A Rebuke for Turkey’s Strongman Erdogan’s party suffers its worst setback since it came to power in 2002.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-rebuke-for-turkeys-strongman-11554247334
After President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan easily won re-election amid a currency and debt crisis last year, it seemed nothing could loosen his grip on Turkish politics. The results of Sunday’s local elections are welcome evidence that the strongman isn’t invincible.
Mr. Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) received perhaps its biggest rebuke since coming to power in 2002. Preliminary results show AKP controlling 39 of Turkey’s 81 provinces, down from 48. More significant, the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) won the mayoral election in the capital city Ankara. The opposition also leads a tight race in Istanbul, where Mr. Erdoğan launched his political career as mayor in 1994.
An AKP-led alliance still won about 52% of the overall vote, while the biggest opposition coalition trailed with some 38%. But this is an embarrassment for the president who held dozens of rallies and effectively made the local elections a referendum on his rule.
The impressive economic growth Mr. Erdoğan oversaw earlier in his presidency gave him democratic legitimacy, but his increasingly incompetent economic stewardship and anti-democratic tendencies are beginning to take a toll. The president acknowledged early Monday morning that “if we have deficiencies, it is our duty to fix them.”
The president owns the state of the Turkish economy, and voters had plenty to gripe about. The lira slid about 30% against the dollar in 2018, while the economy contracted in the second half of the year. Inflation woes are compounded by rising unemployment, which reached 13.5% in December.
The danger is that Mr. Erdoğan will respond with more harassment of opponents and destructive economic policies like interfering with the central bank. The AKP now says it will challenge the results in Istanbul and Ankara. The opposition is rightly suspicious, given Mr. Erdoğan’s crackdown on the free press and political opposition.
It’s encouraging to see signs of life from Turkey’s often lackluster opposition, and the West should call Mr. Erdoğan out if he refuses to accept this democratic result.
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