Turkey's Pugnacious Erdogan Bruised but Will Keep Fighting
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan suffered the toughest setback of his career in legislative elections but the pugnacious leader is unlikely to want to surrender his status as his country's undisputed number one.
The Justice and Development Party (AKP), the party Erdogan co-founded to make political Islam an election-winning force in Turkey, lost its majority in Sunday's legislative elections for the first time since it came to power in 2002.
The outcome was particularly painful for Erdogan as he had wanted the AKP, which he has described as his fifth child, to push through a new constitution that would enshrine his status as Turkey's paramount leader.
Erdogan, who became president in August 2014 after over a decade as prime minister, should by rights have played no part in the election campaign as the current constitution states the president should not favor any party.
But he took a major gamble by wading into the campaign on behalf of the AKP, with the drive for the constitution partly turning the election into a referendum on his own divisive rule.
The current constitution, brought in after the 1980 military coup, gives the president a lower-key role.
Erdogan had in spring boldly declared that the AKP should win a super majority with 400 seats in the 550-MP parliament. But in the end, the party won 258 seats.
"He has suffered a heavy loss considering that he failed to accomplish his two main goals -- a single-party government and a transition to an executive presidency," said Ali Carkoglu, Professor of International Relations at Koc University in Istanbul.
"Voters did not approve of Erdogan's increasingly active role in Turkish politics, they think he should have stayed impartial."
- 'Going to be harder' -
While Erdogan prides himself on being one of the great election campaigners in world politics, his hugely aggressive campaigning -- mocking enemies at home and abroad with undisguised venom -- may also have put voters off the AKP.
"Erdogan was a major problem in this election. A lot of Turks are very happy he got his comeuppance," said Steven Cook, senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
"It's going to be very much harder for him to get what he wants."
Already scarred by the mass anti-government protests and corruption allegations of 2013, Erdogan's popularity has lost its shine as Turkey's once pulsating economic growth begins to stutter.
After being unavoidable on television screens over the last weeks, Erdogan all but vanished from sight Monday, traveling from Istanbul to Ankara ahead of a key meeting on Tuesday with Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
There was a huge contrast between the demagogic rhetoric of the campaign rallies and the moderate tone of his post-election written statement in which he called on all parties to act responsibly.
Erdogan, chameleon-like, appeared to have turned back into the apolitical president.
- 'Unlikely to give up' -
But ever with his eye on history, Erdogan is driven to stay in power for another decade and complete his transformative project of a "New Turkey" to realize his dream of ranking in post-Ottoman Turkish history alongside modern Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
He can stand in presidential elections in 2019 and stay in power until 2024, allowing him to preside over celebrations for the 100th anniversary of the founding of the modern Turkish state in 2023.
The authorities have embarked on a sometimes eye-popping array of infrastructure projects leading up to the anniversary, including a new third airport for Istanbul and even a new canal for cargo ships through Istanbul.
"It seems unlikely that a man such as Erdogan, with such acute political instincts and an obvious desire for more power, will give up easily," said Natalie Martin, lecturer in politics and international relations at Nottingham Trent University.
Erdogan has spent much of the last year pursuing his enemies, with legal proceedings pending against dozens on charges of insulting him, and a full crackdown in progress against supporters of his arch enemy, the U.S.-based preacher Fethullah Gulen.
"Erdogan has never been magnanimous in victory. I don't think he will be magnanimous in these circumstances," said Cook, saying the president may yet be eying snap elections as a way out of the impasse.
"I would never count him out... I think he will continue to keep his eye on a presidential system," he said.
Source: Agence France Presse
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