Feed aggregator

The presidents of the four Visegrad states – Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland – met in Esztergom, Hungary, on Wednesday. But Poland's right-wing conservative head of state Karol Nawrocki cancelled a planned meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán after Orbán visited Putin in Moscow last week.

France's President Emmanuel Macron has launched a campaign against fake news. He plans to build on the idea of Reporters Without Borders and label media as reliable or unreliable in order to stem the spread of disinformation. His critics accuse him of wanting to control the media and of curbing the freedom of the press. Macron insists that independent experts would award the certificate, not the state.

Responses to a public consultation on a review of the EU's big tech rulebook indicates concern over gatekeepers self-preferencing their AIs, the Commission said on Thursday

Die SRG hat die Zahlen zum ESC in Basel 2025 veröffentlicht. Obwohl das Budget unterschritten wurde, gehört der Eurovision Song Contest von diesem Jahr zu den teuersten aller Zeiten.

Eine geplante Schulreform in Belp sorgt für heftige Diskussionen: Das Modell mit Viertagewoche und nur sechs Wochen Ferien trifft bei Eltern und Lesern auf deutliche Kritik.

Dauer des Videos : 210'

Haftungsausschluss : Die Verdolmetschung der Debatten soll die Kommunikation erleichtern, sie stellt jedoch keine authentische Aufzeichnung der Debatten dar. Authentisch sind nur die Originalfassungen der Reden bzw. ihre überprüften schriftlichen Übersetzungen.
Quelle : © Europäische Union, 2025 - EP

Pour les voyages aller-retour de courte durée entre la France et l’Algérie, la compagnie maritime Corsica Linea offre plusieurs options pour ses voyageurs, dont le […]

L’article Traversées France – Algérie : Corsica Linea casse les prix avec le tarif Escapade est apparu en premier sur .

The Healthier Together – EU Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) initiative (2022–2027) aims to help EU Member States reduce the burden of major chronic diseases. As the end of this initiative approaches, non-communicable diseases – including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer and liver conditions – remain among the EU’s most pressing and complex health challenges. According to the […]

Sanija Ameti und Stefan Manser-Egli geben die Führung der Operation Libero ab. Die Chefs der Jungfreisinnigen machen ihnen ein provokatives Übernahmeangebot – und rechnen mit den Liberos ab.

Très proche de Dubrovnik, l'île de Šipan semble ignorée des touristes. Son unique hôtel est toujours fermé. Il appartient à une figure de l'extrême droite allemande, Reinhard Rade, un ancien mercenaire qui a notamment combattu en Croatie. L'île servirait de refuge et de camp d'entrainement à des groupuscules néo-nazis.

- Articles / Croatie, Novosti, Société, Adriatique, Extrême-droite Balkans, Une - Diaporama, Une - Diaporama - En premier

Très proche de Dubrovnik, l'île de Šipan semble ignorée des touristes. Son unique hôtel est toujours fermé. Il appartient à une figure de l'extrême droite allemande, Reinhard Rade, un ancien mercenaire qui a notamment combattu en Croatie. L'île servirait de refuge et de camp d'entrainement à des groupuscules néo-nazis.

- Articles / Croatie, Novosti, Société, Adriatique, Extrême-droite Balkans, Une - Diaporama, Une - Diaporama - En premier

