Elec­tions, Tac­tics and Vio­lence – Erdoğan’s Soft Author­i­tar­i­an­ism and the Cur­rent Devel­op­ments (Part II)

In light of the recent wave of arrests tar­get­ing politi­cians of the main oppo­si­tion par­ty CHP – includ­ing the promi­nent May­or of Istan­bul, Ekrem İmamoğlu – and the sub­se­quent mass protests across the coun­try, an intense debate has erupt­ed in Turkey on whether Erdoğan’s regime is cur­rent­ly shift­ing from a com­pet­i­tive to a full author­i­tar­i­an regime.

So far, the CHP under its chair­man Özgür Özel has been able to effec­tive­ly mobi­lize pro­test­ers and has man­aged to pre­vent Pres­i­dent Erdo­gan from plac­ing Istanbul’s city admin­is­tra­tion or the CHP itself under state-appoint­ed trustee­ship. How­ev­er, it has not yet suc­ceed­ed in secur­ing the release of its key rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Hence, there is grow­ing spec­u­la­tion that elec­tions in Turkey may be abol­ished alto­geth­er in the near future, and that Erdoğan can no longer be vot­ed out of office. The fol­low­ing con­ver­sa­tion with Ulrike Flad­er address­es these and relat­ed questions.

Dr. Ulrike Flad­er is a senior lec­tur­er at the Depart­ment of Anthro­pol­o­gy and Cul­tur­al Research and mem­ber of the research group “Soft Author­i­tar­i­anisms” at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bre­men. She has been a close observ­er of the polit­i­cal devel­op­ment in Turkey for many years and is con­duct­ing research on its cur­rent author­i­tar­i­an government.

The inter­view was con­duct­ed on 30^th March 2025 by Dr. Çetin Gür­er, polit­i­cal and social sci­en­tist and Asso­ci­at­ed Fel­low at the Insti­tute of Inter­cul­tur­al and Inter­na­tion­al Stud­ies (InI­IS), Uni­ver­si­ty of Bre­men. Cetin Gürer:’s research inter­ests lie in the field of peace and con­flict stud­ies, plu­ral­ism and mod­els of auton­o­my, the Kur­dish Ques­tion and pol­i­tics and soci­ety in Turkey. He is a reg­u­lar com­men­ta­tor on cur­rent issues in Turkey for the media.

Imamoğlu’s arrest also a tac­ti­cal move?

Çetin Gür­er: Let’s return to recent events. Why did Erdoğan take the step of hav­ing İmamoğlu arrest­ed? Why would he need that? Is it just part of man­ag­ing the oppo­si­tion in order to win the elec­tions? After all, the next elec­tions are still three years away. Why now? What is he try­ing to achieve?

Ulrike Flad­er: Most of us prob­a­bly weren’t even think­ing seri­ous­ly about the next elec­tions yet. But the gov­ern­ment is always two or three steps ahead and care­ful­ly con­sid­ers which tac­tic might work best at what time. I do actu­al­ly think it was done now because of the CHP par­ty con­gress, which was sched­uled to take place the week­end after the arrest. İmamoğlu was expect­ed to be nom­i­nat­ed as a can­di­date there.

Çetin Gür­er: Did Erdoğan want to impede that?

Ulrike Flad­er: The goal is def­i­nite­ly to put obsta­cles in the path of the main oppo­si­tion­al par­ty. What I find espe­cial­ly inter­est­ing is the step that came before the arrest: The revo­ca­tion of İmamoğlu’s uni­ver­si­ty degree by the uni­ver­si­ty admin­is­tra­tion. That was a very prac­ti­cal move, because with­out a valid degree, İmamoğlu no longer meets the for­mal require­ments to run for office.

Çetin Gür­er: In that case, an arrest wouldn’t have been nec­es­sary at all.

Ulrike Flad­er: You are right. Although the annul­ment of his degree could still be chal­lenged legal­ly. What is also inter­est­ing here is the obvi­ous tac­ti­cal ambi­gu­i­ty by using two dif­fer­ent accu­sa­tions against İmamoğlu — one of ter­ror­ism due to the strate­gic elec­toral agree­ment the CHP entered into with the DEM par­ty in the last local elec­tions, and the other …

Çetin Gür­er: Corruption.

