In Türkiye Election, Erdogan Doesn’t Flinch as He Fights for Political Life

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses his supporters during a rally ahead of the May 14 presidential and parliamentary elections, in Ankara, Türkiye April 30, 2023. (Reuters)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses his supporters during a rally ahead of the May 14 presidential and parliamentary elections, in Ankara, Türkiye April 30, 2023. (Reuters)
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In Türkiye Election, Erdogan Doesn’t Flinch as He Fights for Political Life

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses his supporters during a rally ahead of the May 14 presidential and parliamentary elections, in Ankara, Türkiye April 30, 2023. (Reuters)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses his supporters during a rally ahead of the May 14 presidential and parliamentary elections, in Ankara, Türkiye April 30, 2023. (Reuters)

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has nurtured an image of a robust and invincible leader over his two decades in power, yet he appears vulnerable as the political landscape may be shifting in favor of his opponent in Sunday's presidential vote.

Erdogan emerged from humble roots to rule for 20 years and redraw Türkiye’s domestic, economic, security and foreign policy, rivalling historic leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk who founded modern Türkiye a century ago.

The son of a sea captain, Erdogan has faced stiff political headwinds ahead of Sunday's election: he was already facing blame over an economic crisis when a devastating earthquake hit in February. Critics accused his government of a slow response and lax enforcement of building rules, failures they said could have cost lives.

As opinion polls show a tight race, critics have drawn parallels with the circumstances that brought his Islamist-rooted AK Party to power in 2002, in an election also shaped by high inflation and economic turmoil.

Two days before the vote, Erdogan said he came to office through the ballot boxes and if he had to, would leave the same way.

"We will accept as legitimate every result that comes out of the ballots. We expect the same pledge from those opposing us," he said in a televised interview on Friday.

For his enemies the day of retribution has come.

Under his autocratic rule, he amassed power around an executive presidency, muzzled dissent, jailed critics and opponents and seized control of the media, judiciary and the economy. He crammed most public institutions with loyalists and hollowed critical state organs.

His opponents have vowed to unpick many of the changes he has made to Türkiye, which he has sought to shape to his vision of a pious, conservative society and assertive regional player.

The high stakes in Sunday's presidential and parliamentary election are nothing new for a leader who once served a prison sentence - for reciting a religious poem - and survived an attempted military coup in 2016 when rogue soldiers attacked parliament and killed 250 people.

A veteran of more than a dozen election victories, the 69-year-old Erdogan has taken aim at his critics in typically combative fashion.

He has peppered the run-up with celebrations of industrial milestones, including the launch of Türkiye’s first electric car and the inauguration of its first amphibious assault ship, built in Istanbul to carry Turkish-made drones.

Erdogan also flicked the switch on Türkiye’s first delivery of natural gas from a Black Sea reserve, promising households free supplies, and inaugurated its first nuclear power station in a ceremony attended virtually by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

His attacks against his main challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, have included accusations without evidence of support from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has been waging an insurgency since the 1980s in which more than 40,000 people have been killed. Kilicdaroglu has denied the accusations.

'Building Türkiye together'

Polls suggest voting could go to a second round later this month - if neither Erdogan nor Kilicdaroglu win more than 50% of the vote - and some show Erdogan trailing. This hints at the depth of a cost-of-living crisis sparked by his unorthodox economic policies.

A drive by authorities to slash interest rates in the face of soaring inflation aimed to boost economic growth, but it crashed the currency in late 2021 and worsened inflation.

The economy was one of Erdogan's main strengths in the first decade of his rule, when Türkiye enjoyed a protracted boom with new roads, hospitals and schools and rising living standards for its 85 million people.

Halime Duman said high prices had put many groceries out of her reach, but she remained convinced Erdogan could still fix her problems. "I swear, Erdogan can solve it with a flick of his wrist," she said at a market in central Istanbul.

The president grew up in a poor district of Istanbul and attended Islamic vocational school, entering politics as a local party youth branch leader. After serving as Istanbul mayor, he stepped onto the national stage as head of the AK Party (AKP), becoming prime minister in 2003.

His AKP tamed Türkiye’s military, which had toppled four governments since 1960, and in 2005 began talks to secure a decades-long ambition to join the European Union - a process that later came to a grinding halt.

Greater control

Western allies initially saw Erdogan's Türkiye as a vibrant democracy. But his drive to wield greater control polarized alarmed international partners. Fervent supporters saw it as just reward for a leader who put Islamic teachings back at the core of public life in a country with a strong secularist tradition, and championed the pious working classes.

Opponents portrayed it as a lurch into authoritarianism by a leader addicted to power.

After the 2016 coup attempt authorities launched a massive crackdown, jailing more than 77,000 people pending trial and dismissing or suspending 150,000 from state jobs. Rights groups say Türkiye became the world's biggest jailer of journalists for a time.

Erdogan's government said the purge was justified by threats from coup supporters, as well as ISIS and the PKK.

At home, a sprawling new presidential palace complex on the edge of Ankara became a striking sign of his new powers, while abroad Türkiye became increasingly assertive, intervening in Syria, Iraq and Libya and often deploying Turkish-made military drones with decisive force.



