No leader stays in power or lives forever, and Turkey’s dictator is getting old.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has dominated Turkish politics for much of the last two decades. He is the most consequential leader in Turkey since Mustafa Kemal Atatürk who founded modern Turkey almost a century ago. While Atatürk sought to tie Turkey to the West, Erdoğan has worked to reorient Turkey instead to the Islamic world. He built a palace, fifty-eight-times the size of the White House, where he lives like a Sultan. Indeed, that may his goal as he increasingly promotes his own family over party. Erdoğan demands respect. He surrounds himself with courtiers who praise him constantly and imprisons those whose criticize him. While Erdoğan sees himself as larger than life, the true measure of how Turks view him will become apparently only after his death.