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Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan attends the NATO leaders summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.
How Erdogan won the NATO Summit
This week’s NATO Summit in Vilnius is now over. So, who won?
It’s not Ukraine. NATO leaders bathed President Volodymyr Zelensky in waves of warm words and historic-sounding promises. But, as we wrote a day ago, none of that brings his country much closer to the NATO membership he wants. (That said, Ukraine isn’t really a loser, because neither immediate membership nor a timetable to join were ever in the cards.)
Certainly, Sweden is a winner — thanks to Turkey’s willingness to drop its threat to veto the country’s own entrance into NATO. Sweden will become the alliance’s 32nd member by the end of the year.
Russia’s government will declare itself a winner by pointing to (exaggerated) headlines that suggested Ukrainian and NATO leaders spent the week arguing. But the Kremlin’s already hollow win — and its claims of Ukrainian-Western frictions — were undermined when news broke that Ukraine had used a UK-supplied missile to kill a high-ranking Russian general deep inside Russian territory.
The true summit winner is Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He exited the event with a spring in his step …
… by earning concessions from Sweden, which will now back the expansion of a free trade agreement between the EU and Turkey. Sweden has also recently amended its Constitution to pass new counterterrorism legislation that Erdogan demanded, and agreed to extradite some of the Turks who’ve been charged with crimes by Ankara.
… by reminding Europe, Turkey’s largest export market, that he’s worth bargaining with. Erdogan’s support for Ukraine — including by selling Kyiv military drones — has won praise in Europe. But Erdogan remains the one NATO leader of consequence who can speak directly with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Both these things bolster Erdogan’s importance for the alliance, but his willingness to lift objections to Sweden’s entry, as he did for Finland, has earned him much goodwill, at least for now.
…by reminding Putin he’s not a pushover. At times, Russia has appeared to bully Erdogan’s government. In 2016, in response to Turkey shooting down a Russian fighter plane over Syria in November 2015, Putin inflicted real damage on Turkey’s economy by blocking Russian tourists from visiting. By voting for NATO enlargement, Erdogan reminds Putin that Turkey still has partners far more powerful than Russia.
…by winning a promise he can buy F-16s from the United States. In 2017, Turkey defied US objections and bought surface-to-air missile systems from Russia. Washington then responded with sanctions. But by greenlighting Sweden’s bid to join NATO, Turkey will soon be allowed to buy US-made fighter jets that are badly needed to upgrade Turkey’s air force. And that’s over the objections of many in Washington, who feel Erdogan’s history of jailing journalists and undermining democratic institutions in Turkey should have prevented the deal.
… and by showing Turkish voters that he’s still a major international player.
There is one last twist. Erdogan has decided to make Sweden sweat a little longer by saying Turkey’s parliament won’t officially vote on the Nordic country’s NATO membership until October.
When haggling with the Turkish president, nothing ever comes easy.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson shake hands next to NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in Vilnius, Lithuania.
NATO at 32. How about 33?
One of the biggest questions hanging over the NATO summit this week in Vilnius has already been answered: Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed on Monday to remove his block on Sweden’s bid to join the alliance. The fear created by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine led Finland to join the alliance in April, bringing NATO to 31 members. Sweden will now make it 32.
Erdogan had opposed Sweden’s path over complaints that Stockholm had given sanctuary to Kurds he considers terrorists. Some analysts have speculated that Turkey’s president would drop objections in exchange for the right to purchase F16 fighter jets from the United States. We’ll see now whether that deal goes through.
The other question looming over the summit is whether Ukraine might win a promise to make Ukraine member no. 33. US President Joe Biden has already taken immediate membership off the table, at least for now, with the argument that NATO can’t accept a member at war. We understand, said Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday, “but we need a clear signal, and this signal is needed right now.”
This larger question of how NATO leaders will use the event to signal not just open-ended military and financial support for Ukraine – but also a concrete path to future membership – will be closely watched in Russia, Europe, and the US.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan waves as he addresses his supporters in Ankara following his victory in the second round of the presidential election.
Erdogan wins reelection — what's next for Turkey?