Ulrike Flad­er: Yes, or rather, embez­zle­ment, I think. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ing as the author­i­ties obvi­ous­ly want to keep their options open. Per­haps they are uncer­tain which path will be more effec­tive, or how the pub­lic will react. And it seems, they want to leave room to manoeu­vre. The two charges also serve dif­fer­ent polit­i­cal pur­pos­es: The ter­ror­ism charge is like­ly aimed at scar­ing off nation­al­ists with­in the CHP, while the cor­rup­tion charge is meant to dam­age İmamoğlu’s clean pub­lic image. Although at this point, the big ques­tion is who still believes these accu­sa­tions? It is in fact aston­ish­ing that despite all the manip­u­la­tion of the media, very many peo­ple clear­ly see this as an author­i­tar­i­an move by Erdoğan and that’s why so many have tak­en to the streets.

To come back to your ques­tion: I do believe that Imamoğlu’s arrest ben­e­fits Erdoğan in some way. If Erdoğan wants to extend his time in office, he only has one legal option accord­ing to the cur­rent con­sti­tu­tion: the par­lia­ment would have to dis­solve itself and new elec­tions to be held—both for par­lia­ment and the pres­i­den­cy. This means that Erdoğan now needs to clev­er­ly cre­ate a sit­u­a­tion that gives him anoth­er chance to run for office. Because as things stand right now, he can­not legal­ly run for pres­i­dent again. So, he only has a few options left.

Çetin Gür­er: So if I under­stand you cor­rect­ly: İmamoğlu’s arrest could be a way to pres­sure the CHP into agree­ing to ear­ly elec­tions? Because the annul­ment of İmamoğlu’s uni­ver­si­ty degree alone would have already been enough to block his candidacy—but it wouldn’t have cre­at­ed a new oppor­tu­ni­ty for Erdoğan to run again.

Ulrike Flad­er: Well, …

Çetin Gür­er: That would be quite a clever strategy.

Ulrike Flad­er: We don’t know exact­ly what the gov­ern­ment is plan­ning, but we have to under­stand all of this as a tac­ti­cal pow­er game, in which key actors are being put under pres­sure. Already now, there is talk in some cir­cles that the CHP might not oppose ear­ly elec­tions. The gov­ern­ment coali­tion, as far as I know, cur­rent­ly lacks the major­i­ty in par­lia­ment to call ear­ly elec­tions on its own. To make them pos­si­ble, Erdoğan must there­fore change the sit­u­a­tion in some way.

Çetin Gür­er: He could either amend the con­sti­tu­tion for which he needs sup­port from Kur­dish MPs—he would only need a total of 360 votes for that—or the par­lia­ment dis­solves itself in order for him to run again. To realise that sec­ond option, he needs a “provo­ca­tion” of some sort, which is what he has now done. Plus, of course, it makes sense to elim­i­nate his strongest rival if Ekrem İmamoğlu is seen to the have bet­ter chances. Erdoğan might not have want­ed to risk that.

“We need to under­stand that this regime is play­ing for time”

Ulrike Flad­er: I am actu­al­ly not sure that there is always a clear plan which these actions fol­low. More often, it seems that Erdoğan and his gov­ern­ment respond to how things as they unfold. Now, we’re see­ing lots of peo­ple in the streets. How long will it last? Can he con­trol it? His strat­e­gy allows the impres­sion that peo­ple in Turkey can still express their opin­ions despite the arrests. So maybe Erdoğan will let it play out for a while, and then some­thing else will hap­pen. But, one thing is clear: If İmamoğlu remains in prison until the elec­tions, the CHP would obvi­ous­ly have slight­ly less chances. Nev­er­the­less, I believe that despite, or per­haps because of, the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion, many vot­ers would still vote for the CHP. That’s why I don’t think this is the last of Erdoğan’s tac­tics that we have seen. If İmamoğlu ends up spend­ing the next few years in prison, the cur­rent momen­tum will fade and the ques­tion is how long the CHP can keep this momen­tum going. Besides, con­tin­u­ous­ly tar­get­ing and arrest­ing its key fig­ures is also a way to wear down a polit­i­cal par­ty. It keeps them con­stant­ly busy with small­er attacks and legal harass­ment. That is exact­ly what hap­pened with the HDP/DEM Par­ty. We need to under­stand that this regime is play­ing for time.

