Erdogan’s retirement announcement may not be final

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in March announced that this would be his final term in office and he would not seek reelection in 2028. However, there will be people around him persuading him to run.
To avoid confusion, we have to underline that Erdogan’s decision is not connected with the local elections held on Sunday. He was referring to the presidential and parliamentary elections that will be held in 2028. If he keeps his word, this will be an important step forward in Turkiye’s democracy.
According to the Turkish constitution, presidents are allowed only two terms of office. Despite this rule, Erdogan managed to be elected for a third time last year. This was made possible by stretching the provisions of the constitution. The argument used to justify his reelection was that Turkiye had in 2017 moved from a parliamentary system to an executive presidency. Therefore, Erdogan did not count the term when he served as the president of the republic under the parliamentary system. He considered that the beginning of the executive presidency was a new era; therefore, everything had to be started from scratch. Many scholars and high court judges opposed such an interpretation of the constitution, but it did not change the outcome.
Erdogan and Devlet Bahceli, the leader of the right-wing Nationalist Movement Party, are two leaders who need each other very much. Without Bahceli’s support, Erdogan would not have been elected in 2018 or in 2023. On the other hand, without Erdogan’s support, Bahceli would not have served as chairman of his party for such a long period.
Erdogan also wants to use his performance in the local elections to pave the way for a new constitution.
Political life in Turkiye is dominated by Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, known as the AKP. I was one of the founding members. After we established this party, the first elections in which we participated took place in 2002. We won 34.5 percent of the votes and, thanks to the fractured nature of the opposition, we got two-thirds of the seats in parliament.
As time went by, the party needed the support of one of the opposition parties. Erdogan chose to cooperate with the Nationalist Movement Party, known as the MHP. This party was established in 1969 and is well organized, especially in central Anatolian provinces. With the creation of Meral Aksener’s Good Party in 2017, the MHP lost a considerable segment of its support, but those that remain on the side of MHP still suffice to make up for the ruling party’s shortfall in parliament.

Erdogan wants to use his performance in the local elections to pave the way for a new constitution.

Yasar Yakis

At one stage, Erdogan took the lead in solving Turkiye’s perennial Kurdish problem. A series of meetings were scheduled to be held in the historic Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul. High-level members of the AKP made all the arrangements for the first meeting, including which participant would be seated in which chair. However, all of a sudden, Erdogan disowned the idea, asking: “Who told you that I agreed to holding such a meeting?” Therefore, a golden opportunity to seriously negotiate on Turkiye’s Kurdish problem was shattered. If this question was handled as it was initially intended, the Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party could have become Erdogan’s coalition partner and Turkiye’s Kurdish problem would have been eased to a considerable extent.
One of the most moderate leaders of this Kurdish party, Selahattin Demirtas, has been kept in jail for more than seven years despite the European Court of Justice in 2020 ruling that Turkiye should release him immediately.
Ahead of the general elections of 2018, six opposition parties decided to form a coalition, but they could not achieve their goal. In the 2023 campaign, Meral Aksener’s Good Party attempted to change horses midrace. Though she stepped back within days, her hesitation caused a meltdown in her party. Following this bitter experience, we are yet to see how the opposition parties will again put their forces together.
When Erdogan needed help during last year’s election campaign, Bahceli’s MHP again became a savior for him. Addressing Erdogan publicly following his recent announcement, Bahceli enthusiastically said: “You cannot leave the leadership of the party. You cannot leave the Turkish nation without a leader. We want to see you as our savior.”
It was only a few years ago that Bahceli did not spare any unkind words about Erdogan. Some of the aggressive language he used included the following: “Erdogan, you are a prisoner of US policy,” “You are a dirty copy of Bashar Assad,” and “You are the enemy of Turkishness.” All these insults are still circulating in the Turkish media with Bahceli’s original voice.
As the ruling AKP cannot form a government without the MHP’s support, this makes for a marriage of convenience. Erdogan may still come up with new ideas when we approach the date of the next elections.
Erdogan is on the record as saying, in the 1990s, that democracy was only a tram that you use to arrive at your destination, meaning that once you have arrived at your destination you do not need democracy any longer. This Machiavellianism is now regarded as mockery. Democracy is not a concept that you use when you need it and ignore when you need it no longer.
Sunday’s local elections may pave the way for the constitutional amendment that Erdogan is very much eager to carry out. There are two ways Erdogan might again extend his rule. One is if the parliament, toward the end of its current mandate, decides — according to Article 116 of the constitution — to call for new elections. This could allow Erdogan to be elected again because his current term would not have been completed. The second is to draft a new constitution that would provide a lifetime presidency for Erdogan.

• Yasar Yakis is a former foreign minister of Turkiye and founding member of the ruling AK Party. X: @yakis_yasar