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won Sunday's presidential runoff election, beating opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu by a not-too-shabby 4 percentage points in a deeply polarized country. It’s a big victory for Erdogan, who ahead of the first round many thought would finally lose — yet eventually defying the polls to advance, win another term, and enter his third decade in power.
For the next five years, Erdogan will be "politically unencumbered" as his party also won a majority in parliament, Eurasia Group senior analyst Emre Peker explains in this Twitter thread. That will likely mean the Turkish leader will double down on some of his most divisive policies to please his base, including what to do with Syrian refugees.
Things are not looking good for the economy. The lira crashed after Erdogan's runoff victory, as investors fear the president will try to get the country out of its economic crisis with more of his unorthodox policies known as Erdonomics. The same goes for the state of Turkish democracy, while on foreign policy expect Erdogan to continue his delicate balancing act between the West and, well, the enemies of the West.
In Peker's words: "Quite an explosive mix — politically for Erdogan, and personally for all Turkey."
Turkey’s sultan Erdogan is not going anywhere
Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan is … strong.
Despite most opinion polls predicting a win for main-opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a soft-spoken technocrat who leads the secularist Republican People’s Party (CHP), President Erdogan received 49.5% of the votes in Sunday’s presidential election compared to Kilicdaroglu’s 44.9%. Erdogan’s Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its People’s Alliance coalition, meanwhile, defied expectations to retain majority control of Turkey’s 600-member parliament.
On paper, the election was the most serious challenge of Erdogan’s 20-year iron rule.
Turkey’s economy is in shambles, plagued by soaring inflation, a plummeting lira, and a cost-of-living crisis at least partly caused by Erdogan’s kooky economic policies. The government’s shambolic response to February’s deadly earthquake in southeastern Turkey (which killed 50,000 and displaced 1.5 million), added to the AKP’s many corruption and mismanagement scandals, created more headwinds for the president. And, for the first time in ages, Turkey’s notoriously fractious opposition managed to unite behind a joint candidate able to broaden the bloc’s appeal, giving voters a credible alternative to Erdogan.
All this explains why almost every part of the country shifted against Erdogan relative to the most recent presidential election in 2018, forcing the president to a run-off for the first time in two decades.
But while his dominance has slipped, Erdogan remains the most popular leader in Turkey. He has outlived economic downturns, refugee crises, corruption scandals, protest movements, and even a coup attempt. He is a skilled populist with ample experience leveraging the bully pulpit, stoking nationalist sentiment, and exploiting identity politics and security concerns in his favor.
Having dismantled most independent checks on his power (including the military, the judiciary, and the media) and expanded presidential powers, Erdogan’s electoral strength is further underpinned by his incumbency advantages, which allow him to dominate the airwaves and use state levers to woo voters and weaken opponents. Yes, Turkey's election was free ... but it certainly wasn’t fair.
This is why I expected him to clinch reelection, despite polling data showing as much as a five-percentage-point lead for Kilicdaroglu ahead of the first-round vote.
What’s next
While Erdogan came half a point short of the 50% he needed to avoid a runoff, he is the overwhelming favorite to secure the presidency in the second round on May 28.
The math is simple. Erdogan was within just 275,000 votes of winning the presidency outright on Sunday, whereas Kilicdaroglu’s shortfall was 2.8 million. The president will carry that 2.5 million advantage into the runoff, where Kilicdaroglu would need to not only increase or at least maintain his turnout – a huge hurdle given the demoralizing impact of his Sunday losses – but also win virtually all the voters who backed the far-right nationalist Sinan Ogan (5.2%) and the populist Muharrem Ince (0.4%) in order to unseat Erdogan. That’s not going to happen.
Ince had surprisingly withdrawn from the race three days before the vote but remained on the ballot. Most of his supporters are protest or anti-establishment voters who won’t head to the polls for the runoff. Even if they did, at less than 250,000 votes they wouldn’t move the needle for Kilicdaroglu.
