Turkey Presidential Election: Erdogan Faces Fateful Vote

On Sunday, more than 60 million voters throughout Turkey will cast their votes in what may be the most fateful election for the nation since its founding a century ago. Depending on the results, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been ruling the country in an increasingly authoritarian and erratic fashion since 2002, will either further consolidate his grip on power or finally lose it.

For many in the West, it may seem unrealistic, if not naïve, to think that Erdogan could lose. They see that under his rule, Turkey has become an authoritarian regime in which freedom of speech and the rule of law have largely vanished, and many critics of the president have ended up in jail. They also recall the famous quote attributed to Joseph Stalin: “It’s not the people who vote that count. It’s the people who count the votes.”

MA

About the Author

Mustafa Akyol

Mustafa Akyol is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute's Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity and the author of Reopening Muslim Minds: A Return to Reason, Freedom, and Tolerance.

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On Sunday, more than 60 million voters throughout Turkey will cast their votes in what may be the most fateful election for the nation since its founding a century ago. Depending on the results, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been ruling the country in an increasingly authoritarian and erratic fashion since 2002, will either further consolidate his grip on power or finally lose it.

For many in the West, it may seem unrealistic, if not naïve, to think that Erdogan could lose. They see that under his rule, Turkey has become an authoritarian regime in which freedom of speech and the rule of law have largely vanished, and many critics of the president have ended up in jail. They also recall the famous quote attributed to Joseph Stalin: “It’s not the people who vote that count. It’s the people who count the votes.”