Bünyamin Tekin

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s frenetic 2024 has left many wondering what his next move will be. The past year began in the shadow of a cost of living crisis, was punctuated by the president’s outspoken criticism of Israel’s military action in Gaza and ended with his triumphant stance on regime change in Syria. To understand how the year went for Turkey’s strongman, one must examine the conditions that set the scene.

The presidential and parliamentary elections in May 2023 marked an important turning point for Erdoğan. The duel with the opposition alliance candidate in the run-off was an unprecedented challenge for him since it was the first time he had failed to win an outright majority in an election. Although he eventually defeated his rival, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, Erdoğan used various strategies to secure his victory. He spent billions on his election campaign, used fake videos to portray his opponent as a supporter of Kurdish separatists (and later admitted that the videos were fake), granted early retirement to millions of Turks to win their favor and implemented an FX-protected deposit scheme to stabilize the lira, all putting considerable strain on an already struggling state budget.

In the first four months of 2023, Turkey's current account deficit stands at -$30 bn, which is the largest deficit EVER in the Jan. to Apr. period. This is what's dragging down Turkish Lira and there's sadly no easy fix. Only rate hikes and recession will narrow this deficit… pic.twitter.com/rPlvDeEyok

— Robin Brooks (@robin_j_brooks) June 12, 2023

All this happened in a year when Turkey faced devastating earthquakes in the southeast that killed over 50,000 people, displaced millions, left hundreds of thousands homeless and destroyed entire cities.

Therefore, what followed was no surprise to observers.

Election defeat

The consequences of years of unorthodox monetary policy came to a head, forcing Erdoğan to reluctantly implement austerity measures under the stewardship of Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek.

Inflation remained relentless, and the purchasing power of Turks continued to dwindle. The promise of stability proved elusive, and popular discontent simmered as wages lagged far behind the cost of living. This discontent proved momentous in March, when Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) suffered a historic defeat in local elections. For the first time in 47 years, the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) won the popular vote, and for the first time in two decades, opposition parties won the major cities, including keeping control of İstanbul and Ankara, which they had won in 2019, in a resounding rejection of the president’s leadership.

These local elections will go down in Turkish political lore as an historic turning point for two simple reasons:

🟠President Erdoğan's AK Party has suffered the worst defeats of its 22-year existence,
🔴The opposition CHP has surpassed even its own expectations

🧵to follow👇 pic.twitter.com/yAFlMpDGA3

— JamesInTurkey.com (@jamesinturkey) March 31, 2024

Of course, one could conclude that the local elections showed Erdoğan’s vulnerability at home and strengthened the opposition. However, this is far from the case. Erdoğan’s position of power in Turkey is getting stronger, even though the Turks have shown that his policies are unpopular at the ballot box.

Erdoğan’s strength lies not in sheer brutality, as with a typical post-Soviet dictator, but in his pragmatism and flexibility, which enabled him to come to power despite Turkey’s strictly secular military tutelage. He imprisons opponents to remove the threat to his rule, but only if he can’t force them to do his will in any other way. When other means of control are available — often facilitated by his vast, ill-gotten wealth — he avoids the direct use of state power. This dynamic has meant that the main opposition party, despite outperforming Erdoğan’s party in recent elections, is largely incapable of seriously challenging his authority.

Reconciliation with Egypt

However, the loss of Erdoğan’s popular support has highlighted the impasse he faces due to Turkey’s struggling economy. As the country lacks abundant natural energy resources, its economic stability relies heavily on foreign investment. Erdoğan’s visit to longtime rival Egypt in February as well as previous diplomatic overtures to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia reflect his search for economic relief after years of enmity.

#Erdogan called #Sisi "my brother" and revoked the citizenship of the Muslim Brothers' leader in #Turkey. He called him a "murderer, oppressor and putschist" for years for having ousted the Muslim Brotherhood. Realignment in its foreign policy is opportunism not ideology. #Egypt pic.twitter.com/CoyWyaP6XR

— adly nabil abdelmasih (@AbdelmasihAdly) February 20, 2024

Ankara has waged a proxy war in Libya against these Arab countries by supporting the government in Tripoli. Erdoğan has also supported the Muslim Brotherhood for years, whose ouster in Egypt by current President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi marks a low point in Turkish-Egyptian relations.