Çetin Gür­er: Buy­ing time.

Ulrike Flad­er: Yes. It is a regime that sim­ply tries to gain time.

Çetin Gür­er: So, this is a typ­i­cal tac­tic to man­age the oppo­si­tion. Erdoğan want­ed to dis­cred­it the CHP’s par­ty con­gress and maybe force it to be repeat­ed, or even appoint a trustee (kayyum) to the party.

Ulrike Flad­er: One last thought on this: It is a style of gov­ern­ing that doesn’t com­plete­ly ban the oppo­si­tion, but nev­er­the­less leaves them in a posi­tion where they can’t real­ly act freely. And that is what para­dox­i­cal­ly dis­man­tles the opposition—by nev­er ban­ning it entire­ly. That, again, is a contradiction.

Çetin Gür­er: Erdoğan defines the play­ing field and sets the rules of the game. Any­one who wants to par­tic­i­pate must play by his rules.

Ulrike Flad­er: And of course, that also gen­er­ates fear and apa­thy. What we’re see­ing right now—that peo­ple, not just CHP sup­port­ers, are out onto the streets—this is some­thing real­ly spe­cial. They were able to gain a lit­tle courage over the years, because the CHP, com­pared to the Kur­dish par­ties, had a cer­tain degree of free­dom. But if, in the near future, more and more peo­ple are impris­oned based on fab­ri­cat­ed charges such as abuse of office, the usu­al ter­ror­ism accu­sa­tions, or on grounds of dis­rupt­ing pub­lic order, as done now, often based on anony­mous wit­ness­es, then even those who have become more coura­geous may begin to back away again.

Hope and Apathy

Çetin Gür­er: In your opin­ion, what is the best way out of this dead­lock? Is tak­ing to the streets an option? What oth­er means are there?

Ulrike Flad­er: Of course, it is cru­cial to see so many peo­ple out on the streets. You won’t hear me say any­thing opposed to that. We might, how­ev­er, see Erdoğan—especially since he is labelling the protests as “street terrorism”—declare anoth­er state of emer­gency, per­haps lim­it­ed in time or to spe­cif­ic regions. This could hap­pen. Still, I believe that these protests have giv­en peo­ple courage. Espe­cial­ly in light of what I said ear­li­er: This sys­tem plays with our emo­tions: On the one hand, we fall into apa­thy, then we gain a bit of hope in the run up to elec­tions, and when we real­ize they didn’t work out, we fall back into apa­thy or exhaus­tion again. Break­ing this emo­tion­al cycle is extreme­ly cru­cial. In that sense, I real­ly believe these recent street protests have helped peo­ple break out of this state of limbo—as I often call it. This has been extreme­ly important.

“Break­ing this emo­tion­al cycle is crucial.”

But I also believe that if we’re going to talk about a way out, we have to look at oth­er things as well. For a long time, I didn’t have an answer to this ques­tion myself—until a recent con­ver­sa­tion we had,
which was actu­al­ly about the renewed peace nego­ti­a­tions with Abdul­lah Öcalan. That’s when it struck me that we also have to think of the way out of this regime in terms of nego­ti­a­tions. The rea­son is because this regime oper­ates in terms of tac­tics. It takes peo­ple as hostages. In the end, İmamoğlu is essen­tial­ly noth­ing else, but a hostage of this regime—just like Osman Kavala, Sela­hat­tin Demir­taş, and all the oth­er impris­oned HDP and DEM politi­cians. It’s a regime that works with a log­ic of ‘tak­ing hostage’. Of course, polit­i­cal par­ties must still con­vince vot­ers with the con­tent of their polit­i­cal pro­grammes etc. The CHP for instance still has to do that. How­ev­er, I think it’s cru­cial to under­stand that this is not a regime that will fall just because the oppo­si­tion man­ages to mobi­lize its vot­ers. It’s also about out­ma­neu­ver­ing the regime’s tac­tics, per­haps about nego­ti­at­ing. The oppo­si­tion has to think about what kind of means of exert­ing pres­sure it might have itself.

