Post-election Turkey: Beyond wishful thinking

Abstract

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is certainly the big winner of the recent presidential and general elections in Turkey. Not only did he manage to get re-elected for a third term as president, but his coalition, the People’s Alliance, bucked expectations and won the majority of seats in parliament. He is officially the country’s longest serving leader, surpassing Mustafa Kemal himself, and “Erdoğanism,” as an ideological framework, is gaining more and more institutional, social and political ground. At the centennial of the Turkish Republic, the signs of Erdoğan’s “New Turkey” and “Century of Turkey” are already visible. Yet, Turkish society is more polarized than ever.