How Erdogan survived against all odds to retain power

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan beat back the greatest political challenge of his career on May 28, securing victory in a presidential runoff that granted five more years to a mercurial leader who has vexed his Western allies while tightening his grip on the Turkish state.Erdogan’s victory means he could remain in power for at least a quarter-century, deepening his conservative imprint on Turkish society while pursuing his vision of a country with increasing economic and geopolitical might.He will be ensconced as the driving force of a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) ally of the US, a position he has leveraged to become a key broker in the war in Ukraine and to enhance Türkiye’s status as a Muslim power with 85mn people and critical ties across continents.Türkiye’s Supreme Election Council declared Erdogan the victor late on May 28. He won 52.1% of the vote; Opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu got 47.9% with almost all votes counted, the council said. medium100587504Erdogan’s supporters shrugged off Türkiye’s challenges, including a looming economic crisis, and lauded him for developing the country and supporting conservative Islamic values.In many Turkish cities, they honked car horns, cheered and gathered in public squares to watch the results roll in and await his victory speech. Thousands gathered outside the presidential palace in Ankara, waving red-and-white Turkish flags, for his victory speech.“It is not only us who won, it is Türkiye,” Erdogan said, to raucous applause. “It is our nation that won with all its elements. It is our democracy.”Kilicdaroglu told his supporters that he did not contest the vote count but that the election overall had been unfair, nevertheless. In the run-up to the vote, Erdogan tapped state resources to tilt the playing field in his favour.During his 20 years as the country’s most prominent politician — as prime minister beginning in 2003 and as president since 2014 — Erdogan has sidelined the country’s traditional political and military elites and expanded the role of Islam in public life.Tightening gripAlong the way, he has used crises to expand his power, centring major decision-making about domestic, foreign and economic policy inside the walls of his sprawling presidential palace. His political opponents fear that five more years at the helm will allow him to consolidate power even further.Erdogan has offered few indications that he intends to change course in either domestic affairs or in foreign policy.His unpredictability and frequent tirades against the West left officials in some Western capitals wondering whose side he was on in the war in Ukraine and privately hoping he would lose.The Turkish leader condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year, but refused to join Western sanctions to isolate President Vladimir Putin and instead increased Turkish trade with Moscow. He calls Putin “my friend” and has hampered Nato efforts to expand by delaying the admission of Finland and still refusing to admit Sweden.Watch: Why Erdogan's win serves as a cautionary tale medium nocaptionhttps://youtu.be/ZwmQYm7jw1U=undefinedDuring his campaign, Erdogan indicated that he was comfortable with his stance on Ukraine. He described Türkiye’s mediation at times between the conflict’s warring parties as “not an ordinary deed”. And he said he was not “working just to receive a ‘well done’ from the West”, making clear that the desires of his allies will not trump his pursuit of Türkiye’s interests.Erdogan operates on the understanding that “the world has entered the stage where Western predominance is no longer a given”, said Galip Dalay, a Türkiye analyst at Chatham House, a London-based research group.That view has led regional powers like Türkiye to benefit from ties with the West even while engaging with American rivals like Russia and China. The idea is that “Türkiye is better served by engaging in a geopolitical balance between them”, Dalay said.Critics accuse Erdogan of pushing Türkiye towards one-man rule. Election observers said that while this month’s voting was largely free, he used state resources and his sway over the news media to gain advantage, making the wider competition unfair.On the brinkStill, his opponents came closer to unseating him than ever before, and many expect he will try to prevent them from ever being able to do so again.“Winning this election will give him ultimate confidence in himself, and I think he will see himself as undefeatable from now on,” said Gulfem Saydan Sanver, a political consultant who has advised members of the Opposition. “I think he will be more harsh on the Opposition.”Erdogan’s victory did not come easy.Heading into the first round of voting on May 14, he faced a new coalition set on unseating him by backing a single challenger, Kilicdaroglu. Most polls suggested that the president’s popularity had been eroded by a painful cost-of-living crisis that had shrunk the budgets of Turkish families and that he could even lose.Erdogan’s government also faced criticism that it had failed to respond quickly after powerful earthquakes in February killed more than 50,000 people in southern Türkiye. But in the end, the disaster did not affect the election much.Erdogan campaigned fiercely, meeting with earthquake victims, unleashing billions of dollars in government spending to insulate voters from double-digit inflation and dismissing Kilicdaroglu