As he embarks on a third decade in power, Turkey’s president will continue to use sweeping powers to divide and rule
During his victory speeches on Sunday night, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan celebrated re-election as Turkey’s president with a call for national unity. “We are not the only ones who have won, Turkey has won … our democracy has won,” he told supporters, while at the same time doubling down on the type of inflammatory rhetoric he deployed against LGBTQ+ people throughout his campaign.
As Mr Erdoğan embarks on a record third decade in power with a conservative and nationalist mandate – and with increasingly authoritarian powers to enforce it – millions of other Turkish residents also have good grounds to disbelieve his sunny rhetoric. In an increasingly militarised “anti-terror” environment, political repression and harassment of the country’s sizeable Kurdish population are set to continue. The president’s campaign was loaded with barbs and misinformation about the mainly Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic party, which backed Mr Erdoğan’s defeated rival, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.
