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Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan addresses his supporters in Istanbul.
Turkey: Erdogan to run off with the runoff
By most accounts, the only real question ahead of Turkey’s presidential runoff this weekend is: by how much?
It seems all but certain that incumbent president Recep Tayyip Erdogan will defeat challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a technocrat who has cast himself as a moderate alternative to Erdogan’s unique brand of Islamist-inspired populist nationalism.
In the first round, on May 14, Erdogan bucked polling expectations by taking 49% of the vote to Kilicdaroglu’s 45%, while his ruling AK Party also outperformed, winning a majority in parliament. Since then things have only gotten rosier: the third-place finisher, ultranationalist Sinan Ogan, has endorsed him, while Kilicdaroglu’s campaign has floundered.
A strong mandate will almost certainly embolden Erdogan to double down on policies that many critics thought would doom him: suppressing interest rates in order to combat inflation, cracking down on opponents and the media, driving hard bargains with the EU over migrants, and infuriating his NATO allies by keeping cozy with Vladimir Putin.
But as the election results show, Erdogan – for all his eccentric ideas, authoritarian inklings, and economic mismanagement – is genuinely popular even in a deeply divided society. Having overcome the most significant electoral challenge he has faced during his 20 years on the national stage, the wily Erdogan will be vindicated. He is unlikely to change his stripes now.Turkey without friends
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made a lot of foreign governments really mad. Let's call the roll.
Europe. The EU is angry that Turkey is drilling for oil in the eastern Mediterranean, and NATO is furious that member Turkey has defied its protests to purchase S-400 missiles from Russia. Erdogan has repeatedly rejected pushback from EU leaders by calling them fascists and Islamophobes.
Just this week, Erdogan refused to express sympathy with France following the beheading of a French schoolteacher by an Islamist extremist, attacked Macron's own response to the murder, suggested the French president needed "some sort of mental treatment," and countered Macron's vow to crack down on Islamist radicals with calls for a boycott of French products.
US. Last weekend, Erdogan confirmed that Turkey has tested those Russian S-400 missiles, and dared the US to impose sanctions. The Turkish leader has few remaining friends in Washington, and if Joe Biden is elected president and Democrats win a Senate majority, US sanctions become much more likely. "You do not know who you are playing with," said Erdogan last Sunday.
Russia. Vladimir Putin likes to engage Turkey, if only to upset NATO leaders, but he doesn't like that Turkey actively opposes Russian proxies and allies in Syria, Libya, and the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Russia expressed its displeasure earlier this week by bombing a Syrian rebel camp in Idlib, the last stronghold of the Turkish-backed Syrian opposition on Turkey's border.
Saudi Arabia. Longtime rival Saudi Arabia is taking aim at Turkey too. Broad disagreements over the proper role of Islam in politics and specific issues like disputes over the murder in Istanbul of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi have created plenty of bad blood between Erdogan and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman.
Aware that Turkey's economy is in bad shape, the Saudi government has made clear to its business community that it wants a total boycott of Turkish goods into the kingdom. The boycott remains unofficial, and latest economic statistics don't yet show a big impact on Saudi imports, but the push will likely continue, and Turkish companies will feel the heat.
China. Perhaps aware that Turkey will need at least one deep-pocketed friend, Erdogan has been uncharacteristically restrained in his criticism of China for forcing one million Turkic Muslim Uighurs into internment camps in China's Xinjiang region. But even here, Erdogan's government can't completely overlook such a large-scale crime against Muslims, and Turkey's foreign ministry expressed its "concerns" earlier this month.
Turkey's economy is hurting. Erdogan's economic policies are creating turmoil too, and Turkey's people are now suffering real economic pain. Inflation and unemployment are rising. The coronavirus has taken a toll. The currency has hit historic lows against the dollar.
Maybe Erdogan believes that picking fights with foreigners will appeal to national pride and divert public attention from these hardships. It fits the neo-Ottoman image he has worked to build of Turkey as a strong and independent actor on the world stage.
But a strong Turkey needs a strong economy, and the health of that economy depends on both trade and foreign funding. In a moment of economic crisis, new sanctions and boycotts aren't going to help.
The big questions: How much economic pain will Erdogan accept before he becomes less combative with those who have the power to hurt him? And how long before he pays a heavier political price at home?
What We're Watching: Europe's brutal second wave, protests in Iraq, tough talk from Turkey
Europe's second wave: After a brutal spring in which Europe emerged as a coronavirus epicenter, the outbreak largely subsided across the continent in the summer, allowing many Europeans to travel and gather in large groups. But now, a second wave of infection is wreaking havoc across Europe, with the region reporting more than 1.3 million cases this past week alone, according to the World Health Organization, the highest seven-day increase to date. Former coronavirus hotspots like France, Italy, Spain, and the UK are again grappling with a record number of new cases that could soon dwarf the out-of-control outbreaks seen this past spring. Meanwhile, countries like Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic that staved off massive outbreaks in the spring are also seeing an unprecedented number of new daily cases. As Europe now accounts for around 22 percent of all new COVID infections worldwide, hospitals in many cities are being swamped as many struggle to source life-saving equipment. As a result, Spain declared a national state of emergency Sunday, imposing nighttime curfews, while Italy imposed its strictest lockdown since May. Europe's Center for Disease Prevention and Control warned against complacency, noting that while transmission is mostly between younger people, keeping the death rate low, that could swiftly change if Europe doesn't get the virus in check.
Iraq a year later: Marking a year since the outbreak of widespread protests over corruption and joblessness in one of the world's most oil-rich countries, demonstrators in Iraq have again flooded the capital, Baghdad, and other cities with renewed calls to clean up graft and implement broader political and economic reforms. In recent years, unemployment has surged in the country, and millions of Iraqis have fallen into poverty while politicians have continued to line their pockets. The government's brutal crackdown on the last protests in 2019 — killing more than 500 people — remains a rallying cry, even after months of the pandemic largely kept activists off the streets. Police responded to the new wave of demonstrations fiercely, tear-gassing protesters, some of whom hurled Molotov cocktails at security forces. We're watching to see whether this fresh mobilization on the streets will move the needle on overdue reforms. The outcome of the US election could also play a role: will a Biden administration put more pressure on Baghdad to clean up its act?
Erdogan playing with fire: Turkey's strongman president Recep Tayyib Erdogan let loose over the weekend, with a wild speech in which he dared the US to impose sanctions on his country, blasted the EU, and called French President Emmanuel Macron crazy. Erdogan is upset about Washington's warnings not to get more involved in the war over Nagorno-Karabakh, in which Ankara is openly backing Azerbaijan against Armenia, as well as US objections to Turkey's testing of an advanced missile system that it recently bought from Russia. Macron, for his part, needs "mental treatment," the Turkish president said, because of his views on "Islam and Muslims." Macron, who has traded barbs with Erdogan in the past, recently vowed to quash radical Islam after a jihadist beheaded a French teacher. Erdogan has a long history of throwing punches abroad to distract from problems at home, but with the Turkish lira hitting record lows, can he afford to be so pugnacious? The foreign investors whom he depends on to keep his economy afloat seem to think not.