Despite a systematic purge of his rivals, Turkish President Ragab Tayyeb Erdogan still fears losing his grip on power. He overestimated his foreign policy powers and all of Turkey ended up facing the consequences.
Erdogan used all means at his disposal to attempt to wipe away potential hurdles to his ultimate reign. Yet at this moment, Erdogan is more worried than ever about losing his grip on power.
Recent opinion polls suggest he could not win if a presidential race were to take place today. Behind that loss of support are some stubborn mistakes he has kept making over the last five years — the kind of mistakes that tyrants make.
The confessions of an ex-mafia boss revealed some of the shady business that has evolved around Erdogan's regime, including blackmailing businessmen by simply threatening to accuse them of being Gulenists.
In July 2016 Turkey's president survived a coup attempt by a renegade army faction. He said that attempt was ordered by his one-time ally, the US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen, who denies the charges.
Erdogan then declared a state of emergency that has seen some 55,000 people arrested in an unprecedented purge. He and the opposition have vowed to lift the emergency after the election.
Tens of thousands of people, military officials, judges, prosecutors, bureaucrats, academics were expelled from their jobs without cause and replaced by inexperienced party loyalists.
Journalists, authors and members of civil society were sent to prison without any prospect of release. Politicians, including his rivals, had been jailed already.
During last five years, Erdogan called anybody getting in the way terrorists or foreign agents. Torture and maltreatment in police custody became business as usual.
He also used the opportunity of emergency rule to shut down critical voices and media outlets. Such cruelty is hard to ignore, even for sympathizers of the Erdogan regime.
Turkey’s fragile democracy has all but collapsed, and the country’s international orientation seems to have definitively shifted away from its traditional allies in the West.
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