Erdoğan’s managerial genius has allowed him to survive several political crises that would uproot most governments. In each crisis, he strengthened and personalized his grip on power. Creating political scenarios reminiscent of Agamben’s state of exception, he targeted the group at the centre of any crisis, turning them public enemies by dehumanizing them in the eyes of his electorate. For the Gezi protests, he blamed secular-leftist groups for organizing a revolt against the elected government, working with – several – foreign governments to this end. For the corruption scandal that followed the Gezi protests, he blamed the Gülenists, his former ally, whom he then subjected to radical recriminations and effectively annihilated. For the resurgence of the decades-old Kurdish issue, he threw the pro-Kurdish and liberal-leftist HDP, a legal political entity in the Turkish Parliament, into the fire. He took on several western governments and portrayed them as global powers with sinister plans on Turkey. In order to exercise political influence he has also instrumentalised some transnational state apparatuses, such as the Diyanet, in many countries.
All in all, Erdoğan survived in power but with the cost of sacrificing major elements of moderate politics and almost all of his former allies. Infusing Islamist and ethno-nationalist elements with his ever-green populism, he skilfully re-positioned himself further on the right and carried – or rather dragged – most of his electorate with him. Yet, Erdoğan has to sustain a huge effort to keep his electoral base in their new position. To consolidate this, he has used illusions of an augmented grandeur and its enemies (including domestic collaborators). [...]
Four potential rivals can be anticipated in forthcoming general elections. Two of them are the established opposition to the AKP, while the other two are from an internal opposition. Let’s start with the latter. As President Erdoğan elevated himself to the status of undisputed leader, he side-lined old comrades but kept them on a leash for quite some time. Yet, not all of them have been terminally silenced. A former president and one of the founding trio of the AKP, Abdullah Gül, together with the former minister of economy, Ali Babacan, having maintained their credibility both in the eyes of the voters and business circles at home and abroad, are on the cusp of forming a political party. Recently Babacan resigned from the party of which he was a founding member, and publicly declared that party policies in recent years were in clear contradiction with the principles to which he had subscribed. Babacan’s resignation is likely to prompt others to follow, yet it is difficult to know how many. The problem for Erdoğan is that Babacan has been at the steering wheel of the Turkish economy during the successful years of the AKP. If the economy is now Erdoğan’s Achilles’ heel, the Babacan-Gül duo will be shooting right at it.
