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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the country’s upcoming local elections on March 31 would be his last, Reuters reported Friday, suggesting a possible end to the strongman leader’s more than two decades in power.
“This is a final for me, under the mandate given by the law this is my last election,” Erdogan said, Reuters cited the state-run news agency Anadolu as saying. “The result that will come out will be the transferring of a legacy to my siblings who will come after me.”
Erdogan, long regarded as Turkey’s most successful politician, has won more than a dozen elections since 2002. He was re-elected for a five-year term in May 2023.
Erdgoan became the country’s first elected president in 2014, and was previously prime minister for more than a decade.
However, his presidency has been characterized by a quashing of democratic norms and a move towards authoritarianism.
His regime has imposed a sweeping crackdown on free speech, which has seen journalists and dissidents face harassment, intimidation and arrests.
Human rights activists sounded the alarm last year after the run-up to presidential and parliamentary elections saw political opponents targeted and critics of the government silenced.
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Erdogan once famously described democracy as being “like a tram. You ride it until you arrive at your destination, then you step off.”
The quote, from the 1990s when he was mayor of Istanbul, has been used to illustrate Erdogan’s willingness to depart from democracy when it no longer serves him.
Turkey’s opposition is growing but remains fragmented, with analysts saying that divisions in the parties seeking to challenge Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) have likely given the president a boost in the polls.
Ahead of local elections, the AKP has been focused on winning control of Istanbul, the president’s home city, which has been under the control of the country’s main opposition party, the CHP.
The mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, is seen as a main rival to Erdogan – despite attempts to send him to prison – and has been touted as a possible future leader of the country.