Turkey is nearing its most dramatic election in decades. Almost a century after the establishment of the republic and following 20 years of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s rule, Ankara seems like it’s at a pivotal moment. It has soaring inflation; an earthquake that claimed the lives of more than 50 thousand people; and a range of other problems that Erdogan and rival politicians all claim that they alone can fix.
The majority of Turkey’s opposition has rallied behind Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the Republican People’s Party. Kilicdaroglu, who’s sometimes referred to as Turkey’s Mahatma Gandhi, has differentiated himself from Erdogan by framing himself as a modest leader. His campaign has promised to strengthen the country’s democracy, fix its economic crisis, and battle corruption.
Could Erdogan actually lose? And if he does, will there be a peaceful transition of power?
FP’s Ravi Agrawal spoke with two experts to understand what lies ahead. Gonul Tol is the founding director of the Middle East Institute’s Turkey program and author of Erdogan’s War: A Strongman’s Struggle at Home and in Syria, and Steven A. Cook is an FP columnist and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Subscribers can watch the full video discussion here or read a lightly edited and condensed transcript, exclusive to FP Insiders.
