The electoral defeat of Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary in April reminded the world that despite having rewritten the rules of the political game in his own favor, a strongman can lose, even in an unfree and unfair election.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey has defied political gravity for even longer than Orban, with a heavy-handed resourcefulness few other political leaders can match. After 23 years in power, he still has tricks up his sleeve: last month a Turkish court weakened the main opposition party by replacing its effective and charismatic leader with a former chairman famous for losing elections against Erdogan. Will it be enough to further extend his tenure?
For decades, Turkey’s leaders, both civilian and military, adhered to the secular model of politics championed by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who forged the Turkish republic from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire. Power rested with nationalist, militantly secular elites in Turkey’s largest cities. But in 2002 Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP), supported by socioeconomically marginalized and observant Turkish Muslims, brought the country’s Anatolian heartland to the center of Turkey’s politics.
Erdogan served as Prime Minister for 11 years before becoming the country’s first popularly elected President in 2014. He then used a 2017 constitutional referendum to shift power from parliament to the presidency. His new powers allowed Erdogan to write new laws, rewrite old ones, appoint other senior public officials, ratify treaties, and control the country’s armed forces. Watchdogs accused him of trying to control Turkey’s political process, media, and courts, and the talented Mr. Erdogan won re-election as President in 2018 and 2023.
In recent years, as he mismanaged the economy, failed to control inflation, and turned increasingly autocratic, voters have rebuked Erdogan and his party. In 2024, the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), founded by Ataturk and led at the time by Ozgur Ozel, scored big wins in local elections. Ekrem Imamoglu, a young, charismatic CHP politician, won the mayoral election in Istanbul, where Erdogan had served as mayor in the 1990s.
Erdogan historically answers setbacks for his party by making life difficult for challengers. Criminal investigations have led to the arrests of hundreds of opposition politicians, charges that rights groups and the CHP claim were politically motivated. Imamoglu, who was positioning himself as a challenger to Erdogan in the next presidential election, was arrested in 2025 on corruption charges that carry a combined sentence of more than 2,300 years. He has been behind bars awaiting trial for more than a year.
The latest judicial attack on the opposition came on May 21, when an appeals court canceled the results of an internal election for the leadership of CHP that had made the increasingly popular Ozel leader of the party. The court unseated him and reinstated his predecessor, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.
Kilicdaroglu, 77, is best known for leading the CHP to five consecutive parliamentary election defeats from 2011 to 2023, and for losing the presidential election to Erdogan in the last election. The court’s decision set off another round of political turmoil, sending the country’s stock market sharply lower and protests into the streets of Turkish cities.
Once again, Erdogan appears to have sidelined his most dangerous challenger and divided the opposition. But this time may be different, as his options are narrowing. Turkey’s current constitution forbids a President from serving more than two five-year terms, leaving Erdogan ineligible to seek re-election in the vote scheduled for 2028. Two loopholes exist. He could try to amend the constitution. Or he might use a provision in the constitution to call an early election that shortens his second term but allows him a third. However, Erdogan and the AKP currently lack the parliamentary supermajorities required to bring about either option.
Still, Erdogan’s latest maneuvers signal that he has no plans to quietly exit the political stage. For now, the opposition must regroup, unify around a single candidate, and wait for his next move.
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