THE INEVITABLE AUTHORITARIAN

If anything defines Erdogan's ideology, it is the pragmatism that he embraces in every crisis

- OMAIR ANAS

With his victory in the presidential elections run off held on May 28, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, 69, has reinforced his position as the longest-ruling leader of the modern Turkish republic. When his  Justice and Development Party (AKP) won its first election in November 2002, Erdogan could not become prime minister. Turkey, back then, had a parliamentary system of government. Erdogan was kept out by a judicial ban imposed on him for using a few lines from a poem by Turkish nationalist Ziya Gokalp at a rally in the city of Siirt six years ago. He chose his trusted lieutenant, Abdullah Gul, as prime minister until the AKP-dominated parliament voted to suspend the ban. Erdogan took over as prime minister on March 15, 2003.

Erdogan’s political memories were made of impoverished Turkish villages and cities where he struggled in his childhood and student days. An angry, yet ambitious Erdogan joined student politics in 1976 under his mentor Necmettin Erbakan, the architect of political Islam in modern Turkey. Erdogan’s oratorical and political skills, and his piety helped him rise quickly through the ranks and he became the Islamists’ candidate for the Istanbul mayor elections in 1994. He won and used the opportunity to transform Istanbul into a truly modern city. Erdogan soon became a national icon as his nationalistic speeches buffeted by Islamist narratives appealed to a large section of Turkish voters.

In 1997, a court found Erdogan guilty of violating Turkey’s strict secular laws in the Gokalp poem case. He was stripped of mayorship and was jailed for 10 months. Erdogan, however, was able to convert the crisis to his favour, invoking populist and religious sentiments. As his popularity surged, he sought to take over the leadership of the Islamists.