Erdoğan Is Plotting His Next Power Grab

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is a political survivor. For more than 20 years, first as Turkey’s Prime Minister and then as its President, he has weaved his way through the kinds of crises that end the careers of even the most resourceful and resilient of leaders: runaway inflation, a spiraling currency, the arrival of millions of refugees, a devastating earthquake, corruption accusations, mass protests, international condemnation and pressure, and a 2016 coup attempt.

Erdoğan has always been a shrewd populist who understands the importance of cultivating both the right friends and the right enemies. There are few stronger examples on the world stage of a leader who sees no permanent allies or rivals, only the never-changing need to win one more election. And by dismantling many of Turkey’s independent state institutions—the military, the courts, and the media—he’s amassed major power even at times his popularity was very much in question.

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After stinging defeats in local elections in March for his ruling Justice and Development (AK) party, Erdoğan took a step back to process his losses. It might be time, he concluded, to re-establish some long-strained ties. Though he spent years demonizing minority Kurds to form a useful alliance with the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Erdoğan has worked to make peace with the Kurdish insurgency in Turkey’s southeast. He is now floating “normalization” talks with Özgür Özel, leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), a center-left outfit. He’s made nice with President-elect Donald Trump to boost economically valuable relations with the U.S. He’s also using politically unpopular austerity measures to try to bring inflation under control. Once again, Turkey’s longtime leader is proving unpredictable enough to frustrate an opposition hunting for weaknesses.

But Erdoğan has a practical problem: Turkey’s constitution allows Presidents just two terms. He has the luxury of time to find a solution, because Turkey’s next presidential election is scheduled for May 2028. He has two options to try to hang on to power beyond that date. The first is to push parliament to call early elections, which would allow him to run once more before the expiration of his current term. The second would be to change the country’s constitution.

Erdoğan’s preference is to rewrite the constitution. That’s an approach he already took in 2017 when he pushed a successful referendum that transformed Turkey from a parliamentary system into a presidential republic, cementing his grip on power. He’ll sell the change to voters as a clean break from a troubled past, allowing him to continue to lead the Turkish Republic into its second century. Not content to erase the term limit, he also hopes to make it easier to win a third term by allowing a candidate to get elected without a majority of votes in the event of a second-round runoff.

But he faces an obstacle. His alliance with the MHP doesn’t offer anywhere close to the number of parliamentary seats to even call a constitutional referendum, much less to make the desired changes without one. This is why, even as the CHP resists Erdoğan’s call for a new partnership, he’s again turning to the Kurds who supported him early in his career with an offer to play peacemaker. Support from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) might give him enough votes for the referendum.

There is no guarantee this plan can work. Cutting a deal with Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), won’t by itself end a 40-year Kurdish insurgency—and any deal he makes with a broader group of Kurdish leaders will remain one terrorist attack away from blowing up Erdoğan’s plans.

Whatever strategy he chooses, there remains one constant in Turkey’s politics: Never bet against the country’s master political tactician.