Supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gather at the Presidential Complex as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses to celebrate reelection victory in presidential runoff in Ankara, Turkiye on May 29, 2023 (Anadolu Agency)

Türkiye elections: What does Erdogan’s victory mean for the country’s future?

Sunday’s election in Türkiye ended with yet another victory for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The outcome did not catch any close followers of Turkish politics by surprise. 

Sunday’s election in Türkiye ended with yet another victory for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The outcome did not catch any close followers of Turkish politics by surprise.

Having received 49.5 percent in the first round on 14 May, the Turkish leader took advantage of the ruling People’s Alliance’s parliamentary majority to reach 52 percent quite comfortably.

As world leaders rushed to congratulate Erdogan on his electoral victory, the latest in a political career spanning more than three decades, it goes without saying that Sunday’s vote went down in Türkiye’s political history as the last chapter in the epic of his invincibility.

Widely seen as a campaigning genius, the Turkish president, having won both the parliamentary and presidential elections, is expected to show strong leadership over the next five years. In recent days, he has presented various projects to the Turkish people, including new homes for earthquake survivors – and he declared on election night that the electoral marathon was not over.

Insisting that all of Türkiye’s 85 million citizens were winners, Erdogan told his AK Party and supporters that their new goal was to win next year’s municipal elections.

That Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who formed a “grand coalition” featuring political parties with contradictory views (including the Turkish nationalist Victory Party and the Kurdish nationalist Green Left Party), received just 48 percent of the vote in Sunday’s election must be seen as an unmistakable defeat for the opposition…

Read more on Middle East Eye: Türkiye elections: What does Erdogan’s victory mean for the country’s future?

[Middle East Eye, May 30, 2023]

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