Erdogan’s moment of truth

People look on from a balcony with a banner with the image of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.
People look on from a balcony with a banner with the image of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.
REUTERS/Murad Sezer

Perhaps no election in 2023 will have as much global impact as Turkey’s presidential and parliamentary votes, which begin this Sunday.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has dominated Turkish politics for more than two decades, now faces the toughest test of his political career. That’s partly because millions of voters are feeling the pain of Turkey’s economic crisis, and partly because five opposition parties have united behind a single challenger: technocrat Kemal Kilicdaroglu. Neither man looks poised to surpass 50% of the vote, meaning there will likely be a head-to-head runoff on May 28.

There are real fears that if Kilicdaroglu, who is leading in many polls, wins a close election, the pugnacious Erdogan will simply refuse to accept the outcome, stoking political and legal turmoil. Meanwhile, whatever happens in the presidential race, opposition parties have a strong chance of winning majority control of Turkey’s 600-member Grand National Assembly.

In all, it’s a pivotal moment for a country that is not only a prime player in the Middle East, but also a key interlocutor between the West and Russia, and a major partner of the EU on trade and migration.

More from GZERO Media

- YouTube

As Independence Day approaches, President Trump is delighted to learn that one of America's most ferocious revolutionaries has... mellowed out. #PUPPETREGIME

Demonstrators with US and Ukrainian flags rally near the U.S. Capitol ahead of President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress in Washington, D.C., USA, on March 4, 2025.

Matrix Images/Gent Shkullaku

Here’s a short guide to making sense of why the US cut shipments of Patriot interceptor missiles to Kyiv and how it could affect the course of the Russia-Ukraine war.

On the latest episode of the GZERO World podcast, Ian Bremmer sits down with New York Times columnist Thomas L Friedman to unpack Iran’s stunning defeat and what it means for Netanyahu, Trump, and the path forward in Gaza.

Jess Frampton

Zohran Mamdani was a long shot. But the 33-year-old democratic socialist state assemblyman flew past former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s name recognition and money advantage to win the Democratic primary for New York mayor last week.