The only apparent similarity between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Mustafa Kemal Ataturk is their long-running rule of Turkey. Their rise to power and political mission, however, are completely opposite. One was a revolutionary, who had transformed Turkey into a modern and secular republic, while the other has been known as a leader  accused of uprooting the secular foundations of the country.

When Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was born in 1881, the Ottoman Empire was in decline. When he was 12 years old, Mustafa was sent to the military academy in Istanbul. There, his mathematics teacher gave him the name Kemal - meaning "perfection" - because he excelled in academics. As a young man, he was involved with the Young Turks, a revolutionary group that deposed Sultan Abdülhamid II in 1909.

Young Kemal had joined the army to become a professional soldier. He held a number of posts in the Ottoman army from 1909 to 1918. He fought against Italy in the Italo-Turkish War in 1911 and he fought in the Balkan Wars from 1912-1913. During the second Balkan War, he became Chief of Staff. He made a name for himself as the commander of the 19th Division, where his bravery and strategic prowess helped thwart the British and French forces' invasion of the Dardanelles in 1915 during World War I. But the Allied forces, led by British, France, Russia and Italy, later occupied the capital of the Ottoman Empire and many of its territories in next several years.

It was Kemal who led the Turkish War of Independence and signed the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, which made Turkey a republic and him its president. As part of his revolution, Kemal opted for the discontinuation of the Sultanate, which was formally abolished in 1923. He established a single party regime that lasted until 1945, almost without interruption.

He translated his revolutionary thoughts into action by launching massive social and political reforms to modernise Turkey. The reforms he pursued included the emancipation of women, the abolition of all Islamic institutions and the introduction of Western legal codes, dress, calendar and alphabet, replacing the Arabic script with a Latin one. In 1935, he was given the name Atatürk, meaning 'Father of the Turks'. He died in 1938. 

One of his successors, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's political philosophy is opposite to that of Kemal's. Erdogan was born in 1954 in modern and secular Turkey, around 16 years after Kemal's death. He is not from an affluent family. Young Erdogan used to sell lemonade and sesame buns on the streets of Istanbul's rougher districts to earn extra cash. He attended an Islamic school, before obtaining his degree in management from Istanbul's Marmara University. In the 1970s and 80s, he was active in Islamist circles and was a member of the Welfare Party founded by Necmettin Erbakan, a longtime leader of Turkey's Islamist political movement.

With support of the Welfare Party, he was elected mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to 1998. Erdogan had to languish in jail for four months in 1998 for religious incitement, after he publicly read a nationalist poem including the lines: "The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers." The Welfare Party was also banned by the constitutional court, on charge of violating the principle of secularism. The court also barred Necmettin Erbakan, mentor of Erdogan, from politics for five years.

Earlier, Erbakan formed the National Order Party, which was also banned by the constitutional court in 1971, a year after its formation. Erbakan, two years later, formed the National Salvation Party and served twice in the 70s as a deputy prime minister. He was jailed after Gen Kenan Evran seized power in a bloodless coup. Erbakan was also prohibited from engaging in politics from 1980 to 1987. Returning to politics, Erbakan formed the Welfare Party once more, which was again banned by the court in 1998. 

Following the court verdict in 1998, most members of Erbakan's Welfare Party formed a new party called the Virtue Party, which was banned by the constitutional court in 2001. After the ban, Erbakan formed a new party – the Felicity Party.

Records assert that Erdogan's mentor Erbakan had set up five political parties, four of which were closed down after military coups or by courts on the grounds of undermining secular principles. Erbakan was also ousted from his post after serving a year as the Prime Minister of Turkey in 1997, following pressure by the secular military.

Learning their lessons from these failures, Abdullah Ghul, the immediate former Turkish president, Erdogan and others emerged as "reformists" to survive politically. They broke away from their mentor Erbakan and formed their own party – the Justice and Development Party, also known as the AK Party. This harkened a new dawn for Erdogan in politics. He came to power in 2002, a year after the formation of the AK Party. He spent 11 years as Turkey's prime minister, before becoming the country's first directly-elected president in August 2014 to replace Abdullah Ghul. However, he does not seem happy with the presidency, as it only has a ceremonial role. Thus, he is unofficially running the show behind the scenes, thereby emerging as the most powerful president of Turkey after Kemal Ataturk. Yet, he wants to create an executive presidency to regain some of the powers.

To his supporters, Erdogan is a charismatic leader who has taken Turkey forward economically. To his critics, he is a ruthless autocrat who brutally bulldozes his political opponents and dissenting voices. Erdogan has also been accused of pursing Islamist agendas in a different guise. Political analysts say that he could not move ahead with his Islamist agenda due to the army, a strong supporter of Atatürk's secularism. In the past, on several occasions, he has systematically taken stringent measures against several army generals and officers who were strong followers of Atatürk's secularism.

Given the background, the failed coup of July 15 seems to have appeared as a blessing for Erdogan, as he himself termed it as a "gift of God". Since the coup attempt that left at least 265 people dead and more than 1,000 wounded, tens of thousands of military personnel, judges, prosecutors and civil servants have already been detained or suspended from their jobs, as part of the investigation into the possible plotters of the coup.

Last Wednesday Erdogan announced a three-month state of emergency, enabling him and his government to bypass the Parliament, rule via decree, and suspend rights and freedoms as they deem necessary. The first decree, announced on Saturday, extended pre-charged detention from four to 30 days and ordered the closure of more than 2,000 private schools, associations, foundations, unions, health institutions and universities.

The crackdown on the military appears most brutal. Till Saturday, almost 7,500 military personnel had been detained on accusations of being involved in the coup attempt. It was announced on Sunday that the presidential guard would be disbanded, after 300 of the 2,500 officers from the elite unit were rounded up over suspected links to the coup. Erdogan on Saturday announced the overhaul of the army in response to the failed coup, and he may use the state of emergency to achieve his goal. It is obvious that Erdogan will restructure the army with officials loyal to him and his politics. Army officials who follow Atatürk's secularism will not find themselves in important positions. If Erdogan can succeed in his mission, the army will no longer be a threat to his Islamist political agenda or his rise as a an apparent 'Sultan' in Kemal Atatürk's Turkey. All these developments pose a crucial question: how long will Kemal Atatürk's Turkey survive?

The writer is Senior Reporter, The Daily Star.