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By <\/b>Burak Bekdil<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n September 26, 2019<\/span><\/p>\n BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,300, September 26, 2019<\/span><\/p>\n EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: At testing times, Turkey\u2019s Islamist strongman, President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan, has always sought refuge at home, taking pleasure in his massive popularity. But after 17 consecutive years in power, having won every election in which he ran, Turkey\u2019s self-declared Sultan is showing signs of fatigue \u2013 and his popularity may be wearing thin.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan behaves like a cornered cat when it comes to regional politics: he acts savagely and erratically, lashing out at both real and imagined enemies. His adversaries are the EU (Italy, France, Cyprus, and Greece in particular, due to a row over hydrocarbons in the Eastern Mediterranean), the US, and Israel. In neighboring Syria he is threatening a bloody military assault on the Kurds. He is explicitly unwanted in fellow Muslim countries like Egypt, Lebanon, and the UAE due to his rigid support for Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. In Libya he is waging a proxy war against secular Muslims who want to oust an Islamist government in Tripoli.<\/span><\/p>\n At times like these, Erdo\u011fan has always sought refuge at home, taking pleasure in his massive popularity. But after 17 consecutive years in power, having won every election, Turkey\u2019s Islamist strongman is showing signs of fatigue. And as the country continues to fail both economically and politically, Erdo\u011fan may no longer be invincible.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHe who wins Istanbul wins Turkey\u201d is Erdo\u011fan\u2019s own dictum. He may be right: Istanbul is home to nearly 15% of Turkey\u2019s 57 million voters and accounts for 31% of its GDP. Erdo\u011fan launched his political journey by being elected mayor of Istanbul in 1994.<\/span><\/p>\n On March 31, a little-known opposition candidate, Ekrem Imamo\u011flu, won Istanbul (where more than 11 million voters are registered) by a margin of 13,000 votes. Erdo\u011fan challenged the result and demanded a new vote \u2013 only to lose, the second time, by a margin of 800,000. He lost both Istanbul and Ankara after 25 years of Islamist rule.<\/span><\/p>\n Erdo\u011fan\u2019s bitter defeat came at a time of a rise in anti-government protests, mostly focused on environmental issues. \u201cThe wave of peaceful demonstrations \u2013 the country\u2019s largest since the 2013 Gezi Park rallies \u2013 suggests a newfound vitality among the opposition, with potentially deep implications for Turkey\u2019s democracy,\u201d wrote Soner Ca\u011faptay and Deniz Y\u00fcksel for the Washington Institute. \u201cThis consolidation of power, coupled with frequent crackdowns on protestors, left many in the opposition disheartened.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n With 4.7 million jobless and unemployment continuing to soar, 15% inflation, and high borrowing rates, Turkey\u2019s economy is not functioning well. The national currency, the lira, has been volatile ever since a serious crisis last year.<\/span><\/p>\n Erdo\u011fan is at war with Turkey\u2019s 15 million or so Kurds. He recently appointed government trustees to three overwhelmingly Kurdish provinces in southern Turkey, escalating tensions between Ankara and the Kurdish southeast and further undermining Turkey\u2019s already problematic democratic outlook.<\/span><\/p>\n It would be ironic if Erdo\u011fan were to lose power after his long stretch of Islamist rule. Necmettin Erbakan, whom Erdo\u011fan often referred to as \u201cmaster,\u201d became Turkey\u2019s first Islamist PM in 1995 when he won 21% of the national vote and signed a coalition agreement with a center-right party. Erbakan\u2019s political vision featured a rigid Islamism based on an anti-Western, anti-EU isolationist rhetoric known as \u201cthe National View\u201d \u2013 a bizarre policy blend deeply hated by the (then) strong military top brass. Wisely, Erdo\u011fan parted ways with his \u201cmaster\u201d and burst onto the political stage with a less rigid Islamist policy calculus. His Islamism was to be compatible with Western democratic culture and capitalism, or so he claimed. In a 2000 interview he said \u201che had thrown away the shirt called \u201cNational View.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Erdo\u011fan and his top brass \u2013 whom Erbakan called \u201cour naughty boys\u201d for their departure from the straight and narrow \u2013 held that a more pro-Western rhetoric had to be showcased if Islamists wanted to come to power. This was a political struggle between the Islamist conservative and reformist wings.<\/span><\/p>\n Erdo\u011fan\u2019s second-in-command was his long-time comrade Abdullah G\u00fcl. Through a controversial parliamentary vote in 2007, G\u00fcl became president with Erdo\u011fan, who was PM at the time. Erdo\u011fan and G\u00fcl thus ran the show together, \u00e0 la Putin and Medvedev. In 2009, Erdo\u011fan appointed Ahmet Davuto\u011flu, a G\u00fcl confidante, as FM, and, in 2014, as PM. The third man in Erdo\u011fan\u2019s hall of fame was brilliant economist Ali Babacan, who became finance minister.<\/span><\/p>\n All three men grew disillusioned with Erdo\u011fan\u2019s increasingly despotic one-man approach to governance. Now in political exile, they are showing signs of making a comeback. Last year, this prospect was just another tidbit on the Ankara political grapevine, but it has gone beyond mere speculation. G\u00fcl, Davuto\u011flu, and Babacan are working day and night to formally launch their version of a market-friendly, pro-Western, pro-democracy political party (or two parties).<\/span><\/p>\n Erdo\u011fan has threatened that they will pay a high price for their \u201ctreason\u201d and claimed that a new party (or parties) would mean \u201cdividing the umma<\/i>.\u201d If launched, this would be the sixth Islamist party in Turkey\u2019s political history, with Erdo\u011fan\u2019s emerging as the only successful experiment.<\/span><\/p>\n How popular the \u201cnew party\u201d will be (to use the phrase of Turkish observers) is anyone guess. Erdo\u011fan\u2019s Justice and Development Party, supported by the ultra-nationalist Nationalist Movement Party, appears to be able to give him the 50% plus one vote he needs to be reelected in the presidential elections of 2023. The \u201cnew party\u201d will try to challenge him directly, with the aim of winning a share of his conservative voter base. Observers rightly think the \u201cnew party\u201d will appeal more to \u201cintellectual conservatives\u201d whereas Erdo\u011fan\u2019s party will continue to target less educated Islamists.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cEven if the \u2018new party\u2019 won [only] a couple of percentage points from Erdo\u011fan, it may be the beginning of the end for him,\u201d an Erdo\u011fan confidante admitted.<\/span><\/p>\n *Burak Bekdil is an Ankara-based columnist. He regularly writes for the Gatestone Institute and <\/i>Defense News and is a fellow at the Middle East Forum. He is also<\/i> a founder of, and associate editor at, the Ankara-based think tank <\/i>Sigma.<\/span><\/p>\n source:https:\/\/besacenter.org\/perspectives-papers\/erdogan-populist-charm\/<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Burak Bekdil September 26, 2019 BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,300, September 26, 2019 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: At testing times, Turkey\u2019s Islamist strongman, President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan, has always sought … <\/p>\n