Çetin Gür­er: Because Erdoğan can always just refuse to acknowl­edge the results of the elec­tions — which he’s already done before.

Ulrike Flad­er: I have often won­dered how politi­cians actu­al­ly analyse this regime. Because if you don’t analyse it prop­er­ly, you run the risk of just throw­ing every­thing into an elec­tion campaign.

Çetin Gür­er: Although elec­tions no longer offer real hope for change.

Ulrike Flad­er: Exact­ly. I mean, in the end, yes—you do have to win an elec­tion at some point. But first you need to under­stand what kind of regime you’re deal­ing with: A regime that plays tac­ti­cal games, that oper­ates with con­tra­dic­tions, that intro­duces mea­sures and then retrieves them, that is extreme­ly flex­i­ble. The oppo­si­tion needs to devel­op its own tac­tics in response.That’s how it seems to me.

Beat­ing Erdoğan at his Own Game

Çetin Gür­er: So, we have to rec­og­nize these char­ac­ter­is­tics and build a polit­i­cal strat­e­gy accordingly.

Ulrike Flad­er: In a way, it seems, you have to set Erdoğan a trap—that’s the only idea that cur­rent­ly comes to my mind. Since the oppo­si­tion can ulti­mate­ly only come to pow­er through an elec­tion – any­thing else would be a coup – it needs a tac­tic or strat­e­gy that will force Erdoğan to call an elec­tion under cir­cum­stances that he can­not win. It needs a tac­tic to check­mate him. Because the gov­ern­ing par­ties do not have the nec­es­sary two-thirds major­i­ty in par­lia­ment, Erdoğan can only achieve new elec­tions or a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment with the help of the oppo­si­tion. This might hold poten­tial, both for the Kurds and the CHP, to exert some form of pres­sure on the gov­ern­ment. But, unless we real­ly under­stand Erdoğan’s tac­tics and devel­op counter-strate­gies with­in this trag­ic polit­i­cal chess game,
I don’t think we can be successful.

Çetin Gür­er: We have to beat him at his own game and sur­prise him, too. The oppo­si­tion should play the same game. Take the peace nego­ti­a­tions for exam­ple: When İmamoğlu was arrest­ed, nego­ti­a­tions were under­way with Abdul­lah Öcalan and the PKK. I kept think­ing that the CHP should imme­di­ate­ly strength­en its ties with the pro-Kur­dish DEM Par­ty, and per­haps counter Devlet Bahçeli’s pro­pos­al for a “right to hope” (Umut Hakkı), which could allow for Öcalan’s release, for instance by propos­ing their own leg­is­la­tion. That would be some­thing no one would expect of the CHP. Right now, the peace process is being used as a pow­er play by Erdoğan. He doesn’t gen­uine­ly want peace—he is not aim­ing at actu­al­ly solv­ing the Kur­dish issue by grant­i­ng rights. Instead, his only goal is to stay in pow­er. That is a very prag­mat­ic, Machi­avel­lian approach. That’s why, if the CHP made such a pro­pos­al, it would tru­ly sur­prise Erdoğan and his allies. The DEM Par­ty, of course, would need oth­er strate­gies, as they’ve always called for Öcalan’s release and the release of oth­er polit­i­cal prisoners.

“Unless we real­ly under­stand Erdoğan’s tac­tics and devel­op counter-strate­gies with­in this trag­ic polit­i­cal chess game, I don’t think we can be successful.”

Ulrike Flad­er: I com­plete­ly agree. Any card Erdoğan might try to play needs to be seized. That’s what I mean when I talk about tac­tics. Erdoğan opened the game and now you have to make your move in a way that he can’t turn it against you, or against the pub­lic, or against democ­ra­cy itself. And right now, it real­ly looks like the Kur­dish ques­tion could be that next move. I would go even fur­ther than you: Why shouldn’t the CHP con­duct unof­fi­cial talks with the PKK behind the scenes?You have to be creative.

