group of military personnel involved in the coup and arrested several military officers and soldiers suspected from various military ranks. The coup plotters were a small part of the army: Both the government and opposition assessed that only a small part of the army, constituting a maximum of 10 to 20 percent of military personnel, participated in the coup. In previous cases, the entire army had staged the coup. These days, silencing the media is harder: In previous coups, the coup conspirators seized state television and radio and stopped their broadcasts. However, this time, thanks to private television networks like 'CNN Türk' and social media, especially 'Twitter' and 'WhatsApp', a platform was created for the voices of coup opponents to be heard.