Backside Line: Erdoğan’s Reign Is Not Over
Predictions of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s demise within the upcoming election have been pouring in for months. Since first turning into a member of the Turkish parliament in 2003, Erdoğan has been the defining politician of his technology. In 2014, he received the primary Turkish presidential election, and has held the place ever since. As we speak, nevertheless, Erdoğan’s place has by no means appeared so precarious.
Erdoğan represents the ruling political social gathering in Turkey, often called the Justice and Growth Social gathering (AKP). The AKP is notorious for its unorthodox financial insurance policies, which have resulted in skyrocketing inflation charges and crippling will increase in the price of dwelling for Turkish residents.The AKP’s dysfunction is additional exacerbated by nepotism and widespread corruption. Through the decades-long reign of Erdoğan and the AKP, lots of Turkey’s international relations have deteriorated, leaving the nation remoted. On the similar time, the administration is struggling to handle the massive inflow of Syrian and Afghan refugees looking for asylum in Turkey.
To make issues worse, Turkey was hit with two excessive magnitude earthquakes in February 2023. The devastation wrought in southeast Turkey bothered an already poor and uncared for area of the nation. The insufficient response from authorities companies rapidly piled strain onto the shoulders of the embattled president. Turkish residents took to social media to criticize Erdoğan and his administration’s response to the catastrophe. Erdoğan countered by putting a brief ban on Twitter and allegedly arresting residents accused of creating “provocative posts” regarding the earthquakes.
The Turkish media has additionally criticized Erdoğan for his aloof response to the devastation. Whereas surveying the aftermath in Pazarcık, the president acknowledged that, “What occurs, occurs, that is a part of destiny’s plan.” His deal with God’s hand and future was hardly shocking. Erdoğan is a religious Muslim, and his connection to a religiously conservative base has been key to his success.
Worldwide media has deemed the latest earthquakes the ultimate straw that can break the again of Erdoğan’s lengthy grip on energy. Nevertheless, whatever the ineptitude of catastrophe response and the diploma to which the president is accountable, the earthquakes is not going to be the deciding issue of the presidential election. A deal with this as an election decider neglects the broader context through which Turkish elections happen. It’s the wider context that can decide the result.
Winner Takes All
A protracted-running criticism in opposition to Erdoğan is that he’s a majoritarian politician – that means that when he wins, he governs not for the entire citizens, however for the constituency that voted for him alone. Whereas there may be a lot fact on this evaluation, it is just half the story. It fails to acknowledge that Erdoğan is a majoritarian politician in an primarily majoritarian system.
It’s simple for Western media to complain concerning the majoritarian instincts of faith-based politicians resembling Erdoğan, but it’s hanging how silent the identical media retailers change into when secular forces function with the identical majoritarian instincts. Majoritarian rule has existed so long as the Turkish Republic itself. The founding father of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, and his ruling social gathering, the Republican Peoples’ Social gathering (CHP), maintained majoritarian management even after single social gathering rule ended within the mid-Nineteen Forties.
Both elections returned a secular nationalist social gathering to energy, which served a secular nationalist agenda, or the navy stepped in to dictate a secular nationalist agenda. For many years, these had been the one two selections, till the rise of the AKP within the 21st century.
The simple electoral success of the AKP has reworked the political panorama in Turkey, after retaining twenty years of concentrated energy. Unsurprisingly, this has resulted in lots of energy struggles throughout the conservative institution itself.
One such energy battle considerations the exiled non secular chief, Fethullah Gulen, who Erdoğan overtly blames for the orchestration of a failed coup in 2016. Within the wake of the coup, Erdoğan’s politics turned sharply and decisively in direction of Turkish nationalism, and away from any lodging of the nation’s largest ethnic minority, the Kurds. This shift not solely alienated the European Union and lots of of Erdoğan’s supporters in Turkey, but additionally angered some throughout the Islamist institution.
Former prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu, former minister of international affairs Ali Babacan, and AKP founder and former president Abdullah Gul have all left the AKP, forming rival, smaller conservative political actions. Unease concerning the path of the AKP just isn’t reserved for liberals and secularists alone.
A Weak Opposition
Erdoğan has all the time benefitted from a weak and divided opposition. Irrespective of how irascible a politician the president has been, he has managed to remain in energy just by remaining the most well-liked alternative.
As that recognition has diminished, Erdoğan has turned to uglier techniques.One instance is the continued harassment and imprisonment of Kurdish politicians linked to the Peoples’ Democratic Social gathering (HDP). Nevertheless, the principle opposition has remained the Republican Peoples’ Social gathering (CHP), the standard secularist social gathering.
The difficulty is, the CHP has a finite enchantment. The social gathering persistently returns from elections with a couple of 25% share of the vote. This quantity fluctuates solely barely from yr to yr. This could possibly be as a result of the CHP is the previous institution social gathering, and sometimes appears devoid of recent concepts. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, long-term chief of the CHP, has now held the place for 13 years. Regardless, Kılıçdaroğlu just isn’t recognized for his charisma. On the marketing campaign path, he’s persistently outshined by Erdoğan. When the opposition bloc, often called the Nation Alliance, was making an attempt to agree on a pacesetter, the identify of Ekrem Imamoglu was talked about earlier than that of Kılıçdaroğlu.
Imamoglu holds the place Erdoğan as soon as held: Mayor of Istanbul, Turkey’s largest metropolis. He’s a CHP politician, however youthful and hungrier. Nevertheless, in December 2022, a Turkish Courtroom banned Imamoglu from politics and sentenced him to a few years in jail for insulting election officers. The Nation Alliance – a disparate group of six events – has as an alternative turned to the CHP chief, Kılıçdaroğlu, as their presidential candidate. Whereas Kılıçdaroğlu will be the apparent compromise candidate, he’s not an apparent winner.
No matter who the opposition selected, the identical majoritarian dynamic will persist in Turkish politics. Erdoğan is aware of that for the socially conservative electoral majority, the dangers of not voting for him are too excessive. Even when many in his conventional constituency are sad with the financial system, the arrival of Syrian refugees, or the path of Erdoğan’s nationalist coalition, they’re extra sad with the considered a CHP-led authorities.
Within the majoritarian world of Turkish politics, there are solely two sides, and whoever wins takes all. It’s a sample of democracy that’s turning into more and more acquainted throughout a lot of the democratic world, and it’ll play a key function within the Turkish election on the centenary of the nation’s start.
[Hannah Gage edited this piece.]
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Truthful Observer’s editorial coverage.
