The News
Turkish authorities have detained more than 1,100 people since mass protests broke out last week following the arrest of Istanbul mayor and key opposition figure, Ekrem İmamoğlu.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan banned short-selling and called for more than 700 X accounts to be blocked as he moved to limit the fallout from İmamoğlu’s jailing.
The country’s stock market fell 17%, the Turkish lira fell to an all-time low, and bond yields were driven higher after his arrest.
Authorities also imposed a protest ban and travel restrictions on Istanbul.
Though elections are not due to be held in Turkey until 2028, İmamoğlu is seen as a widely popular candidate for the Republican People’s Party (CHP), having won the mayoral role in 2019 by a margin of 800,000 votes — a “slap in the face” for Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), Le Monde wrote.
Perceived as Erdoğan’s biggest rival, İmamoğlu was jailed over the weekend on corruption charges before he could launch his presidential bid, which has been challenged in recent weeks after his alma mater Istanbul University voided his diploma — a prerequisite qualification for all presidential candidates in Turkey.
SIGNALS
Erdoğan is following Putin’s authoritarian playbook
With the arrest of his political rival, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan “has taken a momentous step toward full-fledged autocracy,” Gonul Tul of the Middle East Institute’s Turkey program argued in Foreign Affairs. He is following the playbook of Vladimir Putin — who this week marks the 25th anniversary of being elected Russia’s president — by eliminating opposition. Erdoğan’s years-long, one-man rule has seen a breakdown of democratic institutions, but Turkey “has never seen anything like this before, except during military coups,” Le Monde wrote. Despite Erdoğan modeling himself after Putin, “Turkey is not Russia,” Tul wrote: Unlike Russia, Turkey’s ailing economy relies on foreign investors who are feeling the country’s growing authoritarianism, and “even a strongman must deliver results to maintain his grip on power.”
Erdoğan banks on Turkey’s strategic importance to limit international outcry
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s bet that Turkey’s role as a regional power broker “outweighs is democratic shortcomings” is paying off, Bloomberg argued: There has been little international outcry over İmamoğlu’s arrest, especially from Turkey’s Western allies. Washington needs Turkey to stabilize the Middle East following the fall of Assad’s regime in Syria, and to counter Iran’s influence, Politico wrote, while Europe is relying on Ankara — home to NATO’s second-largest army — to bolster its defense as the US reconsiders its European security commitments. Erdoğan is a “keen reader of the zeitgeist,” a Turkish foreign policy expert told Bloomberg. “I expect no meaningful pushback.”