Erdogan wins 5th term, ruling for 3 decades.

Turkey’s Erdogan Wins Re-election

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won reelection Sunday, extending his increasingly authoritarian rule into a third decade in a country reeling from high inflation and the aftermath of an earthquake that leveled entire cities.

With nearly 99% of ballot boxes opened, unofficial results from competing news agencies showed Erdogan with 52% of the vote, compared with 48% for his challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

In his first comments since the polls closed, Erdogan spoke to supporters on a campaign bus outside his home in Istanbul. “I thank each member of our nation for entrusting me with the responsibility to govern this country once again for the upcoming five years,” he said. He ridiculed his challenger for his loss, saying “bye bye bye, Kemal,” as supporters booed.

Implications for Turkey and Beyond

Supporters of the divisive populist were celebrating even before the final results arrived, waving Turkish or ruling party flags, and honking car horns, chanting his name and “in the name of God, God is great.” With a third term, Erdogan will have an even stronger hand domestically and internationally, and the election results will have implications far beyond Ankara. Turkey stands at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, and it plays a key role in NATO.

Erdogan’s government vetoed Sweden’s bid to join NATO and purchased Russian missile-defense systems, which prompted the United States to oust Turkey from a U.S.-led fighter-jet project. But it also helped broker a crucial deal that allowed Ukrainian grain shipments and averted a global food crisis.

Sharp Differences in Vision

The two candidates offered sharply different visions of the country’s future, and its recent past. Critics blame Erdogan’s unconventional economic policies for skyrocketing inflation that has fueled a cost-of-living crisis. Many also faulted his government for a slow response to the earthquake that killed more than 50,000 people in Turkey.

Erdogan has retained the backing of conservative voters who remain devoted to him for lifting Islam’s profile in the Turkey, which was founded on secular principles, and for raising the country’s influence in world politics.

Erdogan, 69, could remain in power until 2028. A devout Muslim, he heads the conservative and religious Justice and Development Party, or AKP. Erdogan transformed the presidency from a largely ceremonial role to a powerful office through a narrowly won 2017 referendum that scrapped Turkey’s parliamentary system of governance. He was the first directly elected president in 2014, and won the 2018 election that ushered in the executive presidency.

The first half of Erdogan’s tenure included reforms that allowed the country to begin talks to join the European Union, and economic growth that lifted many out of poverty. But he later moved to suppress freedoms and the media and concentrated more power in his own hands, especially after a failed coup attempt that Turkey says was orchestrated by the U.S.-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen. The cleric denies involvement.

Erdogan’s rival is a soft-mannered former civil servant who has led the pro-secular Republican People’s Party, or CHP, since 2010. Kilicdaroglu campaigned on promises to reverse Erdogan’s democratic backsliding, to restore the economy by reverting to more conventional policies, and to improve ties with the West.