Erdogan caught between a rock and a hard place

One portion of Turkiye’s public opinion is in favor of holding early elections, meaning earlier than the scheduled year of 2028. This is partly because the last general election, held in 2023, and this year’s municipal elections gave signals that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, known as the AKP, is bruised after 22 years of uninterrupted rule.
However, whether Erdogan or his party should run again in 2028 or sooner has to be assessed separately because, when we take into account Erdogan’s experience, we have to bear in mind that he was also a successful mayor of a big metropolis like Istanbul. He enriched his experience by serving as prime minister and then as president of the republic. All this experience is, of course, a plus in his favor.
The period when Erdogan served as mayor of Istanbul was tumultuous in Turkiye’s domestic policy. At that time, the existing political parties could not produce a stable government. A fatal road accident that took place in 1996 highlighted many signs of decay, involving politicians, police and the underworld. This incident is quoted as being among the important deficiencies of the state apparatus in Turkiye. Abdullah Catli, a man who was wanted by Interpol, turned out to be cooperating with the state. Catli was wanted for facilitating the escape from jail of Mehmet Ali Agca, who went on to attempt to kill Pope Jean Paul II. A former deputy director of security and a young woman were among the victims of the same road accident.
Because of the strong pressure from public opinion, a “Clean Hands” operation — named after a similar anticorruption movement in Italy — was launched and Interior Minister Mehmet Agar had to resign from his post and serve a prison sentence of one year and four days. Ultimately, the Clean Hands operation could not advance as much as it did in Italy.
Erdogan’s AKP went on to establish itself and was running the country properly. Up until the early years of the second decade of the 20th century, there was little opposition to the policies followed by his party. For several years, the AKP did everything to gain the favor of public opinion. It continued to maintain the support of the electorate, albeit with a reduced performance. The party was losing support, but it was able to stay in power partly thanks to the support extended to it by the far-right Nationalist Movement Party. However, in each new election, the AKP lost support.
The complicated atmosphere of the second half of the 1990s helped the so-called reformist movement led by Erdogan to establish the AKP and, because of the splintered nature of the opposition, this new party secured an absolute majority of seats in 2002 — the first elections in which it had participated.

The AKP also performed fairly well in its next two elections. After its third successive electoral victory, the party must have grown arrogant — or some members of the party must have thought they were entitled to enjoy the benefits of being in power.

Despite the disadvantages, Erdogan remains a strong political leader. He may still turn many elements to his advantage.

Yasar Yakis

Other dynamics in political life also played a role. The desire of public opinion to see another political party in power is one of them. When the AKP was established in 2002, there was a dusty atmosphere. The author of this article was one of the founders of the AKP. I remember that Erdogan was distinguished as a political leader. He did many things better than any other political figure. When we were debating various policy options, I thought that we should leave the choice to Erdogan because his proposals were frequently better than all other options.
However, from the early years of the third decade of the 20th century, support for the AKP started to slow down and it lost the majority of the seats in the municipal councils. The main opposition Republican People’s Party won most of the metropolitan municipalities. This may be a precursor to an AKP failure in the next general election, but in politics we have to be ready for all surprises, whether bad or good.
As of the second decade of the AKP, corruption — which had always been widespread in the country — continued to grow. Several gang leaders made their way into the bureaucratic, security and political elites.
Erdogan fought valiantly against the weaknesses of the party, but those who were benefiting from the advantages of being in power changed the balance to their advantage and the downward trend in public opinion became difficult to control.
The president has wider visions. He has introduced many grandiose projects. But some of them are fiercely opposed by another segment of Turkiye’s opinion.
Erdogan’s entanglement is conservatism. The Turkish electorate is also predominantly conservative, but this conservatism is slightly different from that of other Middle Eastern countries. The Kemalist reforms of the early 1920s made Turkiye a slightly different country. It is still fighting the effects of these reforms.
However, the younger generation has started to question many conservative values. Erdogan is therefore squeezed between a rock and a hard place. Will he be able to regain the support that he lost from part of the conservative audience?
Despite the disadvantages, Erdogan remains a strong political leader. He may still turn many elements to his advantage.

• Yasar Yakis is a former foreign minister of Turkiye and founding member of the ruling AK Party. X: @yakis_yasar