Ogan, on the other hand, drew his 2.8 million votes roughly evenly from both Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu. Among them, nationalist voters who typically vote for the Erdogan-allied Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) or the ruling AKP will be highly motivated to cast their ballots for the incumbent to prevent a Kilicdaroglu presidency. But backers of the opposition-aligned, Turkish nationalist Good Party (IYI) are less likely to turn out to support Kilicdaroglu.
Ogan himself has said he’d only endorse the opposition leader if he distances himself from his Kurdish supporters, playing into Erdogan’s baseless accusations that Kilicdaroglu is “backed by terrorists.” But Kilicdaroglu can’t risk alienating the Kurdish vote, which makes up around 10% of Turkey’s electorate.
These numbers alone give Erdogan a nigh insurmountable edge. And that’s before you even get to the campaign trail, where the president will use his incumbency powers and scare tactics to energize his base, depress opposition turnout, and tilt the balance further in his favor.
Why it matters
A victorious Erdogan will be emboldened to double down on the playbook that has hollowed out Turkey’s democracy, turned its economy into a basket case, and distanced it from its traditional Western allies.
The president’s insistence on unorthodox economic policies will prove unsustainable sooner rather than later, pushing the country toward a full-blown economic crisis it’ll have a hard time recovering from.
Little by little, one-man rule will replace the rule of law as Erdogan makes himself sultan for life, pushing Turkey ever closer to autocracy and away from representative democracy.
Abroad, Erdogan will continue his delicate balancing act as he seeks to expand Turkey’s global clout, deepening ties with Russia and China to the chagrin of its longstanding allies, the United States and Europe.
Despite growing mistrust and tension, Turkey’s economic and security dependence on the West means relations will continue to be ruled by pragmatism. Erdogan will continue to both expand trade with Russia and support Ukraine and avoid Western sanctions. He will ratify Sweden’s membership in NATO but only once the US finally agrees to sell him F-16 fighter jets. He will keep Turkey in NATO but increasingly act as a spoiler.
This approach to foreign policy will help cement Turkey’s role as a geopolitical swing state (see today’s Moose treat), but it will also make Ankara a more unreliable ally and increase the risk of miscalculation. As we’ve seen in Russia and China, extreme consolidation of power, centralization of decision-making, and suppression of dissent are a recipe for bad policies. Unchallenged power means unchallenged ability to make mistakes.
A third Erdogan term will bring about a more unstable, authoritarian, and unpredictable Turkey. Short of a miracle on May 28, the future of Turkey looks bleak.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, accompanied by his wife Ermine Erdogan, greets supporters at the AK Party headquarters in Ankara, Turkey.
Why is Erdogan still popular?
By many measures, things aren’t great in Turkey right now.
Inflation is at 44% (down from 85% in October), and analysts say it’s likely higher than official numbers suggest. Meanwhile, the lira, Turkey’s currency, is tanking, having fallen 76% during President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s latest term in office (since 2018).
That’s to say nothing of the 1.5 million people left homeless by February’s devastating earthquake, which killed 50,000 in the country’s south and exposed the depths of Ankara’s cronyism and corruption. The list goes on.
The rules of democratic politics are pretty simple: When the economy is hurting, the incumbent gets punished. But Sunday’s poll shows that Erdogan remains the most popular figure in Turkish politics. The longtime leader reaped 49% of the vote, just below the 50% needed to avoid a runoff, which he is expected to win on May 28. He defied polls that had him playing second fiddle to his rival, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a technocrat leading an alliance of six opposition parties. So what explains Erdogan's enduring appeal?
Populist moves are popular for a reason. A savvy populist dating back to his days as Istanbul’s mayor (1994-1998), Erdogan has long understood that bread-and-butter issues motivate Turkish voters above all else. In many ways, he’s been a modern populist pioneer, with his rallying against the global order and espousal of populist-driven economic policy – dubbed Erdonomics – having inspired similar styles by leaders across the Western world (though notably they haven’t replicated his approach of keeping interest rates low to fight inflation).
Indeed, Erdogan’s penchant for handing out free money to woo voters also helps explain his popularity. Over the past year alone, he has made cheap housing loans a central tenet of his domestic policy and implemented a debt-relief program for millions of Turks. What’s more, six months before the election, he passed a law allowing more than 2 million Turks to retire immediately.
