Whether Tayyip Erdogan likes or rejects someone, it must be recognized that he is a peculiar political phenomenon. Dominating Turkey’s political life for 21 years in a row, he managed to win the elections on May 21 under conditions (runaway inflation, tens of thousands dead in the recent earthquake) that could be described as ideal for the opposition. His government’s authoritarianism and suffocating control of most media does not change the fact that he represents the only case of a political leader in the 21st century who manages to consistently win free elections with half of Turkish society constantly rallying around him and almost the other half. frankly, hating it.

How can one explain the endurance of the almost flawless Erdogan against two absolute corrosive substances, time and power? And, at first glance, the incident can be instructive. On the first day of the New Year 2022, a little girl was seriously injured by a pit bull in the city of Gaziantep. The incident was widely publicized and the Turkish president quickly intervened. “Hey, you white Turks, buckle up your dogs,” he exclaimed, spitting bile against the pro-Western privileged elites who had naturalized in the neighboring country as “white Turks.”

The former editor-in-chief of the Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet, Can Nudar, who has been living in Germany for the past few years, saw in this event evidence of the “war of civilizations” that Erdogan likes to assert in his ideological hegemony. In an article in the German Die Zeit, he wrote: “In Turkey, there is no issue that would not cause many hours of debate and sharp polarization, ultimately leading to a clash of civilizations. Whether it’s drinking alcohol in TV series or wearing a hijab in schools and universities, choosing a Eurovision song or decorating the streets for the holidays, it all brings one part of the country into the arms of Europe and the other into the arms of Europe. Asia to occasionally cause clashes between different continental cultures. In the final weeks of the year, the controversy over Christmas trees and Santa Clauses in malls flared up again, under attack from extreme conservatives hostile to Christian values. However, this year the pit bull started the conflict.”

Verified Recipe

This phenomenon is certainly not unique to Turkey and its leader. Similar trends have manifested proportionately in Trump’s America, Modi’s India, Orban’s Hungary, Bolsonaro’s Brazil, and a number of other countries with authoritarian, over-ambitious leaders in the Alt-Right constellation. The common denominator is investing in “cultural wars” to win over the popular strata with political demagoguery against the elites, trading on nationalism, religious faith, the traditional values ​​of patriarchy, and stigmatizing all kinds of minorities. All this ultimately leads to the identification of a “healthy” nation and religion of the majority with the Leader, as the bearer of a glorious historical destiny.

Promoting several democratization measures in his first decade of existence, Tayyip Erdoğan not only joined—after violent protests in Gezi Park in 2013 and a failed coup in 2016—the current, but also outstripped all the other stars of the ALT in resourcefulness, radicalism and efficiency. He, a “black Turk”, who sold lemonade and pretzels on the streets of Constantinople as a child, became an enemy of the degenerate elite and the Kemalist junta, which banned women in the hijab from university or from office. to the public service.

The battle for the soul of the country was won by Asia, not Europe, and the tide of far-right nationalism that spills over into both warring camps was the big winner of the vote.

neo-Ottomanism

Intense populism was combined with neo-Ottoman nationalism. Atatürk’s secular, Western-oriented democracy emerged as a “centenary bracket”, ending somewhere here in Erdogan’s “New Turkey”. But he retained from the “old” Turkey, born of the liberation war against the Anglo-French Entente, distrust of the “imperialist West” and resumed his aggressive nationalism, especially towards the Kurds.

Along with this, the third pillar of Erdogan’s ideology, social conservatism, was added: LGBTQ people are “perverted”, he said in the last pre-election period, abortion is a sin, and every woman should have at least three children. His own quote: one child is loneliness, two is competition, three is balance, four is happiness, and then whatever God pleases.

This tripartite ideological current began to be expressed by Erdogan’s AKP People’s Alliance, the nationalist MHR (“Grey Wolves”) and the radical Islamic YRP, which received 49% of the vote in the parliamentary elections and 49.5% in the presidential elections, the vast majority of the Turkish, Sunni hinterland. Of course, the economic crisis and earthquakes resulted in the loss of three points (compared to 2018) to Erdogan and seven points to his party. But the boundaries between the three spaces were particularly porous, with the result that SEP depletion was partly offset by other partners. By contrast, the Kemalist CHP Kiliçdaroglu remained a party of educated, Western-oriented middle classes, mostly on the western and southern coasts of Turkey, led by the Alevi, i.e. a member of a religious minority and of genuinely Kurdish origin, who was campaign-backed by the Kurdish HDP party in order to alienate a significant part of a strong nationalist base.

The next day

Unless a large meteorite hits Earth by Sunday, a runoff will bring a comfortable victory for Erdogan, while the six-party opposition — a highly fragmented, one-off coalition rallied by sultanic ostracism — will fall apart. Of course, Turkey’s strong man will have to face the harsh economic reality from the first days of his term. Helping Russia to defer gas payments until 2024 and bolstering central bank reserves with infusions of Qatari, Saudi and Emirati petrodollars (in an unknown exchange) were precious respite in the pre-election period, but do not eliminate the need for quick, unpopular measures to stabilize the economy and restoration of better relations with the West.

However, Turkey’s neighbors and Western allies must come to terms with the two main conclusions of this election: the battle for the soul of this country was won by Asia, not Europe, and that the current of far-right nationalism, spreading in both warring camps, he emerged as the winner of the vote, representing almost one in four citizen. We must live with this Turkey from tomorrow.