Image by Arzu Geybullayeva

Turkey faces a problem which its citizens are afraid to admit: how to remove a sitting president who has no intention of leaving office.

Under the rule of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey has become visibly poorer. Citizens are angry, bitter and some are beginning to raise their voices. It’s hard to put a percentage on the number of people who want Erdoğan and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) gone, but suffice it to say that if elections were held tomorrow, they would likely lose by a landslide.

Fully aware of this, Erdoğan is in no rush to call snap elections. After all, he was re-elected president only last year until 2028. He has now signaled that he would like to be re-elected for a fourth term, which is not permitted by the country's constitution. What can be done to prevent him from illegally holding onto power? Unfortunately, removing him by democratic elections is not a function of reality. Turkey's population has to actively pressure him out of office.

Who wants Erdoğan gone?

For some time now, I have been watching street interviews on YouTube, conducted by a cadre of citizen journalists who randomly interview ordinary people on Turkey’s streets capturing citizen sentiments.

Public disdain against Erdoğan is palpable. After 22 years of his rule, people want change. Economic malpractice, rampant corruption, crushing consumer inflation are overwhelmingly heaped on Erdoğan’s bad governance. The elderly are finding it hard to access healthcare and medicines, pay their rent, and even secure daily basics like bread. Many are seen in public markets buying rotten fruit and vegetables at discounted prices, some searching for garbage in trash cans that appears to be edible. Turkey has never experienced this level of poverty.

Citizens are confused, however, as to how or whether Erdoğan will leave office. Their anger needs to be channeled into action. They need to feel empowered and believe that their voices of frustration can be directed to remove him from power. Right now, most of them believe that if they speak up, there would likely be unwelcome consequences like losing their job, or being arrested and jailed.

In the last decade, Erdoğan has erased the view that Turkey is a country governed by the rule of law. It is not. It is a country governed by law and impunity. The basic constitutional order has been upended.

Democratic transition of power unlikely under Erdoğan

At present, I am of the view that political and governmental change in Turkey is not possible by relying on the conventional institutions of democracy like elections. In other words, I don’t believe that Erdoğan would leave office just because he may one day lose an election. Criticisms of and challenges to Erdoğan’s rule by law are not well-received. Turkey, in my estimation, is beyond the point of peaceful transition of power from one incumbent to the next. Erdoğan is giving clear signals of his intent to remain in office, come what way.

Erdoğan's strong grip on power is not sustained simply because he rules with an iron fist. Rank-and-file citizens also share the blame. In fact, the actions of some of his harshest critics help sustain his rule.

The single largest problem preventing the president’s removal from office inside Turkey is public pressure. The vast majority of Turkish people are unwilling and unable to raise their voices and criticize Erdoğan. They remain silent, mainly because they are afraid of going to jail.

Waiting for a savior

In addition to this fear, there is an unfortunate fixation in the minds of regime critics that somehow, if an election were to be held in the near future, it would finally rid the country of 22 years of the president and his autocratic rule.

It is a view focused on finding a savior who can finally convince more than 50 per cent of voters to back them. In the past two election cycles (2023 presidential and 2024 local elections), Ekrem Imamoglu, the charismatic mayor of Istanbul, was a frequent name employed by hopeful Erdoğan dissenters, that he may actually be the person. There is, however, little consideration given to the possibility that politically, Turkey may have reached a point where the transition of power from Erdoğan to his successor may not be achievable in a peaceful manner. In late 2024, there is a decent chance that Imamoglu will be banned from politics and will not be able to run against Erdogan.

The combination mirage of waiting for Turkey’s political savior and naive belief that elections will unseat Erdoğan has resulted in a society-wide level of passivity. A mistaken belief that if Turks are patient and vote for the right person, Turkey will wake up to a bright future. Such passivity is a significant source of power sustaining Erdoğan’s autocratic rule. Therefore, taking a vocally anti-Erdoğan position and openly resisting his authoritarian rule is viewed as unnecessary, even anti-Turkish.

