southeastern europe

Published in The Conversation: April 16, 2024, 11.03am EDT The recent municipal elections in Turkey represented a significant defeat for President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, signalling  a potential shift in Turkey’s political landscape . For more than two decades, Erdoğan has extended his  control over the Turkish media ,  the judiciary  and the  state bureaucracy , establishing an uneven playing field and skewed elections. This time, though, his Justice and Development Party — known as AKP — and its coalition with the ultra-right wing Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) lost 15 key municipalities. Mansur Yavas, Ankara’s mayor and CHP presidential hopeful, gestures to supporters in Ankara on March 31, 2024.   (AP Photo/Ali Unal) After  a disastrous and divisive presidential campaign  in 2023, the opposition, led by the secularist Republican People’s Party (CHP), assumed control of crucial municipal and provincial jurisdictions on March 31, 2024. The CHP, ...

by Spyros A. Sofos republished from  the Edge Hill University Institute for Social Responsibility website Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ’s 2018 presidential election victory appeared to seal his party’s domination over Turkey’s politics until the end of his term in 2023, or even 2028. Since this victory however, he has presided over an ailing economy. The Turkish lira has  plummeted , foreign reserves have shrunk as the Central bank intervened  to stabilise the currency , and external debt  mounted  until Qatar, in May 2020 gave the country’s economy  a temporary reprieve . Concurrently, a number of “rising stars” are waiting in the wings. These include the, 2019 İstanbul mayoral election winner,  Ekrem İmamoğlu , and former Erdoğan ally  Ali Babacan .  They are both preparing for the post-Erdoğan era by cultivating their charisma and political capital, causing concerns over Erdoğan’s re-election chances. Erdoğan sought to deflect at...