Following his historic visit to Egypt, after a decade of accusing Sisi of being a putschist and a brutal dictator, Erdoğan referred to the Egyptian president as a “brother” He wanted to extend the same brotherhood to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. In late 2024, Erdoğan was still trying to improve relations with Assad after 14 years of civil war, during which he supported and armed the opposition parties. After the fall of Aleppo in 2016, he shifted his priority to the fight against the Kurds based in northeastern Syria and opted for a dialogue with Iran and Russia. However, Assad rejected Erdoğan’s repeated calls for dialogue.

Accusations of hypocrisy on Gaza

Observers pointed out that one of the reasons for Erdoğan’s election defeat was Turkey’s continued trade with Israel, despite Erdoğan’s vocal criticism of Tel Aviv over its military campaign in Gaza. Erdoğan condemned Israel’s military actions in Gaza as genocide and accused Western states of being complicit through their silence. However, this rhetoric stood in stark contrast to Turkey’s actions. Although Erdoğan imposed a trade ban with Israel in May, investigations revealed that this was effectively circumvented by increased exports to Palestine, while a significant proportion of Israeli crude oil imports continued to pass through Turkey via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. Protesters who accused Erdoğan of hypocrisy were met with excessive force and some were briefly arrested. The Turkish president made clear that he wants to keep the monopoly of pro-Palestinian advocacy.

Call to Öcalan

What happened in October was unexpected for many and surprised even veteran observers.

Erdoğan’s long-time far-right ally, Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli, called for the release of outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan in return for Öcalan’s call to disband the armed Kurdish fighters who revere the Kurdish leader, currently serving a life sentence.

One of the distinguishing features of the MHP is its staunchly anti-PKK ideology. Bahçeli previously would not utter Öcalan’s name without calling him a “baby killer” or “chief terrorist.”

Erdoğan later agreed to Bahçeli’s call and allowed pro-Kurdish MPs to visit Öcalan before the end of the year after a nine-year hiatus.

Victory in Syria

In retrospect, this move was interpreted by many as Erdoğan knowing about the Islamist rebels’ planned offensive in Syria and wanting to control Kurdish efforts to create an autonomous region in that country. Öcalan is also revered by Syrian Kurds, as he was hosted by Bashar al-Assad’s father in the 1990s, and the PKK had a base there where it could train its fighters.

The swift fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December was interpreted by observers as a victory for Erdoğan. He fulfilled his decades-old promise to pray at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, albeit through his longtime confidant, spy chief İbrahim Kalın. However, Turkey’s continued support for Syrian militants’ attacks on Kurdish groups led Western allies to view Turkey’s actions with skepticism, while neighboring countries such as Iran were outraged by Ankara’s aggressive stance.

Crackdown on the Gülen movement

Throughout the year, Erdoğan continued his relentless crackdown on alleged members of the Gülen movement. Fethullah Gülen, Erdoğan’s arch-enemy who had inspired the faith-based group, died in exile in October.

Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement since corruption investigations revealed in 2013 implicated then-prime minister Erdoğan as well as some members of his family and his inner circle.

Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan designated the movement as a terrorist organization and began to target its members. He intensified the crackdown on the movement following a failed coup in 2016, which the government accuses Gülen of masterminding.

The movement denies allegations of involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.

Following the abortive putsch, the Turkish government declared a state of emergency and carried out a massive purge of state institutions under the pretext of an anti-coup fight. More than 130,000 public servants as well as 24,706 members of the armed forces were summarily removed from their jobs for alleged membership in or relationships with “terrorist organizations” by emergency decree-laws subject to neither judicial nor parliamentary scrutiny.

In recent years, more than 705,172 people have been investigated on terrorism or coup-related charges due to their alleged links to the movement. There are at least 13,251 people in prison who are in pre-trial detention or convicted of terrorism charges in Gülen-linked trials.

Between June 2023 and June 2024 alone, Turkish authorities carried out a total of 5,543 police operations and arrested 1,595 people linked to the movement.

In addition to the thousands who were jailed, scores of other Gülen movement followers had to flee Turkey to avoid the government crackdown.

At the end of the year, Erdoğan cited 4,902 police operations against the Gülen movement, in which tens of thousands were arrested, as one of his government’s successes in 2024.

This is how Turkey’s authoritarian leader spent 2024, navigating economic turmoil, a historic election defeat and diplomatic reconciliation while consolidating his power by cracking down on dissent, ending it with a much-needed lifeline provided by the fall of Syria’s Assad regime.