• The AKP–MHP alliance has built a form of hegemonic authoritarianism that is not based on repression alone. It combines control over state institutions (judiciary, bureaucracy, security apparatus, media) with deep alignments to conservative–nationalist social bases and newly-enriched economic groups, creating a durable state–society block.
• The Kurdish question is simultaneously indispensable and explosive for the opposition. Without Kurdish electoral and discursive support, a change in power is nearly impossible; yet open cooperation with Kurdish parties risks alienating nationalist voters, especially those in and around the IYI Party, and is easily framed by the government as “terror collaboration” under the “Terror-free Turkey” and security narrative.
• The economy has shifted from being the AKP’s core asset to its main liability, but this has not automatically translated into opposition advantage. High inflation, collapsing real wages and middle-class erosion are undermining the regime’s social contract, yet clientelist networks, selective social assistance and media control still prevent economic discontent from consolidating into a stable opposition majority.
• The CHP and the İYİ Party suffer from persistent leadership, cadre, and programmatic weaknesses that prevent them from converting regime vulnerabilities into a credible alternative. Although Ekrem İmamoğlu is arguably the opposition’s most charismatic and electorally competitive figure, his imprisonment has removed him from the national stage at a critical moment, creating a profound leadership vacuum. Özgür Özel, despite his constructive political style and rising public recognition, has not yet reached Erdoğan’s level of charismatic authority or nationwide resonance. Mansur Yavaş, meanwhile, remains an ambivalent national actor: his popularity is undeniable, but his reluctance to openly seek national leadership prevents him from anchoring a coherent opposition strategy. At the same time, neither the CHP nor the İYİ Party has consistently cultivated young, technocratic, socially-diverse elites or articulated clear, persuasive positions on foundational issues – including the economy, foreign policy, and especially the Kurdish question. As a result, the opposition remains structurally fragmented and strategically incoherent, unable to project itself as a confident and united governing alternative.
• In the short term, electoral breakthroughs remain possible, but structural transformation is hard without a bolder, inclusive democratic project. Lasting change would require moving beyond purely tactical electoral alliances towards a programme that tackles institutional reconstruction; seeks to bolster the rule of law, transparency and centre–periphery relations; and reframes the Kurdish question within an inclusive, citizenship-based vision – points the opposition has so far struggled to articulate.

Read here in pdf the Policy Paper by Ahmet Erdi Öztürk, Non-Resident Senior Scholar, Turkey Programme, ELIAMEP.

Introduction

Over the past two decades, Turkey has moved from being treated as a difficult but promising candidate for democratic consolidation to being widely described as a paradigmatic case of “competitive” or “hegemonic” authoritarianism (Esen and Gümüşçü 2016; Özbudun 2015; Baser and Ozturk 2017; Akkoyunlu and Oktem 2018). The Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP), in power since 2002, has gradually transformed the institutional and normative foundations of the Turkish political system. What began as a reformist and pro‑European conservative party evolved into a dominant actor presiding over a highly-centralised presidential regime, tightly-controlled media, politicised bureaucracy and dense networks of neo‑patrimonial distribution. Especially since the 2013 Gezi protests, the 2015–16 conflict cycle in the southeast, and the failed coup attempt of July 2016, the AKP – in alliance with the Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi-MHP) – has consolidated a new political order in which electoral competition persists but takes place on a profoundly uneven playing field.

At the same time, this transformation has profoundly constrained the space in which the opposition can operate. Parties, movements and individual politicians critical of the AKP–MHP bloc face continuous legal and administrative pressure: criminal investigations, prosecutions on terrorism-related charges, the removal and detention of elected mayors, bans on political activity, and the routine targeting of journalists and activists have become part of the repertoire of governance. When opposition actors attempt to replicate instruments long monopolised by the ruling coalition – for example, building dense local patronage networks, mobilising through religious or neighbourhood associations, or articulating alternative security discourses – they often encounter swift repression and delegitimisation by state institutions aligned with the executive. In this sense, the opposition is expected to compete under rules that are neither clear nor consistently enforced, in a context where the “referee” is also a player. Yet the difficulty of the environment does not fully absolve opposition parties of responsibility. Their chronic fragmentation, recurrent leadership crises, inadequate intra-party democratisation, and frequent reliance on short-term electoral bargains rather than long-term programmatic renewal all contribute to their limited capacity to convert regime vulnerabilities into a credible governing alternative.

The ruling bloc also benefits from significant structural advantages inside the state apparatus and from enduring support among important social constituencies. 

Under the given realities, this policy paper examines the dilemmas, opportunities and weaknesses of the Turkish opposition under conditions of hegemonic authoritarianism. It proceeds from two core assumptions: First, that the resilience of AKP–MHP rule cannot be understood solely through reference to coercion, clientelism or institutional manipulation. The ruling bloc also benefits from significant structural advantages inside the state apparatus and from enduring support among important social constituencies. The opposition, in other words, is confronted not only by an authoritarian incumbent but also by an entrenched societal and bureaucratic alignment that makes alternation in power exceedingly difficult. But second, that these structural advantages coexist with growing vulnerabilities: a deteriorating economic record, deepening social inequalities, the erosion of public services and mounting dissatisfaction with the quality of governance. These failures potentially create openings for opposition parties, but only if they can respond with credible leadership, programmatic clarity and organisational capacity.

