Erdoğan initially advocated for a moderate Islamic-conservatism against extreme secularism (known as Atatürkism). This gained public supports from Turkish population which resulted in the winning of the majority in Grand National Assembly in the 2002 Turkish general election. He actively sought the membership of the European Union (EU) in contrast to the previous diplomacy tradition of Turkish government during the Republic era to not meddle in the international politics unless necessary.
Due to its strategic position as the junction for the Europe and Minor Asia, it is only natural for the players in Turkey to spread their influences into Balkans and Middle East. It was not possible previously simply because of the strict stance of Atatürkism in international geopolitics. As such restriction lifted by Erdoğan, Turkey now energetically involves in the politics, economics and even military affairs of the Balkans and Arab nations such as Syria and Iraq. Turkey makes huge investments in both Romania and Bulgaria, only been countered by EU construction of the railway line extended from Vienna, Austria to Bucharest, Romania and financial investments from France and Germany. The tensions between Turkey and EU escalated by the blocking of the membership into EU from France and Germany.
The difficulties of influencing the Balkans encourage the Turkish government to look east to expand its sphere of influence. This resulted in the Turkish involvement of the Syrian Civil War, which indirectly clashes the interests of Russian regime in the region. Turkey further stretch their hand into Libyan internal conflicts. Although Turkey and Russia signed an alliance to signify their endeavour for regional peace, analysts are pessimistic about the lasting of such relation, and predicts instead that the entrenchment between Turkey and Russian can only deepen which will finally ended in the break of the pact.
Although Erdoğan endorsed for a bright future for the Turkish, the wealth inequality widen under his office. In 2002, the top 10% richest in the country shared 67% of national wealth. This rose to 81% in 2020, most of them are from construction and financial sectors, meaning the rest shares only 19% of the wealth among themselves. Such reality fuels the resentment of the Turkish especially among the youth, which culminated in the lost of Istanbul constituency after 25 years of holding by Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) since 1994.
The change of the Turkish constitution to turn Turkey into a presidential constitutional republic in order to expand his executive power as the president doesn’t help to cold down the dissatisfaction. The greater power one held, bear greater responsibility, thus bear greater blame. Even though Erdoğan successfully gripped the power for himself and even escaped coups, his public image deteriorated drastically as his approval rating drop to 40.7% in 2022 1 compare to 71.7% during his third term as prime minister in 2012 2 .
As Erdoğan losing his popular support, he turned over for the support from the far-right party, Nationalist Movement Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP). It eventually emanated the idea that the just punishment to the rapist is not jail time but to be forced to marry his victim. This is adhered to the Shari’ah law but faces incredible opposition within his party. A schism was inevitable. Party members that uphold secularism, especially women, left the party and formed a new political party, Good Party (İyi Parti).
References
- The Turkish Century | New Beginnings