War-weary Syrians and Lebanese Watch from the Sidelines as Missiles Fly in Israel-Iran Conflict 

A Syrian man takes pictures with his mobile phone of Iranian missiles on their way toward Israel, as they pass over Damascus airspace, Syria, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP)
A Syrian man takes pictures with his mobile phone of Iranian missiles on their way toward Israel, as they pass over Damascus airspace, Syria, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP)
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War-weary Syrians and Lebanese Watch from the Sidelines as Missiles Fly in Israel-Iran Conflict 

A Syrian man takes pictures with his mobile phone of Iranian missiles on their way toward Israel, as they pass over Damascus airspace, Syria, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP)
A Syrian man takes pictures with his mobile phone of Iranian missiles on their way toward Israel, as they pass over Damascus airspace, Syria, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP)

In a park overlooking Damascus, 25-year-old Khaldoun Hallak has spent the past few evenings with his friends, drinking yerba mate, snacking on nuts, smoking hookah pipes and watching the sky for missiles streaking overhead.

“We’ve been through 14 years of war, and this is the first time Syria has nothing to do with it and we’re just spectators,” Hallak said.

Since Israel launched a barrage of strikes on Iran last week and Iran retaliated with missile and drone attacks against Israel, neighboring countries have been in the flight path.

Outside the scope

Downed missiles and drones have fallen in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, damaging houses, causing fires and reportedly killing one woman in Syria. But those countries have so far not been dragged directly into the conflict, which had killed at least 224 people in Iran and 24 in Israel as of Tuesday, and many in their war-weary populations are hoping it stays that way.

In Lebanon, which is still reeling from last year’s war between Israel and the Hezbollah party, videos making the rounds on social media have shown revelers dancing on rooftops while projectiles flash across the sky in the background.

Firas Maksad, managing director for the Middle East and North Africa at the Eurasia Group, a New York-based risk consultancy organization, happened to be visiting Lebanon when the conflict broke out and was attending a wedding when a parade of missiles began lighting up the sky as the DJ played ABBA’s disco hit “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)”. He posted a video of the scene that went viral.

“Certainly most in Lebanon and also Syria are very satisfied to be outside the scope of this,” Maksad said.

No longer in the spotlight, a sense of relief

For some in the region, there is also measure of schadenfreude in watching the two sides exchange blows.

There’s a Syrian expression that literally translates as, “The fang of a dog in the hide of a pig.” It means that two people perceived as despicable are fighting with each other. The phrase has surfaced frequently on social media as Syrians express their feelings about the Israel-Iran conflict.

Watching from a park

Many Syrians resented Iran’s heavy-handed intervention in support of former President Bashar al-Assad during the country’s civil war, but are also angered by Israel’s incursions and airstrikes in Syria since Assad’s fall. The Syrian population also widely sympathizes with the Palestinians, particularly with civilians killed and displaced by the ongoing war in Gaza.

“May God set the oppressors against each other,” said Ahmad al-Hussein, 18, in Damascus, who was sitting in a park with friends waiting to see missiles pass overhead Monday night. “I hope it continues. We’ve been harmed by both of them.”

Hallak echoed the sentiment.

“Every time we see a missile going up, we say, may God pour gasoline on this conflict,” he said. “If one side is hit, we will be happy, and if the other side is hit, we will also be happy. We will only be upset if there is a reconciliation between them.”

In Lebanon, where last year’s Israel-Hezbollah war killed more than 4,000 people, including hundreds of civilians, and left destruction in wide swathes of the country’s south and east and in Beirut’s southern suburbs, some see retribution in the footage of destroyed buildings in Tel Aviv.

Hezbollah remains largely quiet

A US-brokered ceasefire deal brought an end to the latest Israel-Hezbollah war in November. The group, which lost much of its senior leadership and arsenal in the conflict, has remained largely quiet since then and has given no indication that it intends to join the fray between Israel and Iran.

Israeli forces have continued to occupy several border points in southern Lebanon and to carry out regular airstrikes on what Israel says are Hezbollah facilities since the ceasefire.

“Of course I am against the Israeli occupation, and Iran is an Islamic country standing up to it,” said Hussein al-Walid, 34, a welder in the southern coastal city of Sidon.

Iran's axis

Despite the dramatic scenes of buildings reduced to rubble in Israel, Tehran and other Iranian cities have taken a worse pounding and other regional countries, including Lebanon, could still be pulled into the conflict.

Caroline Rose, a director at the Washington-based New Lines Institute think tank said that while it seems “clear that Iran-backed proxies across the region, particularly Hezbollah, just do not have the capacity” to enter the fray, Israel could decide to expand the scope of its offensive beyond Iran.

One of the goals announced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was to eliminate Iran’s “axis of terrorism” - the coalition of Tehran-backed armed groups across the region known as the “Axis of Resistance.”

That goal “is ambiguous and offers Israel the operational space to expand this war to countries it deems are hosting Iran-backed proxies, no matter how weak they may be,” Rose said.

Al-Walid shrugged off the possibility of a new war in Lebanon.

“The war is already present in Lebanon,” he said. “Israel isn’t abiding by the agreement and is striking every day.”

Hassan Shreif, a 26-year-old student from the city of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon, where Hezbollah has a strong base of support, said that after last year’s war in Lebanon and the heavy losses suffered by the group, many of its supporters “were clearly anguished and didn’t feel vindicated.”

“So, anything, even a window breaking in Tel Aviv, is (now) a victory for them,” he said. Every time Iranian missiles pass overhead, he said, people in the area break out in shouts of jubilation.

At the same time, Shreif said, “there’s always a silent group hugging the wall as we say in Arabic, treading carefully and praying we stay out of it.”