Boosting wages has also been an electoral priority for Erdogan, a strategy that’s resonated in a country where more than 40% of workers earn minimum wage. He hasn’t forgotten those in urban areas either, having also raised the minimum wage for the private sector by 94% year-on-year in Jan. 2023.
Voters tend to care less about rampant inflation and currency crises when they are getting free money.
A pragmatic Islamist. Over the past two decades, Erdogan has managed to appeal to conservatives in the heartland who felt isolated by the secular elite that governed the Turkish Republic since its founding in the 1920s.
A proponent of political Islam, he succeeded where many failed by putting democratic reforms at the top of his agenda to comply with EU regulations and to help integrate Turkey’s economy with the West, while at the same time also reversing the republic’s ban on Islamist education and Islamic dress.
This delicate dance has been a winning strategy in a country where more than a third of Turkish women covered their heads but where adherence to strict religious customs is also slipping.
While other would-be Erdogans have been relegated to the dustbin of history (Egypt’s Mohamed Morsi is a case in point), Erdogan has managed to skillfully integrate Islam into mainstream politics without imposing it on secular Turks.
Things are far from perfect in Turkey. But for many Turks who have seen the Middle East go up in flames since the Arab Spring, Erdogan represents stability, diplomatic clout, Islamic values and economic fruition … and in a tumultuous neighborhood that counts for a lot.
Supporters of Kemal Kilicdaroglu, presidential candidate of Turkey's main opposition alliance, attend a rally ahead of the presidential and parliamentary elections.
Turkey headed to round two
Turkey's presidential election is almost surely headed to a runoff. With more than 99% of domestic ballots and 84% of overseas votes in on Monday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is just short of the 50% he needs to avoid a May 28 second-round contest with Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a technocrat who heads an opposition made up of six parties.
What's more, the president's Islamist Justice and Development Party also looks set to win a majority in parliament.
In an election that was widely viewed as a referendum on Erdogan's 20-year reign, a unified opposition alliance, surging inflation, a currency crisis, and scandals arising from devastating February earthquakes have made this race an uphill battle for Erdogan. But ahead of the vote, the incumbent pulled out all the stops to hold onto the job, including raising public workers' wages by 45%.
Erdogan has also used his increasing sway over the media to minimize his opponents’ exposure in recent months and has been accused of stacking the courts with loyalists and undermining his country’s democracy by marginalizing — and sometimes jailing — critics and independent-minded journalists.
Still, Turkey’s electoral institutions remain strong, and most analysts think the vote has so far been carried our freely.
This election is a big deal for several reasons. Turkey, a NATO member, is seen as a bridge between the Muslim and Western worlds, as well as a crucial conduit between Russia and the West. (Erdogan, for his part, has blocked Sweden from joining NATO, and has been crucial in negotiating a deal with Russia to allow Ukraine food shipments to travel through a safe passage in the Black Sea.)
Indeed, a change of leadership in Turkey would have big ripple effects across the world. While Erdogan this week accused the Biden administration of backing Turkey’s opposition, Kilicdaroglu has pledged to deepen relations with the West.
People look on from a balcony with a banner with the image of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.
Erdogan’s moment of truth
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.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan addresses his supporters during a rally ahead of the May 14 election in Istanbul.
Is the Erdoğan era in Turkey coming to an end?
After dominating Turkish politics for two decades, opinion polls suggest that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan could face his toughest elections ever on May 14. The charismatic, tough-talking politician became prime minister in 2003 after his moderate Islamist party swept to power, breaking with a long tradition of secular government. In 2014, he won the country’s first-ever direct presidential election and then expanded the powers of the office with a new constitution passed in 2017.
A deepening economic crisis – with inflation just under 50% – and a bungled initial response to devastating earthquakes in February have created an opening for an opposition candidate to prevent Erdoğan’s rule from extending into a third decade. That could have implications far beyond Turkey. Though a NATO member, Turkey under Erdoğan has pursued closer relations with Russia and various other policies that have created tensions with its Western partners.
