Turkey’s president would rather turn his country into a full autocracy than give up power. But the Turkish people are clinging to what remains of their democracy, and they are ready to fight for it.
By Berk Esen and Sebnem Gumuscu
March 2025
Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, along with his key advisers and two district mayors from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), were arrested on charges of corruption the day he was expected to win his party’s presidential primary. Since ascending to power in early 2003, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) has subverted Turkish democracy by tilting the playing field against opponents at the polls and capturing the courts to target government critics. Still, the opposition has remained electorally viable, occasionally scoring victories in major metropolitan centers, such as Istanbul and Ankara. This deliberate targeting of the opposition’s presidential frontrunner is an unprecedented authoritarian escalation, putting Turkey on the path of becoming a hegemonic authoritarian regime.
What Happened?
Erdoğan was able to take this autocratic turn by using a set of tools. First among them is the country’s politicized judiciary. Istanbul’s chief prosecutor, who served as a judge in many political trials against dissidents and as deputy minister of justice before he was appointed a chief prosecutor in Istanbul, has filed several investigations against İmamoğlu and his team in recent months. Erdoğan welcomed these investigations and, in late January, said there were more to come, foreshadowing last week’s clampdown.
In the meantime, the judiciary moved to disqualify İmamoğlu from future presidential races by launching an investigation into the validity of his college diploma, a required credential to run for president. The prosecutor accused İmamoğlu of unlawfully transferring to Istanbul University in his sophomore year. An investigation that would have been dismissed in a country with robust rule of law bore fruit, thanks to the Erdoğan government’s tight control over Turkish academia. Since Turkey’s transition to a hyperpresidential system in 2018, Erdoğan has appointed all university presidents without any input from these institutions. When pressured to revoke İmamoğlu’s diploma by the prosecutor’s office, the university administration caved, effectively disqualifying İmamoğlu from presidential elections only days before the CHP’s primaries.
As these investigations gained momentum, the Turkish media, largely reconfigured by Erdoğan since his rise to power, sullied İmamoğlu’s image by portraying him as a leader of a criminal organization. Progovernment media had discussed corruption allegations against İmamoğlu without any substantive evidence before charges were leveled against him in the courts.
Anticipating some public backlash to these blatantly autocratic but legal moves, the Erdoğan government deployed other tools to stymie demonstrations. The Telecommunications Agency, overseen by an Erdoğan loyalist, restricted access to social media without a court ruling. Meanwhile, Istanbul’s appointed governor banned all protests in the city for several days. Soon, other governors joined in, banning protests in several major cities.
Why Now?
Even though Erdoğan has been subverting democratic institutions and acquiring autocratic tools for years, Turkish elections maintained their frequency and competitiveness. He never before deployed these weapons to sideline a major political rival. Why has he done so now?
Until recently, Erdoğan neither had a strong incentive nor enjoyed a favorable political context to carry out this legal assault. Even though his party gradually lost votes, Erdoğan could still win presidential elections thanks to the uneven electoral playing field. As we explained in a recent Journal of Democracy essay, “despite economic troubles and a questionable governance record,” Erdoğan managed to win the presidency in 2023 in a runoff by alleviating the hardships caused by high inflation through targeted benefits to his supporters and shifting the election’s focus from economic concerns to national security.
The domestic political context, however, has changed since that election. Following the opposition’s defeat in 2023, the CHP replaced longtime leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu with Özgür Özel, a young parliamentarian with strong support among the party’s rank-and-file members. Energized by this political change, the CHP won the 2024 municipal elections in 35 (out of 81) provinces, including Turkey’s largest metropolitan areas like Istanbul and Ankara. These municipalities provided the CHP with a valuable platform for reaching nearly two-thirds of the electorate and gaining access to public resources that can partly balance the uneven playing field.
In recent months, İmamoğlu and Özel have worked together closely, and they agreed to hold an early presidential primary to select the party’s presidential candidate. With no internal competition, İmamoğlu was expected to emerge from last Sunday’s scheduled primary with significant support from the party base. İmamoğlu is the most formidable challenger Erdoğan has faced so far. As mayor of Turkey’s largest city, İmamoğlu expanded social policies to meet the needs of the impoverished urban classes and grew increasingly popular in opinion polls.
As the CHP underwent this political change, the Erdoğan government underperformed in several respects, risking the conditional support it obtained in the 2023 elections. Upon winning reelection, Erdoğan appointed a technocratic minister, Mehmet Şimşek, who followed a stabilization program supported by a sharp hike in interest rates to reduce inflationary pressures. The stabilization program registered some economic growth, but the benefits have accrued to the wealthy rather than improving the lives of millions. In fact, poverty increased as inflation remained sticky and Erdoğan’s austerity measures suffocated the middle and lower classes.
In contrast to his declining fortunes in domestic politics, Erdoğan faces a favorable international context for this authoritarian escalation. He has long had a good relationship with U.S. president Donald Trump, who is unlikely to issue any kind of rebuke or pressure to change course. And the European Union, worried about the Trump administration’s refusal to offer security guarantees to Ukraine, has begun to approach Turkey as a key security partner. Having followed a balancing strategy in the Russo-Ukrainian War, Erdoğan enjoys close ties with both sides and has recently benefited from Russia’s withdrawal from Syria after the fall of the Assad regime. In this new international climate, Erdoğan must have calculated very little external pressure against his legal maneuver. Furthermore, developments in Syria yielded an opportunity for reconciliation between the Turkish government and the pro-Kurdish movement in Turkey and its Syrian Kurdish allies.