The paper focuses on the two principal opposition forces: the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP) and the Good Party/IYI Party (İYİ Parti). Although İYİ Parti does not command a very large share of the vote, it plays a significant role by maintaining its own parliamentary group and, particularly during election periods, demonstrating an ability to aggregate and represent segments of the nationalist electorate under its organisational umbrella. This analytical choice is not meant to downplay the importance of other actors – most notably the pro-Kurdish left mobilised around the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (Halkların Eşitlik ve Demokrasi Partisi, DEM), as well as smaller conservative or centre-right formations – but reflects the specific objective of assessing the capacity to generate a credible, nationwide alternative governing bloc under conditions of hegemonic authoritarianism. In particular, the recent “Terror-Free Turkey” (Terörsüz Türkiye) discourse, and the accompanying securitisation of Kurdish politics, have further constrained DEM’s room to operate as a “classic” opposition party, pushing it towards a more defensive, survival-oriented stance and heightening its distance from the institutional core of the opposition camp. By contrast, in electoral and institutional terms, the CHP and the IYI Party now constitute the core of a ‘systemic’ opposition: they are represented across the country, they lead or co-lead key municipal administrations (most prominently in Istanbul and Ankara), and they have been the primary architects and public faces of broad opposition alliances such as the Nation Alliance and the “Table of Six”. As parties whose organisational structures, ideological profiles and leadership cadres are oriented towards capturing the executive at the national level, they occupy a structurally different position from actors whose strategic horizon is more explicitly movement-, identity- or region-based.

In this landscape, it is also important to note the position of the Kurdish political movement, where Selahattin Demirtaş has long stood out as the most resonant opposition figure. Among younger generations, progressive circles, and segments of the broader democratic public, Demirtaş enjoys a level of moral authority and popular appeal far exceeding that of Abdullah Öcalan in the contemporary moment. However, a combination of structural constraints has prevented Demirtaş from functioning as a fully active pole of attraction within the opposition field. His ongoing imprisonment since 2016, coupled with an environment shaped by the opaque bargaining dynamics surrounding the “Terror-Free Turkey” process, has significantly limited his ability to articulate an alternative political vision or to participate directly in coalition-building efforts. As a result, despite his symbolic centrality and potential to broaden the opposition’s social reach, the Kurdish movement’s most charismatic political figure has been relegated to a constrained, mediated form of influence – further complicating the prospects for constructing a cohesive, cross-cleavage opposition bloc capable of challenging hegemonic authoritarian rule.

The CHP remains the only opposition party with a realistic claim to forming a government on its own or leading a broad coalition, whereas the İYİ Parti – despite having no viable prospect of winning national power independently – retains significant influence through its ability to aggregate and mobilise nationalist constituencies.

The CHP and İYİ Parti are the opposition actors most directly interpellated by domestic audiences as potential “governments-in-waiting”, though they do not occupy identical positions within the opposition field. The CHP remains the only opposition party with a realistic claim to forming a government on its own or leading a broad coalition, whereas the İYİ Parti – despite having no viable prospect of winning national power independently – retains significant influence through its ability to aggregate and mobilise nationalist constituencies. Its parliamentary group, organisational reach among segments of the centre-right, and capacity to shape nationalist sensitivities within opposition blocs make it an important, agenda-setting actor even without the numerical strength to contend for executive office alone.

The IYI Party’s roots in MHP tradition and its long-standing ties to the security bureaucracy mean that, in an eventual alternation of power, it is widely perceived as more able – and in some respects more willing – to work with existing state cadres and within institutional reflexes. Its opposition is thus framed primarily against the current political duo of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the leader of MHP, Devlet Bahçeli, rather than against the deeper continuities of the state apparatus. By contrast, the CHP under Özgür Özel’s leadership, and with figures such as Ekrem İmamoğlu at its symbolic centre, is increasingly signalling an ambition to reconfigure state personnel and practices more substantially, especially at the mid- and upper-bureaucratic levels. This makes the CHP the core carrier of a more transformative opposition project. Both parties are nonetheless expected, unlike smaller or more specialised actors, to demonstrate governing competence across the full spectrum of policy domains: economic management, foreign and security policy, state administration, social policy and the rule of law. Their organisational choices (candidate selection, resource distribution, branch-building), leadership profiles (credibility, visibility, resilience), and programmatic (in)clarity on core issues such as the economy, the Kurdish question and Turkey’s international alignment therefore carry disproportionate weight in shaping perceptions of whether a transfer of power is both possible and desirable.

