From mayor to lawmaker and prime minister to president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan rose through the ranks to the highest posts in Turkey and then made them his own, bringing the country closer to one-man rule over the course of 20 years.
On Sunday, Erdogan will try to secure another term as president, though only after the opposition forced him into a runoff. That the elections have gone to a runoff is a sign that their grip on the country has been loosened, if not broken, amid a host of problems including economic turmoil, widespread corruption and the handling of catastrophic earthquakes. of this spring by his government.
But Erdogan has been through crises since the early days of his career, including a jail sentence, mass protests and an attempted coup. Several of those episodes illustrate how he not only survived crises, but found opportunities to consolidate his power through them.
A lifetime ban that lasted a few years.
In 1998, Erdogan, then the 44-year-old mayor of Istanbul, was a rising star in Turkey’s Islamist political movement, which came under a crackdown by military-backed authorities. That year, a court convicted him of calling for religious insurrection by quoting an Islamist poem from the 1920s. He was sentenced to 10 months in jail and given a lifetime ban on all political activity.
Although predominantly Muslim, Turkey was founded as a secular republic and traditional political elites felt Islamists were anathema to those values.
Erdogan spent four months in jail, making plans to return despite the ban. In a general amnesty in 2001, Turkey’s Constitutional Court lifted the ban and soon formed a new political party with other reformists from the Islamist movement who promised good governance and sought ties with the West.
Allies that changed the rules
Erdogan’s rise was nearly halted in 2002 by Turkey’s electoral board, which barred him from running in elections because of his criminal conviction. But his party colleagues, who had swept Parliament, amended the Constitution to allow him to run. Erdogan won the post and became prime minister in 2003.
His government also began prosecuting some of those figures, in 2008 charging dozens of people, including retired army generals and journalists, with attempting to stage a coup. Erdogan’s allies called the trial an attempt to deal with Turkey’s history of violent power struggles. Critics called it an effort to silence secular opposition.
With voter approval in a referendum two years later, Erdogan again reformed the constitution. He said the 2010 reform brought Turkey closer to European democracies and broke with its military past, while his opponents said it gave his conservative government more control over the army and the courts. He won a third term as prime minister in 2011.
The shopping center that sparked protests
Erdogan was not without significant, albeit mixed, opposition. In 2013, protests that broke out over a proposed mall to replace an Istanbul park turned into a demonstration of discontent over many issues, including the drift toward Islamist politics and persistent corruption.
Erdogan cracked down, not only against the protesters, but also against doctors, journalists, activists, businessmen and officials accused of sympathizing. Some cultural figures were jailed and others fled, and for many of those who remained, an atmosphere of self-censorship descended.
As his term drew to a close, Erdogan faced a problem: his party’s rules prevented him from another turn as prime minister. In 2014, instead, he ran for another post, becoming Turkey’s first elected president, opening his term with words of rapprochement.
“I want us to build a new future with an understanding of social reconciliation, considering our differences as our riches and presenting our common values,” he said in a victory speech.
But rather than confine himself to the mostly ceremonial duties of the office, he moved to maximize his powers, which included a veto over legislation and the ability to appoint judges.
The transformative consequences of a coup
Erdogan’s rule nearly ended in 2016, when a chaotic insurrection by parts of the army and members of an Islamist group that had once been his political ally tried to topple him. But he evaded capture, called on the Turks to protest in the streets, and soon reappeared in Istanbul to reassert control.
“What is being perpetrated is a rebellion,” he said. “They will pay a heavy price for their betrayal of Türkiye.”
An ensuing purge reorganized Turkey: thousands of people accused of having connections to the coup plot were arrested, tens of thousands lost their jobs in schools, police departments and other institutions, and more than 100 media outlets were shut down. Most of those caught up in the purge were accused of being affiliated with the Gulen movement, the Islamist followers of Fethullah Gulen, the cleric accused by Erdogan of orchestrating the coup while living in exile in the United States.
Within a year, Erdogan had organized another referendum for voters, this one on whether to abolish the premiership and transfer power to the president, as well as give the office more skills.
With his opponents under pressure and his allies reinvigorated, he narrowly won the referendum and called for the necessary changes to make the government more efficient. The following year, he won re-election for another five-year term.
A bombardment of decrees and growing discontent
Hours before his 2018 inauguration, Erdogan published a 143-page decree that changed the way almost every government department operated. He fired another 18,000 state employees and made several important appointments, naming his son-in-law the new finance minister.
The decree was just one sign of how far Erdogan has taken Turkey down the road to strongman rule. The government announced new internet restrictions and began monumental projects, including skybridges, a massive mosque, and a plan for an “Istanbul Canal.”
Many of Erdogan’s supporters consider such efforts visionary, but critics say they feed into a construction industry that is rife with corruption and has wasted state funds.
Those frustrations have raged among many Turks in recent years. While Erdogan raised Turkey’s stature abroad and pursued major projects, his consolidation in power has left some uneasy and the economy has suffered.
That dissent has loosened Erdogan’s grip on the country.
In 2019, his party lost control of some of Turkey’s biggest cities, only to dispute the results in Istanbul. Turkey’s High Electoral Council ordered a rerun of the election, a decision condemned by the opposition as a capitulation to Erdogan, but his party also lost that second vote, ending 25 years of rule in Turkey’s largest city.
And now, with his government criticized for its preparation for and response to earthquakes, and Turkey’s economy teetering on the brink of crisis, Erdogan has persisted with big spending and lowering interest rates despite inflation, that has left many Turks feeling far away. more poor
