Turkey’s "Last Exit": The Prospects for Change Look Blurred Once Again
The jailing of the Mayor of Istanbul is the spark that has ignited the powder keg in the major cities, but the continued divisions between the two major opposition parties remain a key factor.
Mass protests that erupted after the arrest of Ekrem İmamoğlu, Mayor of Istanbul, seem to be subsiding now as we enter the second week. Led overwhelmingly by university students—in other words, members of a generation born with Erdoğan in power—the demonstrators were met with brutal police force and house raids.
According to official data, nearly 2,000 people have been apprehended. The number of those detained and sent to prison to be tried varies between 200 and 600. Two foreign reporters were arrested, and one of them — the BBC correspondent — was deported.
If one reason is the deterrent acts by a massive police mobilization, the other lies with the major political actor that has risen—surprisingly—to the occasion to challenge and rattle President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The main opposition party, the CHP, has declared it is terminating its night rallies. It has called for a final daytime gathering this Saturday on the Anatolian side of Istanbul, seen as a final confrontation.
Özgür Özel, CHP’s leader, who had emerged as a strong and loud figure with his toughened rhetoric, has begun to tone down his volume. He said that the action will shift toward collecting a minimum of 17 million signatures nationwide to pressure Erdoğan and his ally Devlet Bahçeli to call for early elections.
This may be an erroneous choice because recent history has shown that it is Erdoğan who, at the end of the day, will decide when it is ripe for him to do so. He has control over four powers—including the media—and normally goes his own way. Indeed, a week that shook Turkey—for the first time in 12 years—seems not to have rattled his posture.
He continues to maintain a high-decibel rhetoric, repeating that even bigger blows against the main opposition party are underway. By this, he probably means a tighter squeeze on the party’s current leadership, particularly concerning the cancellation of the latest congress that brought Özel to leadership. It is known that a massive inquiry is ongoing, based on allegations that bribes were paid to delegates to vote for Özel. There are strong rumors that several CHP deputies may soon see their immunities lifted in connection with this case.
Özel keeps sounding euphoric, even victorious, but the fact remains: Mayor İmamoğlu has been sent to jail instead of being released, and no legal expert can predict how long he will spend in his cell. Given what has happened with Selahattin Demirtaş, the former leader of the pro-Kurdish HDP, and Osman Kavala, a prominent civil society figure—both of whom were kept imprisoned for nine and eight years, respectively, despite ECtHR rulings—it would be realistic to predict that İmamoğlu could remain jailed at least until the next elections.
Neither Özel nor more than a few pundits in Turkey seem aware of the new phase Erdoğan has unleashed: İmamoğlu is a symbol of Turkey being drawn into the norms of a Central Asian republic, where the opposition is either merely “on paper” or totally annihilated.
“At first glance, this appears to be a familiar kind of operation, spreading an antitoxin to neutralize the poison, as has been seen in crackdowns against the so-called ‘FETÖ’ community (Gülen Movement, ed.), dissident intellectuals, journalists, and the Kurdish movement and its leaders,” wrote Menderes Çınar, a prominent political scientist, in a strong analysis that deviates from the overly optimistic opposition camp’s.
“However,” he went on, “this diagnosis does not fully reflect reality. This time, the government is not only expanding and deepening its objectives and the front it targets, but it is also entering a new, ruthless phase—one devoid of politics and morality—where it is willing to accept all manner of destructive consequences in its approach, strategy, and actions against the opposition and its leader.”
Erdoğan had already, in sync with his ally Bahçeli, unleashed his great gamble last autumn. By offering PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan his “right to hope” as he marked 25 years in prison, in return for the dissolution of his organization, and clearly calculating that he will get the pro-Kurdish DEM Party’s 57 deputies on board for constitutional amendments, he hits two birds with one stone. Erdoğan may have the term limits for the presidency lifted, and there will be an enduring division between the CHP and DEM, making the crippling of the CHP easier.
In short, Turkey’s strongman is intent on breaking the backbone of Turkey’s political opposition and securing a lifetime presidency. It is the highest-stakes gamble he is engaged in. Whether or not he has already forced his hand depends on whether the CHP will lose its links with its discontented secular grassroots base, but perhaps more so on whether the DEM Party will continue what it sees as a “peace process” in line with Erdoğan’s power structure.
Therefore, ever since the outset, DEM—or the Kurdish segment—keeps sending mixed signals. Most recently, Tuncer Bakırhan, the co-leader of the party, said that the Kurds “would not take to the streets for the CHP, ” because “we (the Kurdish political movement) are busy with bigger projects, like the democratization of all of Turkey.”
These ambigious words were immediately applauded by the ultra-nationalist MHP party’s leader, Devlet Bahçeli. Is this a sign of secret talks between the government and the PKK? Nobody has a clear answer, as double-talk continues.
In any case, the choices of the CHP and DEM will have to be put in the same context because the success or failure of the regime lies therein. Erdoğan has all the tools for oppression, but a united front between Turkish and Kurdish voters will be a tougher nut to crack. At the time of writing, DEM stands in limbo, caught between Erdoğan’s palace and the CHP.
So, this is a tougher phase than imagined. As usual, there has been what Turkey expert Steven Cook calls “irrational exuberance” that this is the beginning of the end for Erdoğan. There is also, once again, a flow of definitions, such as “entry into uncompetitive authoritarianism” and similar wordplays.
The notion that the rule of law or separation of powers still applies in Turkey reflects only naivety and illusions found in many commentaries. Since the regime change in 2017, Turkey has already moved onto that ground, having become a “security state” with a growing military-industrial complex—giving Erdoğan clear leeway to maneuver in today’s chaotic world affairs.
The aloofness of the Trump administration and the timidity of the EU (except for French President Emmanuel Macron) are signs that he has correctly calculated the stakes of his gamble. Erdoğan may be a leader the West cannot easily live without.
Jailed İmamoğlu has highlighted the persistent hypocrisy of Turkey’s allies.
“Undoubtedly, the latest developments—Russia’s war in Ukraine, the downfall of the Assad regime in our neighbor Syria, and the destruction in Gaza—have increased Turkey’s strategic importance, especially considering its capacity to contribute to European security,” he wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times, adding, “However, geopolitics should not lead us to overlook the erosion of values, particularly human rights violations. Otherwise, we risk legitimizing those who are dismantling the global rules-based order piece by piece. The survival of democracy in Turkey is not only crucial for the people of this country but also for the future of democracy worldwide.”
Nikos Konstandaras, a Greek colleague writing in Kathimerini, concurs:
“If the Europeans turn a blind eye to what Erdoğan is doing in Turkey, this will devalue democracy—the very idea of democracy—in their own countries. As Europe is turning into one of the last bastions of liberal democracy, democracy here must survive if its flame is to spread again when and if the Trump era passes. That is why what happens on Turkey’s streets will shape the future.”
Nobody should fool themselves: Regardless of the hype, Erdoğan has the upper hand, testing once more whether the political opposition will pull its act together.
“If the Turkish president is able to sustain his power through the crisis his unbounded ego created, he will step up repression,” wrote Steven Cook in Foreign Policy. “İmamoğlu will not be the only politician in legal jeopardy. And much like after the Gezi Park protests, Erdoğan and his advisors will seek to further divide Turks and those who are not. This will only deepen Turkey’s culture wars and provide justification for ever-increasing coercion and force against Erdoğan’s opponents. Think of Erdoğan’s post-failed coup purge of 2016, but worse.”
Once more, Turkey, severely crisis-ridden for more than a decade, stands before an existential watershed. And nobody knows how its story will develop.
