Let us say it plainly at the outset: the answer is no. This is bigger than his wishes or reluctance. For more than a year, based on the operations against CHP municipalities, there has been a slew of analyses claiming that 'Erdoğan will not hold elections'. Similar analyses — citing earthquakes and wars as justification for him avoiding elections — also proved wrong before the 2023 elections and before.
THE ELECTION MACHINE
The crucial issue is what elections mean to Erdoğan. It is fair to describe him as an 'election machine.' Throughout nearly a quarter century of his uninterrupted single-party rule, there have always been elections and referendums. At this point, the ballot box is the only instrument in his hands that even resembles democracy. It is also the sole source of his legitimacy. For this reason, elections are not a desire, a belief, or a goal for Erdoğan — they are an inescapable reality. For Erdoğan, an election ends on Sunday and preparations for the next one begin on Monday. The meaning of elections for Erdoğan must be understood in this light. And above all, it is his rivals — the opposition — who most need to grasp this.
IS THE 50 PERCENT STILL AT HOME?
Barring any change, the scheduled date for the presidential and parliamentary elections is 2028. These days, the CHP is looking to test Erdoğan by having a number of its lawmakers resign to trigger by-elections. It is hard to imagine Erdoğan agreeing to this. He has his own electoral timeline in mind, and he will hold elections on his own terms. That said, Erdoğan is a politician who, during the 2013 Gezi protests, said, 'We are having trouble keeping the 50 percent at home.' Even back then, he could see that society was split 50–50, and he was sending the message that his own half wanted to take to the streets against the Gezi protesters, but that he was holding them back.
So is that 50 percent still at home? Recent elections, looked at retrospectively, suggest that some of the 50 percent have left home. Erdoğan is undoubtedly watching this closely. He therefore has calculations and moves in play as he prepares for the next election — for instance, preventing opposition parties from uniting by sowing fragmentation among them. Another example: closely monitoring what the DEM Party will do in elections, in the context of the Kurdish process. And before the election date he has in mind, he will use improvements for the groups most angered by him — particularly retirees and minimum-wage workers — as electoral chips.
ERDOĞAN'S WAY
In truth, the song Tayyip Erdoğan has always loved most is 'We walked these roads together.' But before the debates about his authoritarianism even began, he said during the early years of his rule that he was fond of Frank Sinatra's 'My Way.'
Erdoğan's journey to power began at the end of the 1990s, amid the collapse of center-right and center-left parties — and of course, the 2001 economic crisis. He also had behind him the political movement built by Necmettin Erbakan, his political 'mentor.' In his first decade in power, he brought liberals and various other political factions into his party. But particularly after becoming president, sole rule became the defining factor in everything. And it was in that period that Erdoğan truly hardened. Arrests that began with journalists, philanthropists and Kurdish politicians have for the past year extended to CHP members as well. During his tenure, prosecutions for insulting the president broke records. After 24 years in power, both the people's money and their democracy are running thin. So where is Erdoğan's path leading? Toward winning the next election, of course. And he knows the way.