as unfit to herd sheep, much less run the nation. medium100587546In fiery speeches, Erdogan charmed his supporters with songs and poetry and painted his opponents as soft on terrorism.Although he fell short of the majority required to win outright in the first round, Erdogan came out in the lead with 49.5% of the vote to Kilicdaroglu’s 44.9%, sending them to a runoff.Over the years, Erdogan has merged himself with the image of the state, and he is likely to keep leveraging Türkiye’s position between the West, Russia and other countries to enhance his geopolitical clout.His relations with Washington remain prickly.The US removed Türkiye from a programme to receive F-35 fighter jets in 2019 after Türkiye bought an air-defence system from Russia.And during the long war in neighbouring Syria, Erdogan criticised the US for working with a Syrian Kurdish militia that Türkiye says is an extension of a Kurdish militant group that has fought the Turkish government for decades to demand autonomy.Western meddlingInterior minister Suleyman Soylu accused the US of a “political coup attempt” to unseat Erdogan during the campaign. As evidence, Soylu cited comments from President Joe Biden’s own campaign, in which he criticised Erdogan as an “autocrat” and said the US should support Türkiye’s Opposition.Diplomats acknowledge that Erdogan’s ties to both Russia and Ukraine allowed him to mediate an agreement on the export of Ukrainian grain via the Black Sea as well as prisoner swaps between the warring parties.Recently, Erdogan has worked to patch up relations with former regional foes, including Israel, Egypt and the UAE, in order to cool tensions and stimulate trade. After conciliatory moves by Türkiye, Saudi Arabia deposited $5bn in Türkiye’s central bank in March, helping shore up its sagging foreign currency reserves.The Turkish leader has said he might meet with President Bashar Assad of Syria after years of supporting anti-Assad rebels. The goal is to speed up the return of some of the millions of Syrian refugees in Türkiye, a key demand of Turkish voters. medium100587561Erdogan, the son of a ferry captain who grew up in a tough Istanbul neighbourhood and dreamed of playing professional football, retains the deep devotion of many Turks, who credit him with developing the country. Swift economic growth in the 2000s lifted millions of Turks out of poverty and transformed Turkish cities with new highways, airports and rail lines.Erdogan also expanded the space for Islam in public life.Türkiye is a predominantly Muslim society with a secular state, and for decades women who wore headscarves were barred from universities and government jobs. Erdogan loosened those rules, and conservative women vote for him in large numbers.He also has a habit of making smokers he encounters promise to quit — and getting it in writing. In March, his office displayed hundreds of cigarette packs signed by the people Erdogan had taken them from, including his own brother and a former foreign minister of Bulgaria.He has also expanded religious education and transformed the Hagia Sophia, Türkiye’s most famous historic landmark, from a museum into a mosque.Public backingMusa Aslantas, a bakery owner, listed what he considered Erdogan’s most recent accomplishments: A natural gas discovery in the Black Sea, Türkiye’s first electric car and a nuclear power plant being built by Russia.“Our country is stronger thanks to Erdogan,” said Aslantas, 28. “He can stand up to foreign leaders. He makes us feel safe and powerful. They can’t play with us like they used to.”Over the past decade, Erdogan has deftly used crises to expand his authority.He responded to street protests against his rule in 2013 by restricting freedom of expression and assembly and jailing organisers. After surviving a coup attempt in 2016, he purged the civil service and judiciary, creating openings for his loyalists. The next year, Erdogan pushed for a referendum that moved much of the state’s power from the parliament to the president — meaning him.Over time, he has extended his sway over the news media. The state broadcaster gives him extensive positive coverage, and critical private outlets have been shuttered or fined, leading others to self-censor. medium100587586Erdogan’s critics worry that he will find new ways to weaken democracy from within.“The judiciary is controlled by the state, parliament is controlled by the state and the executive is controlled by Erdogan,” said Ilhan Uzgel, a former professor of international relations at Ankara University who was fired by presidential decree. “That means there is no separation of powers, which is the ABCs of a democratic society.”Erdogan’s most immediate challenge could be the economy.His insistence on lowering interest rates has exacerbated inflation that peaked at more than 80% annually last year, economists say, and expensive moves he made before the election added to the state’s bills and depleted the central bank’s foreign currency reserves. Without a swift change of course, Türkiye could soon face a currency crisis or recession.Economic trouble could lead more voters to seek change in the future, assuming Erdogan’s foes can overcome their disappointment and mount another challenge.“Erdogan has a clear vision of what he wants for the country, and he has had that vision since he was very young,” said Selim Koru, an analyst at the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Türkiye. “What people like about him is that he has not really compromised on that.”