By concentrating on the CHP and the IYI Party, the paper can more precisely interrogate the distinct mechanisms through which opposition weakness and fragmentation are reproduced at the level of party organisation and strategy, while still situating these dynamics in relation to other opposition actors – above all, the HDP and its successors – whose inclusion in, or exclusion from, broader coalitions remains one of the central structural dilemmas facing any project of political change in contemporary Turkey.

AKP–MHP Hegemony: Structural Advantages at Home and Abroad

From a domestic perspective, the ruling coalition now enjoys three interlocking sets of advantages: control of key levers of the state and bureaucracy; deep embeddedness in conservative, religious and nationalist constituencies; and an ability to construct and sustain existential security narratives around both domestic dissent and regional crises.

The endurance of AKP–MHP rule rests on a complex combination of electoral strength (Aylan Musil 2024), institutional capture (Yesil 2018) and discursive hegemony (Gurpinar 2022), but it is also shaped by the evolving interests of the two partners. Historically, the AKP and MHP emerged from different ideological and sociological traditions; yet over time, the AKP’s drive to remain in power and its progressive “statisation” (devletleşme) (Yavuz 2020) have dovetailed with the MHP’s long-standing aspiration to anchor itself within the core state apparatus and security bureaucracy (Yavuz 2002). The result is not so much a principled ideological convergence as a largely interest-driven pact over control of the state and its coercive and administrative capacities. From a domestic perspective, the ruling coalition now enjoys three interlocking sets of advantages: control of key levers of the state and bureaucracy; deep embeddedness in conservative, religious and nationalist constituencies; and an ability to construct and sustain existential security narratives around both domestic dissent and regional crises. These narratives, articulated through the idioms of survival (beka) (Adisonmez and Al 2024) and national unity, help to legitimise the asymmetric distribution of power within the political system and to normalise the fusion of partisan and state interests that underpins the current governing bloc.

First, the AKP’s long tenure has allowed it to remake the state apparatus while preserving a high degree of coalition flexibility for President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Successive constitutional and legal reforms – most notably in 2010 and 2017 – have concentrated decision-making in the presidency and expanded executive leverage over the judiciary, higher courts, regulatory agencies and the civil service. At the same time, the leadership has cultivated an informal, shifting majority that rests on a blend of material patronage (Oyvat, Tekguc and Yagci 2025), shared conservative–nationalist worldviews and ad hoc bargains with different segments of the bureaucracy, business community and subnational elites. Key posts in the security sector, provincial administration and state-linked economic institutions are occupied not only by formal party loyalists, but by actors whose careers and protection depend on alignment with President Erdoğan’s personal authority (Keskin 2020) and the continuity of the broader governing project. This produces a state structure that is simultaneously personalised and coalition-capable: the centre can reconfigure alliances within the conservative–nationalist and state elite spectrum without relinquishing control. For opposition forces, therefore, alternation in power would require more than an electoral victory; it would entail confronting an administrative and politico-economic ecosystem whose habits, expectations and incentive structures have been calibrated around Erdoğan’s long incumbency and the informal coalitional architecture that sustains it.

Secondly, the AKP–MHP alliance continues to command strong support among diverse but overlapping social constituencies: segments of the conservative Sunni middle and lower-middle classes; parts of the business community benefiting from public procurement, municipal contracts and politically-mediated credit; nationalist voters for whom territorial integrity and state strength trump procedural concerns; and dependent poor who are embedded in networks of social assistance and religious-communal solidarity (Ozdemir 2020). To this must be added a relatively new stratum that has emerged over the last two decades: upwardly mobile, often provincially-rooted groups with comparatively low formal educational attainments, whose social rise has been closely intertwined with AKP-era economic expansion, construction-led growth and access to state-linked opportunities. For these constituencies, regime continuity is not only an ideological preference; it is also a guarantee of status preservation and further mobility. The ruling coalition’s capacity to articulate a narrative of “national will”, religious authenticity and external besiegement allow it to speak simultaneously to these material interests and to long-standing symbolic grievances vis-à-vis secular, urban and “Westernised” elites (Bilgic 2018). Even during acute economic downturns and corruption scandals, such narratives help sustain loyalty or at least acquiescence among broad swathes of voters, particularly in Anatolian provinces, conservative metropolitan districts and newly-enriched peri-urban belts.

