Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been running Turkey for 22 years, and has spent much of that time eroding its democracy. His government controls the courts, the security apparatus and almost all the media. Yet until last week Turkey remained a place where the opposition could, in theory, win elections, and occasionally did, at least at the local level. Since the arrest on March 19th of Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul and Mr Erdogan’s strongest rival, along with many of his associates, that may no longer apply.
Some have thought Mr Erdogan an aspiring dictator ever since the 1990s, when as an Islamist he campaigned against Turkey’s secularism. He once called democracy a tram you get off when you reach your stop. However, his first years in power were reassuring. It was only later that he cracked down on ngos and used trumped-up prosecutions to attack opponents. Mr Erdogan crushed Kurdish militias in a military campaign in 2015 and jailed peaceful Kurdish dissidents. The next year, after foiling a coup attempt, he imprisoned tens of thousands of people, only some of whom had played a part in the putsch, and muzzled the media. Still, the Turkish president consistently beat the opposition in elections that were largely free, if far from fair.
Mr Imamoglu’s arrest marks a turning-point. For months the charismatic mayor has led Mr Erdogan in opinion polls for the next presidential election, due in 2028 or before. Last year his Republican People’s Party (CHP) shocked Mr Erdogan’s Justice and Development (AK) party by beating it in local elections. Years of economic mismanagement and corruption scandals have sapped Mr Erdogan’s popularity. Mr Imamoglu’s emergence as the CHP’s leader promised a chance of a democratic transfer of power. But his imprisonment, on charges of corruption that experts consider baseless, suggests that Turkey’s president would rather end democracy than risk losing.
Mr Erdogan seems to have picked this moment shrewdly. Donald Trump has shown little interest in other countries’ democratic standards. Europe is preoccupied by the war in Ukraine and its difficulties with Mr Trump. Indeed, the Europeans need Turkey’s help and are courting Mr Erdogan to supply troops for a potential peacekeeping force in Ukraine. As America steps back from Europe, Turkey’s army, the second-largest in NATO, is more vital than ever. And since the migrant crisis of 2015-16, the European Union has relied on Turkey to keep waves of refugees away from its borders.
For all these reasons, the international reaction to Mr Imamoglu’s arrest has been meek. The European Commission merely urged Turkey to “uphold democratic values”, though France and Germany made tougher statements. Europe could do more. Greece and Bulgaria have toughened their borders, meaning that Turkey can no longer so easily threaten to flood the EU with migrants. Mr Erdogan still appears to value Turkey’s long-dormant candidacy for EU membership. He has also wanted to broaden his country’s customs union with the EU; the bloc should make it clear that is out of the question while Mr Imamoglu remains behind bars.
Yet outside powers cannot stop Mr Erdogan from turning Turkey into an autocracy. Only its citizens can do that. Some of them may be alarmed by his growing authoritarianism, others by the worsening prospects for the economy as investors lose confidence that reformers will be able to make their voices heard. The hundreds of thousands braving police batons to protest against Mr Imamoglu’s arrest have the democratic world’s sympathy. Alas, they will not get much else. ■
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