Does Erdogan take an even more authoritarian turn? DW 03/27/2025

The arrest and withdrawal of the function of the mayor of Istanbul Ekrem Imamoglu last week caused consternation in Türkiye. Tens of thousands of people have left the street daily to protest against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

There have also been international criticisms of the arrest of Imamoglu, a longtime political rival of Erdogan and the increased repression against the Turkish opposition and the independent media.

The European Commission called on Monday Turkey on Monday to “maintain democratic values” and the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that political competitions “should not be carried out through courts and prisons”.

Experts say Turkey has been on the road to autocracy for some time now. Since he survived an attempted coup in 2016, Erdogan has widened his presidential powers and has repressed the opposition and political dissent.

However, when he took office for the first time, Erdogan was congratulated as a reformer. DW traces how Turkey has come to this point.

Of a working class district

Erdogan was born in 1954. His father was a coastal guard and the family lived in the working -class district of Istanbul and socially conservative of Kasimpasa.

He attended a religious vocational high school and quickly made a name for someone with a gift to speak in public.

The president himself said that he graduated from the Marmara University of Istanbul in 1981, but according to the University's website, he only acquired his status from the University in July 1982. There was therefore a debate on the fact that Erdogan really has a university degree. In theory, this is a prerequisite for the office he currently occupies.

Erdogan worked for the local transport authority and played semi-professional football. In 1978, he married Emine Gulbaran; They have four children.

Erdogan's political career began in the 1970s when he joined a religious and conservative party led by politician Necmettin Erbakan. In 1994, he was, to the surprise of many, the elected mayor of Istanbul, although he was not really well known in local olitics. In 1998, he had to resign from the post after being sentenced to prison for reading a nationalist poem in public who was considered an incentive to religious hatred.

AKP Foundation

After his release, Erdogan and other politicians founded the right and right -wing populist and populist development party (AKP) in 2001. A year later, the party collected 35% of the votes during a general election and won by a landslide. Although Erdogan was initially unable to serve as Prime Minister because of his conviction in 2003, he was appointed to this office after a change of law.

During his three mandates as Prime Minister, Erdogan managed to stimulate economic growth and was even congratulated internationally as a reformer. The accession negotiations with the EU officially started in 2005 and the process led to the modernization of laws and regulations at an unprecedented rate. Erdogan has advanced with the development of infrastructure and the Turkish middle class has become larger.

Gezi Park's demonstrations in Istanbul marked a turning point. Although they started as a small demonstration against an urban development project for the park, they quickly became a broader movement against Erdogan's authoritarian policies and growing restrictions on freedom of expression. The government reacted with a heavy hand, using tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets. Eight people died and thousands of people were injured. Erdogan described protests as a “tempting coup” and used them to further consolidate his power.

Expansion of presidential powers

Erdogan has been president of Turkey since 2014 and since then, he has continued to extend his powers. In 2018, he received large -scale powers when the current presidential system was introduced. He abolished the Prime Minister's office, making the president, who had previously had a more symbolic role, the chief of the executive.

Another step was there drastic restriction of press freedom. Many independent media have been closed or placed under the control of the state, which makes it increasingly difficult to criticize Erdogan and his entourage. Journalists who dare to criticize the government are often intimidated or even imprisoned. At least nine journalists covering the current demonstrations concerning Imamoglu have already been arrested.

Over the past decade, there has also been an increase in the arrests of opposition politicians. After the failure of the 2016 coup attempt, thousands of political opponents and academics were arrested and accused of supporting terrorist organizations.

During the night of July 15 to 16, 2016, some parts of the Turkish army would have tried to overthrow the government led by Erdogan. The government has mainly accused Fethullah Gulen, a reclusive American religious, who has died since in exile, and his supporters. The allegations have never been proven.

Since then, thousands of civil servants, judges and prosecutors have been dismissed.

We still do not know how the imprisonment of the mayor of Istanbul will affect Erdogan in the long term. Turkey analyst Hrcan Asli Aksoy, of the German Berlin Institute for International Affairs and Security, said that this is the “question of a million dollars”.

In an interview with the German media Tagessschau, she explained that she thought that the logic of Erdogan worked. “Not necessarily because his approach goes well with voters. But because he can count on his entire state system, not only the political apparatus but also the judicial power.”

This article was initially published in German.