We spoke with Turkey experts at Eurasia Group to get a better sense of what to expect from the upcoming elections.
The polls point to an unusually tight presidential contest – is Erdoğan’s dominance slipping?
Erdoğan’s public support has been steadily weakening since he became president in 2014. His Justice and Development Party (AKP) briefly lost its parliamentary majority in the June 2015 general elections but quickly recovered it a few months later in November snap polls. Ever since, Erdogan and the AKP have had to rely on alliances — primarily with the Nationalist Movement Party, but also some fringe Islamist parties — to maintain his legislative majority and secure reelection as president. Meanwhile, unorthodox policies such as keeping interest rates low despite high inflation have magnified economic challenges, causing fatigue with the AKP’s long rule. First-time voters who have known no leader but Erdoğan are eager for change. While Erdoğan, 69, remains the most prominent Turkish politician, he has largely lost his magic touch for communicating with voters. For example, his reference to the recent earthquakes as “an act of fate” in an effort to downplay their impact stoked more outrage with the government response. All these factors suggest that the Erdogan era is nearing its end — at least in the public psyche.
Who is the leading challenger and what does he need to do to win?
Six opposition parties have joined forces in the Nation Alliance and chosen Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu as their joint candidate. The 74-year-old will be Erdoğan main challenger. To be successful, he needs to maintain the cohesion of a fractious coalition of social democrats, secularists, Islamists, and nationalists. Moreover, he needs to secure the support of Kurdish and left-wing voters. More importantly, Kılıçdaroğlu needs to convince voters that he can effectively preside over a six-party coalition and work with a diverse legislature to fix Turkey’s economic problems. On a practical level, the opposition will have to ensure the security and integrity of the ballot and the vote count.
What does Erdoğan need to do?
The president needs to energize his conservative, Islamist, nationalist base. To that end, Erdoğan will use scare tactics. He will try to associate Kılıçdaroğlu with terrorism, citing his support among pro-Kurdish parties. (Turkey has suffered from a long-running battle with militant Kurdish separatists that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.) Erdoğan will also play on pious voters’ fears of a return to the hardline secularism of pre-AKP governments, insinuating that Kılıçdaroğlu will not respect their religious beliefs. Meanwhile, Erdogan will use the advantages of incumbency — electoral handouts, control of the bureaucracy, influence over the media, etc.— to undermine the opposition campaign.
Is fraud likely?
There have been disputes and allegations of wrongdoing in every Turkish election since 2014. Those involved arbitrary pauses to vote-count updates, allegations of multiple voting, acceptance of irregular ballots, blocking of poll observers, and a forced re-run of the Istanbul mayoral election in 2019. Similar risks exist for the upcoming polls.
How likely do you think it is that Erdoğan would try force a re-run of this election?
If Erdoğan loses the presidential election by a very narrow margin (by less than 1% of the total vote), he could lean on the Supreme Election Council to force a repeat of the election, as he did when his party’s candidate lost the Istanbul mayoral election by less than 14,000 votes to the CHP candidate. (The CHP went on to win the re-run with 800,000 more votes than the AKP.) If Erdoğan manages to cling onto his parliamentary majority with a surprise win in the legislative elections being held at the same time as the presidential vote, he will likely be more inclined to seek a re-run. Should Kılıçdaroğlu win the presidency with a wide margin (more than 2% of the total vote) and the opposition secure a comfortable majority in parliament, Erdogan would be less likely to disrupt the electoral process.
Is violence expected around the elections?
The offices of the AKP and opposition parties in various provinces — including Istanbul — have been attacked by gunmen and vandals. Kılıçdaroğlu has also faced some aggressive heckling and threats around his public gatherings, which caused him to cancel some rallies. Some opposition politicians have also voiced concern over an assassination attempt against Kılıçdaroğlu. While major unrest is unlikely, spontaneous outbreaks of violence are possible in the lead-up to the elections. If there were blatant election disruptions or a very close race, that could trigger demonstrations and street violence, too — albeit likely limited.
Edited by Jonathan House, Senior Editor, Eurasia Group.