Erdoğan Faces a Reckoning

F ollowing a devastating earthquake in 1999 that claimed the lives of over 17,000 people in and around Istanbul, the Turkish government’s sluggish response created an opportunity for Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the city’s mayor, to capitalize on the disaster by demonstrating his competency as a leader and pave his path to the premiership in 2003. Since then (and especially after seizing the presidency in 2014), Erdoğan has ruled Turkey with an iron fist.

But seismic forces are still influencing his political story.

The Turkish people will head to the polls in mid May, and Erdoğan is facing a serious challenger for the first time in years — on the heels of a crisis for which his government is being blamed. Last month, in one of the country’s worst humanitarian disasters in recent memory, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck the region, killing more than 45,000 people in Turkey alone. But the trembler’s effects weren’t only physical — the cataclysm also exposed previously unseen cracks in the edifice of Erdoğan’s power. Many Turkish citizens are placing the blame for this tragedy squarely at the feet of the autocrat, who spent his tenure, both as prime minister and as president, championing a massive increase in housing construction while paying little mind to safety regulations. His government has also done a poor job responding to the disaster and is now facing significant public backlash regarding the inadequacy of the recovery operation.

Erdoğan certainly deserves a real electoral challenge. In just two decades, he has instituted a quasi theocracy, cracked down on political opponents and independent journalism, repressed minorities such as the Kurds, and caused a financial crisis by embracing outlandish monetary theories. He has done all this without ever provoking significant challenge to his rule except for a 2016 coup attempt, which some commentators believe he knew of in advance and allowed to happen so that he could use it as a pretext to further tighten his grip on power through a series of constitutional amendments. On the international stage, he has aided Islamist militants in Syria and Libya, occasionally expressed support for Palestinian terrorism, and been a thorn in the side of NATO even after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. For months, Erdoğan has been forestalling Finland’s and Sweden’s accession to the bloc, which requires the unanimous consent of its members. He recently lifted his objections to Finland’s pending NATO membership, but Sweden’s bid still hangs in the lurch.

Luckily, Turkish democracy hasn’t been eviscerated yet. The pent-up anger of large portions of the Turkish citizenry might yet translate into an electoral reckoning for Erdoğan. The opposition coalition, known as the “Nation Alliance” and consisting of parties from across the political spectrum, has concluded weeks of tough negotiations. Despite coming close to fracturing, the coalition recently selected Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu, a former technocrat and the leader of the center-left Republican People’s Party (CHP), to be its standard-bearer to run against President Erdoğan in the upcoming 2023 Turkish general election. Nicknamed the “Turkish Gandhi” for his slender figure and unassuming demeanor, Kiliçdaroğlu is considered a political maverick for having led his party to success in the 2019 local elections, despite attempts by Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) to invalidate the results of some contests.

Some may doubt Kiliçdaroğlu’s capacity to mount a serious challenge to the powers that be in Ankara, especially considering Erdoğan’s likely reluctance to relinquish power. But at least he’s vulnerable. According to recent polls, Erdoğan is trailing Kiliçdaroğlu by over ten percentage points. In addition to the earthquake-recovery efforts, Turkey is staring down a cost-of-living crisis compounded by record inflation and an ongoing influx of refugees fleeing the horrors of war-torn and now quake-battered Syria. Erdoğan realizes this, which is why there were rumors that he may illegally delay the election, a tactic he has not yet embraced.

As a NATO member state, Turkey’s democratic backsliding and drift towards our adversaries has clear national-security implications for the West. That is why observers will be watching Kiliçdaroğlu closely. If he can eke out a victory, Turkey’s restoring amicable relations with the West is not beyond the realm of possibility. But even with Erdoğan’s grip on power shakier than ever, a Kiliçdaroğlu win is anything but a sure thing. Time will tell if Erdoğan can survive the political aftershocks of the February tremor.