By Nazlan Ertan
In Turkish politics, few words are as loaded—or as likely to provoke presidential rage—as “cunta.” From its etymological roots in the Spanish resistance to Napoleonic rule (junta, meaning a council), cunta has acquired a sinister sheen along the way. Today, it conjures images not of patriotic committees, but of tanks on boulevards, generals behind microphones, and constitutions suspended by decree (Bet you’ve heard that last one before).
So when CHP Chair Özgür Özel recently accused the ruling bloc of staging a “civilian coup”—sivil darbe—and likened the government's tightening grip to a junta mentality, it landed like a Molotov cocktail in Turkey’s ever-combustible political arena.
President Erdoğan’s response was volcanic. “Cuntacı” is, in his own words, the one thing no one should dare call him. After all, Erdoğan has long styled himself as the nemesis of Turkey’s old military tutelage. He is the man, his supporters argue, who tamed the generals and stood firm on the night of July 15, 2016, when a real military junta attempted to seize power. The idea that he, of all people, could be labelled a junta leader is not just offensive—it’s blasphemy to his political narrative.
But in Turkey, history never dies; it just changes uniforms. While the Milli Birlik Komitesi that ruled after the 1960 coup and the Milli Güvenlik Konseyi of 1980 ruled by tanks and curfews, the charge now is that unelected actors are steering politics from behind the scenes in suits, not fatigues. Özel’s “civilian coup” jab refers to what he sees as judicial overreach, state-backed media manipulation, and a campaign of intimidation targeting opposition-run municipalities, like the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, his deputy Mahir Polat and others. In this light, the junta becomes less about uniforms and more about mindset.
The word hits a nerve precisely because it flips Erdoğan’s strongest suit— and the basis of his populist demagoguery. MHP Chair Devlet Bahçeli, now Erdoğan’s staunch ally, once used the same label against him — accusing the AKP in 2012 of establishing a system “no different from junta administrations.” Özel was quick to remind everyone: “The first person to call Erdoğan a coup plotter wasn’t me—it was Bahçeli.”
Erdoğan’s defenders say calling an elected president a junta leader is an insult to Turkish democracy itself —comparing him to Macron, Meloni, and other ballot-box leaders in the West. Meanwhile, critics point to the erosion of judicial independence, arrests of opposition figures, and replacement of elected officials with trustees as proof that a new form of non-military authoritarianism is creeping in through the back door.
