The answer is no.
Because seven years after breaking away from the AKP to found the Gelecek Party, it has become clear that the party itself has no future. Reading between the lines of his announcement that he will dissolve the party and step away from politics, one senses his acknowledgment that 'things are no longer working.'
HE CAME WITH GÜL, LEFT WITHOUT HIM
Davutoğlu rose to the highest ranks of the ruling AKP. Although he was not one of the party’s founders, he was one of only three politicians apart from Recep Tayyip Erdoğan — alongside Abdullah Gül and Binali Yıldırım—to serve as prime minister for the party. It was Gül who brought Davutoğlu into politics. Yet when Erdoğan became president and entrusted the premiership to Davutoğlu, Gül was the one most resentful of the decision. From that day on, the relationship between the two men never truly recovered.
WORKING WITH KILIÇDAROĞLU
Davutoğlu entered the 2023 elections as part of the six-party opposition alliance. With Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu as the joint presidential candidate, the Gelecek Party secured 10 parliamentary seats from the CHP's candidate lists. Today, that number has fallen to four.
But the six-party alliance was not Davutoğlu's first partnership with Kılıçdaroğlu. Years earlier, the two men had already sat across the negotiating table in coalition talks.
The defining moment for Davutoğlu came after the June 7, 2015 election, when the AKP, with about 40 percent of the vote, lost its parliamentary majority for the first time. He met Kılıçdaroğlu to discuss the possibility of forming a coalition government. Yet from the outset he described the meetings as an “exploratory” and he made it clear that he had no real intention of forming a coalition.
The outcome reflected exactly that. No coalition was formed, and Turkey returned to the polls five months later.
The period before the Nov. 1, 2015 election was overshadowed by the Suruç massacre and the Ankara train station bombing. In the repeated election, the AKP regained its single-party majority with nearly 50 percent of the vote.
THEN HE WAS SHOWN THE DOOR
By then, however, Davutoğlu's position had become increasingly precarious. Rather than acting merely as a caretaker for Erdoğan, he sought to build an independent leadership of his own. That ultimately sealed his fate. Following an internal party intervention, he was forced to resign both as prime minister and as party chairman.
THE ISSUE OF MONEY
Davutoğlu's views on political corruption and illicit enrichment also played a significant role in his downfall. He attempted to introduce legislation to make political financing more transparent, but the initiative was blocked. Many things have been said — and will continue to be said — about Davutoğlu, but allegations of personal corruption or financial misconduct have never been among them. It is also possible that the financial difficulties of sustaining the Gelecek Party contributed to his decision to dissolve it. Preparations are now underway to raise the flag of the newly established Yeni Party — formed by defectors from the CHP — over the Gelecek Party's first headquarters.
STRATEGIC DEPTH
'Strategic Depth' is the concept most closely associated with Davutoğlu. It is also the title of his influential book on foreign policy. A well-educated academic, he has long been known by the nickname Hoca 'the Teacher', reflecting his habit of explaining politics as though lecturing a classroom of students. During a 2015 rally in Diyarbakır, supporters greeted him with Kurdish chants of Serok Ahmet “Leader Ahmet', a nickname that stuck later. Before the start of the new Kurdish peace process, MHP Chair Devlet Bahçeli repeatedly used the same epithet when referring to him. Will the Hoca return to politics? It seems unlikely.
