Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Narrow Win Could End Up Undermining Him Instead of cementing Turkish president’s authority, winning by such a thin—and contested—margin may threaten his ability to govern unchallenged By Yaroslav Trofimov
https://www.wsj.com/articles/recep-tayyip-erdogans-narrow-win-could-end-up-undermining-him-1492371982
This isn’t the kind of victory that Recep Tayyip Erdogan wanted.
Turkey’s president, after all, has long enjoyed most of the executive powers that he formally obtained in Sunday’s vote on constitutional changes. His role as head of the country’s governing party, with its pliant parliamentary majority, ensured that real authority was already concentrated in the presidential palace.
What Mr. Erdogan needed, after the July coup attempt against him, was a public affirmation of his leadership—and of his drive to root out dissent. That drive saw hundreds of thousands of opponents, including most leaders of the second-largest opposition party in parliament, hounded from their jobs or thrown behind bars.
With the broadcast media under tight state control and “No” campaigners branded by government officials as traitors or terrorists, Mr. Erdogan’ aides just a few weeks ago confidently predicted that “Yes” would carry the referendum by 60% or more.
Instead, despite all the intimidation and the widespread reports of fraud during Sunday’s vote, the preliminary results, as released by Anadolu state news agency, showed “Yes” barely eking it out at 51.2% versus 48.8%.
That didn’t deter Mr. Erdogan from issuing congratulations on the victory. “The entire country has triumphed,” he said, calling for an end to “unnecessary discussions.”
In a speech to a crowd of supporters gathered under the rain in front of the ruling party’s headquarters, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim described the vote as providing a popular mandate for Mr. Erdogan. “It’s a turning point in the history of our democracy,” he said. “Against the traitors and dividers we stood united as a nation.”
Yet, instead of cementing Mr. Erdogan’s authority, such a thin—and contested—margin may end up threatening his ability to govern unchallenged in the months to come.
“Erdogan may discover that this is a Pyrrhic victory,” said Henri Barkey, director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. “He may have won now, but he may find that in the medium term opposition to him at home and abroad may harden.”
Turkey’s opposition politicians have already claimed that massive fraud has occurred, particularly in the ruling party’s strongholds in rural Anatolia and in the war-ravaged Kurdish areas of southeast Turkey. These complaints are likely to further delegitimize the result in the eyes of many Turks opposed to Mr. Erdogan.
“It’s the first election in which people have serious doubts about the legitimacy of the process,” said Asli Aydintasbas, senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “This means nothing gets solved, and this remains a deeply polarized and divided country. That’s a very dangerous place to be in.” CONTINUE AT SITE
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