Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is a political survivor. For more than 20 years, first as Turkey’s Prime Minister and then as its President, he has tried to overcome the kinds of problems that end the careers of wise and strong leaders: hyperinflation, rising currency, immigration. millions of refugees, devastating earthquakes, allegations of corruption, mass protests, international condemnation and pressure, and the 2016 coup. effort.
Erdoğan has always been a wise man who understands the importance of cultivating both the right friends and the right enemies. There are few concrete examples on the world stage of a leader who sees no permanent partners or rivals, only the unwavering need to win one more election. And by dismantling many of the institutions of Turkey’s independent state—the military, the courts, and the media—he has amassed enormous power even at times when his popularity was largely assumed.
Read more: The Man Who Can Beat Erdoğan
After losing local elections in March to his ruling Justice and Development (AK) party, Erdoğan took a step back to process his defeat. It may be time, he concluded, to re-establish long-standing ties. Although he has spent years demonizing the minority Kurds to form a useful alliance with the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Erdoğan has worked to create peace with Kurdish rebels in southeastern Turkey. He is now holding “regular talks” with Özgür Özel, leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), a center-left outfit. He has done well for President-elect Donald Trump to improve key economic ties with the US. He is also using unpopular political austerity measures to try to control inflation. Once again, Turkey’s longtime leader is proving unpredictable enough to frustrate opponents hunting for weakness.
But Erdoğan has a practical problem: The Turkish Constitution allows Presidents only two terms. He has the luxury of time to find a solution, because Turkey’s next presidential election is scheduled for May 2028. He has two options to try to hold on to power beyond that date. The first is to push parliament to call early elections, which would allow him to run again before the end of his term. The second would be to change the country’s constitution.
Erdoğan’s preference is to rewrite the constitution. That’s the approach he already took in 2017 when he pushed for a successful referendum that transformed Turkey from a parliamentary system to a presidential republic, cementing his power. He will sell the change to voters as a clean break from a troubled past, allowing him to continue leading the Turkish Republic into its second century. Not content with abolishing term limits, he is looking to make it easier to win a third term by allowing candidates to be elected with a majority of votes if a second term is not repeated.
But you are facing an obstacle. His coalition with the MHP does not even offer the number of parliamentary seats to even call for a constitutional referendum, let alone make the necessary reforms without holding one. That is why, as the CHP resists Erdoğan’s call for a new partnership, it is turning again to the Kurds who supported him at the beginning of his career with a promise to play peacemaker. Support from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) may give him enough votes in the referendum.
There is no guarantee that this program will work. Cutting a deal with Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the opposition Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), won’t end the 40-year-old Kurdish insurgency—and any deal he makes with a broader group of Kurdish leaders will remain one of terror. attack away from blowing up Erdoğan’s plans.
Whatever strategy he chooses, there remains one constant in Turkish politics: Never bet against the country’s political experts.
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