Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s dismissal would initiate enormous upheaval in Turkey, with loud reverberations in the region and around the world
It is not all hollow rhetoric. Mr Erdogan took power in 2003, on the heels of an inflationary spiral and a banking crisis that had trampled the economy. He initially presided over steady growth, in the economy as a whole and in the middle class. Many Turks benefited enormously and remain loyal to Mr Erdogan as a result.
The opposition, in contrast, promises a return to economic orthodoxy. It is led by Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a former official in the finance ministry and head of a state-pension agency, whose understated personality offers a striking foil to Mr Erdogan’s grandstanding. In terms of institutional reforms, too, the government and opposition offer starkly different programmes. Mr Erdogan has strongly centralised power in the presidency, which used to be a largely ceremonial office, while abolishing the job of prime minister and diminishing the role of parliament. He has also used the state’s power in extremely partial and punitive ways. He has stiffened and abused a law against insulting the president, which is now punishable by up to four years in prison.
All these changes, however, will only be possible if the opposition prevails. It is a mixed bunch. Mr Kilicdaroglu’s Republican People’s Party had for decades clung to the statist and secular legacy of Turkey’s modern founder, Kemal Ataturk, and opposed any outward expression of Islamic faith. The Good Party’s leader, Meral Aksener, served briefly as interior minister in the 1990s, when human-rights abuses in the Kurdish south-east were at their worst.
To win the presidential election in the first round of voting, a candidate must secure more than 50% of the vote. With two other candidates running in addition to Messrs Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu, that is unlikely. So the race is likely to go to a run-off on May 28th.
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