Soner Cagaptay
Foreign Affairs, May 29, 2023
“Erdogan’s entente with Putin has already had significant consequences for the West.”
In May 28, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish leader “who never loses elections,” won the runoff of Turkey’s presidential poll against his opponent, Kemal Kilicdaroglu. Erdogan has been at Turkey’s helm since 2003, first as prime minister and then, since 2014, as president. His latest win gives him another five-year presidential term. Together with a sweep in the parliamentary polls on May 14 that yielded pro-Erdogan far-right- and right-wing parties a solid majority in the country’s legislature, his victory all but anoints Erdogan as Turkey’s indisputable sultan.
Defying the assessments of many Western observers who had predicted Erdogan would have trouble holding on, his relatively smooth path to reelection has raised far-reaching questions about the sources of his power. In the face of prolonged economic turmoil, a disastrous response to a devastating earthquake, and a newly unified opposition, Erdogan nevertheless came out comfortably ahead in the preliminary round of voting. Then, having secured a new majority for his ruling coalition in parliament and mercilessly attacking Kilicdaroglu, Erdogan cruised to victory. Moreover, turnout was generally high, and the elections appeared to be free if not fair, given Erdogan’s ability to determine the overall parameters in which the contests took place. After 20 years of increasingly autocratic rule, Erdogan has managed not only to cling to office but also to potentially emerge even stronger.
In recent years, analysts have often compared Erdogan’s approach to power with that of other illiberal leaders in European democracies—including Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban—who have used a combination of institutional leverage and populist measures to sustain broad support and rig the system in their favor. Turkey was not a pure autocracy, the theory went, but rather a democracy that had fallen into the hands of an authoritarian leader and was trying to make a comeback.
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