Trying to read Erdogan’s intentions
Analysts say the Turkish president, facing a difficult re-election, could become unpredictable
The increasingly aggressive rhetoric of Recep Tayyip Erdogan against Greece, echoed by his underlings, may primarily serve for domestic consumption, but the embattled Turkish president could well resort to a manufactured crisis, analysts tell Kathimerini.
The 10 academics, think-tank analysts and journalists – the majority of them Turkish – concur that Erdogan, who faces a difficult re-election campaign as well as parliamentary elections, next year, could become unpredictable in the face of defeat.
Thus, military aggression against Greece, while improbable, cannot be entirely excluded. Erdogan could also resort to other aggressive or dubiously legal actions, such as a complete break with the West, ignoring the election result or canceling the elections and calling for new ones, if the result is close, the analysts believe, some going so far as to say that civil war could erupt.
The 2023 elections are a challenge to Erdogan’s 20-year domination of Turkish politics. In this period, he has continuously held office, either as prime minister or, since 2014, as president. But his mishandling of the economy threatens to end his increasingly authoritarian rule: Polls show him behind any potential opposition challenger, including Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), and the mayors of Ankara and Istanbul, Mansur Yavas and Ekrem Imamoglu, both CHP members. Kilicdaroglu is seen as running a more effective campaign, helped by the deteriorating economy, but some think that the 73-year-old CHP leader is the easiest to deal with for Erdogan, who is a proven demagogue.
Of the three potential opposition candidates, Kilicdaroglu has the smallest lead in the latest polls, 6%, compared to 9% for Imamoglu and 15% for Yavas, Ozer Sencar, founder and director of polling firm MetroPOLL, told Kathimerini.
Even if there is a smooth transition, this will not mean a change in Turkish policy. Nationalism sells in Turkey and even though in a recent Turkish poll 64% of respondents said they do not consider Greece an enemy, politicians persist in ramping up the rhetoric.
The good scenario for Greece would be that a new government chooses to focus on fixing the economy, leading to a period of relative calm; but, with the 100th anniversary of the Treaty of Lausanne as a pretext, Turkey could opt to undo the “mistake” of “gifting” almost all Aegean islands to Greece.
