Global implications of Erdogan’s historic win

The 2023 election took place against two negative developments, a weak economy, and the devastating earthquake in February

Last month, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won his second term in the most hotly contested election in the last two decades, and cemented his place in Turkish history by becoming its longest-serving ruler. So far, that distinction belonged to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish republic and its first president from 1923 till his death in 1938.

Erdogan’s nimble foreign policy in recent years helped him establish an image as a nationalist. (REUTERS)

The 2023 election took place against two negative developments. First, a weak economy, with inflation running at over 40% and a weakening lira that depreciated by 80% since 2018. The second was the devastating earthquake in February that claimed 50,000 lives and exposed that building codes were violated with impunity because of widespread corruption.

For the first time, six Opposition parties came together determined to end Erdogan’s autocratic rule. The emerging unity led by the Republican People’s Party (CHP) evidently rattled Erdogan, and the government revived an old case against Ekrem Imamaoglu, the popular mayor of Istanbul. After considerable political manoeuvring, 74-year-old Kemal Kilicdaroglu became the Opposition candidate. A soft-spoken former civil servant who entered politics in 1999, he made it clear his goal was to transition Turkey to a parliamentary system and restore the independence and integrity of institutions like the central bank and judiciary.

In the run-up to the elections, opinion polls gave a slight edge to Kilicdaroglu. But in the first round on May 14, Erdogan led with 49.4% of the vote with Kilicdaroglu trailing at 45%. Since Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) coalition retained its majority in parliament, Erdogan made it clear a Kilicdaroglu victory would only lead to political paralysis. In the run-off on May 28, Erdogan maintained his lead, obtaining 52.2% of the vote.

Even though Erdogan controls 90% of the print and audio-visual media, leaving the Opposition to rely on social media, Kilicdaroglu was able to push Erdogan to a second round for the first time in 20 years. His votes came from urban areas, the developed coastal areas in the south and the west, and the Kurdish areas in the east. His open acknowledgement that he is an Alevi and fighting on a liberal platform failed to make a dent in the rural majority Sunni heartland that remained Erdogan’s stronghold. The result is a polarised country with deep divides, on issues of western influence and traditional culture, religion and secularism, values and identity, manifest in growing nationalism.

Erdogan’s nimble foreign policy in recent years helped him establish an image as a nationalist. Even as he expanded Turkey’s influence in areas once part of the Ottoman empire, he balanced concerns with his North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies and its traditional rivals like Russia and Iran, while seeking pole position in the Islamic world. It required brinkmanship, but that appeals to the nationalist sentiment that cuts across the political spectrum.

Erdogan is closer to China and applied to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), but also criticised Beijing’s treatment of Uighurs; is a member of NATO but bought the Russian S-400 missile defence system; seeks to improve ties with Russia but opposes it in the conflicts in Libya and Armenia-Azerbaijan; created an Organisation of Turkic States reflecting shades of neo-Ottomanism; maintains close ties with Qatar and after a downturn in ties with Saudi Arabia on the Adnan Khashoggi murder, and successfully restored ties with the Arab world.

The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia bailed him out by providing $5 billion each to the central bank, and Russia postponed a gas payment of $600 million to 2024. and agreed to fund a $10 billion Akkuyu nuclear power plant.

Now that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has beaten back resistance and is there to stay, Erdogan’s major diplomatic task is to reconcile with him. However, his real challenge is to stabilise an economy rocked by his upside-down policies. To tackle inflation, he has been lowering interest rates and pumping in dollars, but forex reserves are trending into negative territory. He appears confident of western support as he managed to broker the Black Sea grain export deal between Ukraine and Russia, and curbed the flow of refugees into Europe.

Historically, relations with India have been low-key, with Turkey sympathetic to Pakistan on Kashmir, and countering UN Security Council expansion in the permanent category by proposing an expansion only of the non-permanent category. Despite the personal relationship between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Erdogan, borne out of shared experiences of their struggle to get to the top, their recourse to nationalism and invoking a grand past, a deep religiosity and exceptional communication skills, given each leader’s current challenges, the bilateral relationship is likely to remain low-key.

Rakesh Sood is a former ambassador. The views expressed are personal.