The Turkish election results are a major victory for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. They show that with the current turmoil in the Middle East, the Turkish people have decided that they need a strong leader to steer the ship of state through choppy waters, writes Abdel Bari Atwan.
For five months since the last election – in which Erdogan’s Justice and Development party failed to win a majority of seats – there was much speculation that Erdogan’s days were numbered. This has proved to be incorrect.
The Turkish stock market gained several points and the Turkish Lira gained 3 percent against the dollar as soon as the results were announced.
Erdogan took a big gamble when he failed to stitch together a coalition and decided instead to go the ballot again. The election was, in effect, a referendum on Erdogan’s leadership and he came out of it unexpectedly well.
A cloud sits on the horizon however – Erdogan’s personal ambition which may see him seek to expand his powers to the presidential model as practised in the US and France whereby all authority ultimately resides with the Head of State rather than parliament or Congress.
Erdogan should bear in mind that this victory increases the number of his current enemies and creates new ones at home and abroad.
The Turkish opposition have suffered a major setback in the polls but they explain this with newspaper headlines such as “The triumph of fear,” suggesting that this is a knee-jerk reaction to the recent suicide bombs which killed well over 100 (mainly Kurdish) people.
Subscribe to our newsletter and stay updated on the latest news and updates from around the Muslim world!
Erdogan and his party piloted Turkey well for more than 13 years, creating a strong economy (12th in the world) and – until very recently – keeping the peace between fractious ethnicities and sects. It is clearly a major fear now that the war against the Kurdish separatists will surge under the umbrella of the “war on terror” being prosecuted in Iraq and Syria as well as inside Turkey itself.
Erdogan may find he is facing two enemies at the same time unless he is careful to re-instate peace with the Kurds. To face the PKK and the Islamic State at once is a huge challenge and one which could threaten the complicated demographic fabric of Turkish society.
Erdogan’s victory will also have given a welcome boost to the Muslim Brotherhood – the Justice and Development party is a close ally – at a time when it has been under attack in Egypt and the Gulf. Turkey is a close ally of Saudi Arabia – particularly in respect of Syria – and we can expect Riyadh to soften its attitude towards the Muslim Brotherhood as a result of these elections.
The President and his supporters hope that this election will usher in a period stability and improved security, but given recent developments in the region, the Russian military intervention in Syria and the potential for escalation of the war, it is clear this is not going to be a smooth sailing.