What’s Next?
Despite an uneven playing field, Turkey’s electoral institutions had until now remained intact. Opposition parties could contest power and have remained competitive by mobilizing nearly half the electorate to go to the polls. By detaining his strongest rival and scores of politicians from the main opposition CHP, Erdoğan seems to have crossed the Rubicon. The competitive authoritarian regime that Erdoğan has built and sustained over the years is at an inflection point and will either devolve into a full autocracy or begin to re-democratize. Several factors will determine the outcome.
First is obviously the economic repercussions of this move. Turkey does not possess natural resources that can bankroll an autocratic bargain with Turkish voters, as seen in other hegemonic authoritarian regimes such as Venezuela and Russia. Erdoğan’s government, therefore, must deliver tangible benefits to the electorate to maintain his rule in the long run. Indeed, this authoritarian escalation already had immediate financial costs. The morning of İmamoğlu’s detention, the Turkish currency lost 10 percent of its value in a matter of hours and the stock exchange plummeted. The Central Bank — which lost its independence under Erdoğan’s rule — sold billions of US dollars to keep the exchange rate afloat, effectively bankrolling Erdoğan’s autocratic move, while the Capital Markets Board restricted trade in the stock market for a month to prevent further losses. Erdoğan’s control over state institutions definitely bought him time and allowed him to absorb the immediate shock in the markets, but it is not clear if he can relay confidence to domestic and foreign investors in the long run if political instability continues.
Second is the opposition’s long-term response. The day of İmamoğlu’s arrest, the CHP leadership invited all citizens to protest what they deemed a grave injustice against İmamoğlu and a violation of citizens’ right to vote and run for election. Every night for a week since İmamoğlu was first detained, tens of thousands of protestors have gathered in front of Istanbul’s city hall for massive rallies organized by the CHP. Protests also spread to Turkey’s other major cities, showing the scale and intensity of public anger over the arrest.
The CHP also opened its presidential primaries to anyone who wanted to express solidarity with İmamoğlu. In a sign of increasing popular support for the imprisoned mayor, on the day he was arrested nearly sixteen-million people (there are only 1.7 million party members) — that is, one out of every four eligible voters — formed long lines to cast their ballots in support of İmamoğlu’s presidential candidacy for the next election. This show of support reveals the country’s strong commitment to the electoral process as well as its democratic resilience.
Turkey’s next elections are scheduled for 2028, and Erdoğan likely expects this movement to have fizzled out by then. The popular opposition, led by the CHP, is seeking ways to make this mobilization successful and sustainable in the longer term. Özel, the main opposition leader, has suggested that the movement will continue in different forms and locations even after the current rallies end. This week, Özel called for a boycott of companies that finance progovernment media, which have refrained from airing the protests.
Third is the public perception of the legal assault on İmamoğlu and his party. Many people believe that the charges are bogus and merely an attempt by Erdoğan to sideline his rival. They responded to the call to protest in overwhelming numbers unprecedented in recent history. Millions defied a protest ban and poured into streets across the country, starting a nationwide uprising against what was widely considered a political clampdown.
College campuses led the charge, and millions from different walks of life soon joined the effort. Various opposition groups — college students, environmentalists, union workers, pensioners, and women’s rights activists — had for some time been waging isolated battles against the regime. But Erdoğan’s government had managed to keep these protests small and confined, frequently resorting to repression before protests could gain momentum. İmamoğlu’s arrest has become a rallying point on which to unite these social-activist groups and has triggered ever-growing mobilization in İstanbul and beyond, especially among university students.
Economic grievances are playing a substantial role in this mobilization. Millions of pension holders, minimum-wage earners, and college students in urban centers have faced rising living costs as rents and food inflation skyrocketed in recent years. Erdoğan’s austerity measures made their lives even more miserable. The only relief came from the Istanbul municipality’s social-assistance programs, which are now under threat with the arrest of İmamoğlu and several district mayors who had adopted these programs.
Despite this historic public reaction, the international responses to Erdoğan’s latest crackdown have been muted. The Trump administration, which sees İmamoğlu’s arrest as a Turkish domestic issue, has so far shown indifference, and other Western governments have been timid in their condemnation for fear of harming relations with Turkey’s president.
Erdoğan made an unprecedented move to turn Turkey into a hegemonic authoritarian regime where elections no longer matter. However, neither the Turkish economy nor Turkish political culture provides fertile ground for establishing a full autocracy. Over the last week, the Turkish people have boldly demonstrated their commitment to democracy by taking to the streets despite mounting police violence. The stakes are high; the very right to vote — in essence, the only remaining way to hold Erdoğan accountable — is on the line. If sustained, these protests could weaken Erdoğan politically and hurt the Turkish economy. Thus, for Erdoğan’s autocratic escalation to succeed, the regime would have to paralyze the CHP’s leadership and force the Turkish people to abandon their democratic agency. One thing is clear, though. This is going to be a long fight.
Berk Esen is associate professor of political science at Sabancı University. Sebnem Gumuscu is associate professor of political science at Middlebury College.
Copyright © 2025 National Endowment for Democracy
Image credit: Umit Turhan Coskun/NurPhoto via Getty Images
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