Anti-Erdoğan = Anti-Turkish?

Since joining the Foundation the Defense of Democracies (FDD) as a Turkey watcher, a Washington-based think tank that is openly critical of Erdoğan, I have identified a clear trend: openly calling out Erdogan’s undemocratic acts is met with hostility by many Turks, and not by those who are his supporters, but by those who desire to see him gone.

My assumption was that critics would be supportive of analysis and policy recommendations detailing Erdoğan’s transgressions from democracy, the rule of law and corrupt practices. Instead, factually grounded and disclosure-based analysis is frequently dismissed by his critics as “anti-Turkish propaganda.”

Moreover, we frequently see arguments made that FDD research, in addition to being disparaging of Erdoğan and the AKP, is too “Western,” as in, it is too focused on or solely interested in keeping Ankara as a puppet of Western powers. In private conversations with individuals, I have come to learn that direct exposure of Erdoğan’s policies, which cast Turkey in a negative light, should only be discussed among other Turks. This is based on the view that, as Turks, we can be as critical of Turkish politicians among ourselves, but doing so openly in public is damaging to Turkey’s overall image, and we should refrain from airing the country’s dirty laundry when in the company of non-Turks.

My compilation of these individuals’ backgrounds, affiliations, demography, etc., is not methodologically derived in any scientific manner. They are observations I have made since joining FDD.

Where is the public outrage?

FDD analysis of Erdoğan policies has certainly been harsh, to say the least, both in rhetoric and in tone. This is intentional. In my estimation, only analyzing Erdoğan's actions without exposing the malice, corruption and abuse of power involved is a dereliction of my duty. Unfortunately, this is what the majority of my think tank and journalist colleagues in Washington do: simply analyze what Erdoğan says or does as if he were just another world leader. By underreporting his actions, they help perpetuate authoritarianism.

Without a doubt, Turkey's image was damaged when FDD helped uncover a brazen violation of international sanctions against Iran by Ankara. FDD research into the Halkbank case shed light on how Erdoğan helped orchestrate a USD 20 billion heist, where Turkey purchased illegal Iranian natural gas and paid for it in gold. Calling for accountability in all these measures is not denigrating Turkey’s reputation. It is an attempt to salvage it. Erdoğan is a criminal, pure and simple. Any person who opposes such illegal behavior should join us in demanding that he be held accountable before the law.

Erdoğan has fundamentally stripped Turkey of its soul. He has done more harm to the country's democratic development than any junta regime. It is worth remembering that he refers to the Gezi Park protests of 2013 as acts of ‘”terrorism.” These were popular and largely peaceful public protests denouncing Erdoğan and the AKP’s corrupt rule of impunity. During the protests, Berkin Elvan, a child sent out by his family to buy bread, was shot and killed by the police. Erdoğan denounced him as a terrorist on the day he was being buried by his family. Elvan's murder has gone unpunished.

This is the same government that removed protections to deter violence against women under the Istanbul convention (which they originally legislated); the same government that emptied the country’s central bank reserves, totaling over USD 128 billion of stolen funds. It is the same government that openly embraces and provides material support to Hamas, a major terrorist organization that carried out the deadly October 7 attacks in Israel, murdering over 1,200 Israeli civilians. While Turkey's allies, especially in NATO, are heavily critical of Israel's military operations to eliminate Hamas, Turkey is the only country in NATO that openly praises Hamas’ actions.

For the first time in its 100-year history, Turkey is in danger of unraveling as a cohesive polity. It is time for fellow Erdoğan critics and policy analysts who document Turkey to see past one another’s differences and acknowledge that if we want to see the survival of a democratic Turkey, we need to support and work together. Elections, saviors and underreporting Erdoğan will not save the country. Those who clap for Erdoğan’s authoritarian project are united. The question remains: why do we choose to undermine and weaken one another by not coalescing around those who strive to rid Turkey of the scourge of Erdoğan rule?