Çetin Gür­er: Yes, the Kur­dish issue is now the key fac­tor in Turk­ish pol­i­tics. Since last Octo­ber, Erdoğan and the MHP have resumed talks with the PKK and Abdul­lah Öcalan. In Turkey, there are real­ly only three deci­sive polit­i­cal forces: the Kurds, the Kemal­ists, and the Islamists. Erdoğan has always played the game with these groups. Now the Kur­dish issue is back on the agen­da, even though it prob­a­bly wasn’t Erdoğan’s orig­i­nal inten­tion. I believe inter­na­tion­al forces brought it back onto the table with par­tic­u­lar regard to Syr­ia and Erdoğan had to accept it. That’s why the nego­ti­a­tions with Öcalan came back so abrupt­ly, even though no actu­al new peace process was in sight.

Ulrike Flad­er: We were total­ly sur­prised by it.

Çetin Gür­er: Erdoğan had to reshuf­fle his cards and then went full speed. In my view, the nego­ti­a­tions were a major trig­ger for these devel­op­ments. Oth­er­wise, it doesn’t make sense. Why are we talk­ing so much about elec­tions? It is far too early—there are still about three years left. Instead, I think, Erdoğan saw the Kurds as an oppor­tu­ni­ty and thought he can approach them again, while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly destroy­ing the alliance between the Kurds and the CHP.

Ulrike Flad­er: I found your argu­ment you made in one of your recent arti­cles that inter­na­tion­al actors are very like­ly involved in insti­gat­ing this peace process very con­vinc­ing. But all this also shows that Erdoğan is still able to use the sit­u­a­tion to his advan­tage. He is flex­i­ble. It’s not a con­tra­dic­tion for his pol­i­tics. In 2015, he didn’t need the Kurds any­more. But before that, he had pur­sued a dif­fer­ent pol­i­cy toward them—one based on so-called Mus­lim broth­er­hood. Then sud­den­ly, he didn’t need them any­more. That’s one rea­son why – fol­low­ing polit­i­cal sci­en­tist Juan Linz – I believe we’re still bet­ter off talk­ing about author­i­tar­i­an­ism, not fas­cism. Dis­tin­guish­ing between total­i­tar­i­an­ism and author­i­tar­i­an­ism, Linz argued that author­i­tar­i­an­ism is char­ac­ter­ized by the absence of a fixed ide­ol­o­gy. There’s a lot more to say about this, but I think it’s quite telling that Erdoğan can say A today and B tomorrow.

Çetin Gür­er: He has no fixed ide­ol­o­gy, just a prag­mat­ic approach, with the sole goal of stay­ing in power.

Ulrike Flad­er: And he will use any­thing that helps him achieve that goal. Just like in this case: If inter­na­tion­al actors force him into some­thing he doesn’t real­ly want, he still tries to turn it into some­thing that ben­e­fits him. One final thought, com­ing back to your open­ing ques­tion: There are still many ways Erdoğan can maneu­ver before he com­plete­ly gives up the illu­sion of democ­ra­cy. I wouldn’t be sur­prised if we see anoth­er con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment in the near future, one which is pre­sent­ed as a qua­si-demo­c­ra­t­ic act. Per­haps, he will sep­a­rate the pres­i­den­tial and par­lia­men­tary elec­tions from each oth­er again, in order to retain con­trol over the pres­i­den­cy, while seem­ing­ly giv­ing par­lia­ment more pow­er. This regime has been so cre­ative over the past decade and has sur­prised us time and again. That’s why I think Erdoğan still holds sev­er­al trump cards, which he can play. We might even see İmamoğlu released in a cou­ple of years, if Erdoğan finds it polit­i­cal­ly use­ful. Every­thing is extreme­ly flex­i­ble and that is why it is some­times hard to make clear pre­dic­tions. But under­stand­ing these tac­tics is key when con­sid­er­ing what kind of pol­i­tics, we need to pursue.

Çetin Gür­er: Thank you very much for this conversation.

This inter­view was first pub­lished on Dr. Çetin Gür­er’s web­site.