| Turkey’s coming runoff election |
| Voters across Turkey will make a critical choice on Sunday between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his main challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu. The runoff election will be watched around the world for how it could shape the future of Turkey. |
| “Most people are operating under the assumption that Erdogan is going to win,” said Ben Hubbard, our Istanbul bureau chief. Erdogan came out ahead in the first round, secured a key endorsement and has been using the state to campaign even harder. |
| What would an Erdogan victory mean for the future of Turkey? |
| Ben: It likely means, in the big picture, a certain amount of consistency. Erdogan has effectively been the most powerful politician in the country for 20 years. It’s unlikely that he is going to get re-elected and then drastically change course. For domestic opponents, for political dissidents, for members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community, there’s a lot of fear that some of the erosion of democratic norms that he has overseen is going to continue. |
| How would an Erdogan victory affect Turkey’s role on the world stage? |
| Internationally, there were many leaders and politicians — in the U.S. and in Europe — who would have loved to see him be defeated. They didn’t say it publicly. But there’s a feeling that while he’s a partner and an ally with the U.S. in NATO, he’s always kind of a headache. |
| Still, Erdogan has played this interesting broker role. He is this rare figure in NATO who meets regularly with the president of the enemy nation. He talks to Putin, and he talks to Zelensky. If he wins, I would imagine that the response in Western capitals will not be one of joy but of “OK, we’ll keep trying to manage this as we were.” |
| For more: Erdogan has reoriented Turkey’s national culture to maintain power, writes Jason Farago, a Times critic at large. For the past 20 years, the president has promoted a nostalgic revival of the Ottoman past — sometimes in grand style, sometimes as pure kitsch. |
