ERDOGAN. In 2003, Recep Tayyip Erdogan became Prime Minister of Turkey before becoming the President thereafter. However, his political opponents have since expressed concern about his tendency to adopt authoritarian and Islamist behavior. The question now arises whether he will be re-elected president.
[Updated May 14, 2023 4:27 PM] For the first time since 2003, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is facing strong unpopularity as the May 14, 2023 elections could upend the Turkish political system. According to the Politico site, Erdogan’s main opponent, Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, would come first in the first round with 49% of the vote, against 47% for the outgoing president. In the event of a second round between the two politicians, the pollsters give Kiliçdaroglu the winner with 51% of the votes, but these very tight figures call for caution.
This unpopularity is largely due to the controversial management of the government following the earthquake that occurred in February 2023. Prices have exploded in the country, with inflation of 50% in March 2023, according to Franceinfo. Faced with this rise in prices and the collapse of the Turkish lira, the president decided to lower the key rates of the Turkish central bank, which is contrary to the recommendations of economists. This unpopular economic policy led to a sharp decline in Erdogan’s popularity.
Since a failed coup in 2016, the conservative Turkish president has finally made an authoritarian turn. Many political opponents were imprisoned, while a purge was carried out in state services. Erdogan has also taken an authoritarian turn, putting religion back at the heart of his political project. Protests are repressed, women’s rights and freedom of the press are restricted. The Kurds have become the target of the Turkish president, especially since the failed coup of 2016. After a referendum in 2017, Erdogan established a presidential regime which considerably strengthens his powers. The post of Prime Minister is abolished and its prerogatives are transferred to the President.
The breath of democracy promised by candidate Erdogan in 2003 now seems a long way off. The Turkish people feel increasingly suffocated by the government’s authoritarian rule and unpopular economic policies. The elections of May 14, 2023 could therefore be a turning point in the political history of Turkey, with a possible alternation in power and a return to more democratic practices. The results can be viewed in real time here.
Erdogan was far from imagining that the presidential election would be so delicate for him. In 2014 and 2018, he was easily elected in the first round. His candidacy is controversial because the Turkish constitution limits the number of presidential terms possible to two. His party explains that the 2017 constitutional revision reset the mandate counter to zero.
The Politico polling institute gives its main opponent, Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, as the winner in the first and second rounds thanks to a method combining several results of opinion polls. Erdogan relies on the image of the providential rebuilder, following the significant damage caused by the earthquake that occurred in February 2023, to win this third presidential election in a row.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan was born on February 26, 1954 in Rize, a city located in northeastern Turkey, near the Black Sea. From his adolescence, he became known as a fervent defender of political Islam. Besides playing in a professional football club, Erdogan is studying at Marmara University. It was at this time that he met Necmettin Erbakan, a historic Islamist leader, and began to campaign within the movements led by Erbakan, despite the ban on religious political parties.
In 1994, Erdogan was elected mayor of Istanbul under the label of the Prosperity Party. This unprecedented victory of an Islamist candidate for the post of mayor provokes hostile reactions from secular circles. However, Erdogan is proving to be a competent and prudent manager. He abandoned the controversial plan to build a mosque in the city’s central square, but managed to ban the sale of alcohol in municipal cafes. In April 1998, he was charged with inciting religious hatred for reciting a poem in which mosques were compared to barracks, minarets to bayonets and believers to an army. Sentenced to ten months in prison, he resigned as mayor.
After an early release after four months, Recep Tayyip Erdogan resumes his political activities. When Necmettin Erbakan’s Prosperity Party was banned in 2001, Erdogan broke with it and helped found the Justice and Development Party (AKP). This new party won the legislative elections of November 2002. However, Erdogan could not be elected deputy nor become president of the Council, that is to say Prime Minister, because of his condemnation in 1998. A constitutional amendment adopted in December 2002 allows to cancel his ineligibility. On March 9, 2003, Recep Tayyip Erdogan won a by-election. A few days later, President Ahmet Necdet Sezer entrusted him with the task of forming the government. Erdogan took office as Prime Minister on May 14, 2003. He has been in power since then but became President of the Republic in 2014.
