Turkey

On June 1 Turkey’s Supreme Election Council announced Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s victory in the second round of the presidential elections, with 52.18% of the vote, while his rival Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu received 47.82% of the vote. Despite the strong feelings and high tensions that prevailed during the run-up to the vote, no serious political misconduct or protests on the part of the opposition were reported after May 28. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu conceded…

During the presidential election campaign, Erdoğan’s main rival, the leader of the opposition People’s Alliance block Kılıçdaroğlu, stated in his anti-Russian rhetoric that in case of his victory he would remind the Russians about Turkey’s membership in NATO. However, nobody in Moscow has forgotten that Turkey, either with Erdoğan or without him still (since February 1952) remains a member to the North Atlantic Treaty. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu failed to provide a well-reasoned explanation for his reminders, and now, after his defeat, he and all other leaders of the Republican People’s Party have resigned in connection to their failure…

As many experts had predicted, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan beat his rival in the Turkish presidential elections in a second round of voting, and is set to be sworn in for his third term as president. His triumph after a close-run first round has been celebrated both in Turkey and abroad, but the 69-year old populist and Islamist leader, who has been in power for two decades, faces serious challenges as he begins his new five-year term. In effect, Erdoğan has radically changed Turkey’s political system, transforming a secular state with a multi-party parliamentary system, in which religion played…