Erdogan, who is married and has four children, remains, in the eyes of his supporters, the only one capable of “confronting” the West and steering the ship through regional and international crises.
After two decades in power, the outgoing Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, seemed threatened by the repercussions of the economic crisis and his monopoly on power, but the “President” topped the results of the first round of the third presidential elections he is running, contrary to all expectations.
In Ankara, on the balcony of his AKP headquarters in front of a crowd of enthusiastic supporters on the evening of the first round of elections, the president gave a clear signal to his country: a message of stability.
Unlike in 2014 and 2018, he did not win the battle in the first round, but he enters the second round, Sunday, May 28, from a position of strength, by obtaining 49.5% of the vote, compared to 45% for his rival, opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu.
Neither imprisonment nor mass demonstrations, nor even the 2016 coup attempt, succeeded in halting the rise of “the president,” as his supporters like to call him. But this year he is facing severe criticism because of the state of the Turkish economy and the anger of the survivors of the devastating February 6 earthquake, who were left to face their fate in the first days after the disaster.
But the results of the first round proved that this devout Muslim, who advocates family values, is still the champion of the conservative majority that has long been despised by the civil and secular elite.
Erdogan brought about a profound transformation in Turkey through massive infrastructure projects that included the construction of highways, airports and mosques, and a foreign policy open to East and Central Asia at the expense of Ankara’s traditional Western allies, whom he tried to court after he came to power.
Despite his alienation from the West, the war in Ukraine allowed him to return to the diplomatic forefront thanks to his mediation efforts between Kiev and Moscow – while blocking Sweden’s entry into NATO nearly a year ago.
But Erdogan’s opponents accuse him of authoritarian tendencies, especially after the coup attempt that took place in July 2016 and the constitutional amendments in 2017 that expanded his powers.
An orator
Erdogan is often portrayed in the West as a sultan clinging to the throne, but the man nostalgic for the Ottoman Empire who built a palace of more than a thousand rooms in Ankara continues to present himself as a man of the people in the face of the “elites”.
He has cemented his image by winning every election since his Justice and Development Party took power in 2002. However, he was subjected to political tremors, especially when the opposition deprived him of his parliamentary majority in 2015, and then of the presidency of the municipalities of Ankara and Istanbul in 2019.
Although his movement slows down at times, Recep Tayyip Erdogan is still able to hold eight meetings in one day, and displays his rhetorical abilities, citing nationalist poems and Quranic verses to excite the crowds.
Erdogan was born in the popular Qasimpasa district of Istanbul and was looking forward to professional football, which he practiced for a short time, before moving into politics.
He learned the origins of the political game within the Islamic movement that was led by Necmettin Erbakan, then he was pushed to the fore with his election as mayor of Istanbul in 1994.
In 1998, he was sentenced to imprisonment after he sang a religious poem, in an incident that contributed to strengthening his position.
He had the opportunity to take revenge when the Justice and Development Party, which he co-founded, won the 2002 elections. The following year he became prime minister and remained in this position until 2014 when he became the first Turkish president to be elected by direct universal suffrage.
Erdogan, who is married and has four children, remains, in the eyes of his supporters, the only one capable of “confronting” the West and steering the ship through regional and international crises.
But since large anti-government demonstrations were violently suppressed in the spring of 2013, Erdogan has become the figure facing the most criticism in Turkey.
The president faced the most severe test on the night of July 15-16, 2016, during a bloody coup attempt.
The image of a pale-faced Erdogan was imprinted in the minds, as he issued an appeal to the people that night via a mobile phone screen, and then after that he arrived triumphantly at the old Ataturk Airport in Istanbul at dawn, announcing the defeat of the putschists.
If he is re-elected on May 28, decades after the massive Gezi protest movement that he severely suppressed, his grip on the country will be further consolidated despite the discontent of his opponents.