Thirdly, the AKP–MHP bloc has constructed a security discourse in which the boundary between “internal” and “external” threat is deliberately blurred and increasingly meaningless (Sandal and Ozturk 2023). Domestic opposition, Kurdish political demands, refugee politics, great-power competition and regional conflicts are woven into a single, composite narrative of siege and vulnerability. The post-2015 re-securitisation of the Kurdish question, the militarisation of Turkey’s Syria and Iraq policies, and persistent references to “foreign plots” behind economic turbulence or protest episodes all contribute to a climate in which internal dissent is easily coded as an extension of external hostility (Ozturk 2021). In this framing, stability and a strong centralised executive are elevated as the highest public goods, while opposition calls for democratisation, power-sharing or reconciliation can be portrayed as naïve at best and subversive at worst. The effect is amplified by the government’s near monopoly over mainstream television and much of the print media, and its growing capacity to shape digital spaces through regulation, surveillance and informal pressure. In such a mediated environment, security becomes a holistic register that fuses inside and outside, making it harder for opposition actors to articulate alternative visions without triggering fears of strategic vulnerability.

AKP rule has also benefited from international conditions that have reduced the costs of authoritarian consolidation.

From an external perspective, AKP rule has also benefited from international conditions that have reduced the costs of authoritarian consolidation. The European Union’s internal crises and its preoccupation with migration management have weakened its willingness and capacity to exercise normative leverage over Ankara. The Syrian civil war and subsequent refugee flows have transformed Turkey into a pivotal partner for the EU, enabling the government to use the “migration card” as a bargaining chip in negotiations and to shield itself from harsher criticism (Gokalp Aras 2019). At the same time, the gradual move towards a more multi-polar international order – marked by the rise of China, the renewed assertiveness of Russia and the growing importance of Gulf capital – has allowed Ankara to diversify its foreign policy and economic dependencies. Access to alternative sources of finance, investment and diplomatic support reduces the regime’s vulnerability to Western pressure and enables it to play external actors off against one another (Öniş and Kutlay 2017).

These domestic and international advantages combine to create a particular type of hegemonic authoritarianism: one that is anchored in a socially rooted, nationalist‑conservative coalition, backed by a disciplined and loyal bureaucracy, and buffered by a regional and global environment that rewards security cooperation and transactional bargaining more than liberal democratic reform. For the opposition, this implies that the challenge is not limited to contesting elections under unfair conditions: it must also confront deeply embedded structures of power, identity and interest.

The Kurdish Question and the Limits of Opposition Coalitions

The result is a paradoxical moment in which a cautious opening by the governing bloc intersects with a fragmented and ambivalent opposition field; rather than capitalising on the new space, the opposition risks being caught off-balance, with its internal divergences on the Kurdish question and regional policy exposed precisely at a time when Kurdish electoral behaviour and regional realignments remain decisive for the future of Turkey’s political order.

The Kurdish question occupies a central place in this configuration of power and constraint, but it has not always been inscribed in the same way in Turkey’s political calculus. Historically, Kurdish votes have often held a pivotal, king-making position in tightly contested elections, forcing governments and opposition alike to think in terms of coalition geometries rather than simple bloc politics. The AKP’s own trajectory on the Kurdish issue – from cautious cultural openings and the “solution process” of the 2010s to hard securitisation after 2015 – reflects the shifting interplay between electoral incentives, coalition needs and regional conflict dynamics (Ozpek 2018). Since 2024, however, developments in Syria and a reconfiguration of US Middle East priorities under Trump’s renewed regional vision have begun to alter the strategic landscape, creating pressures and opportunities for a partial recalibration. The AKP–MHP coalition has tentatively explored a more flexible line, seeking room for manoeuvre without formally abandoning its security-centred discourse. In this context, the CHP and IP have adopted distinct stances: especially under the emerging leadership profile of figures such as Özgür Özel and Mayor of Istanbul Ekrem İmamoğlu, the CHP has signalled a more rights-based, citizenship-oriented approach, whereas IYI Party’sMHP origins and closer affinity with traditional state-security reflexes have inclined it toward a more restrictive position. The result is a paradoxical moment in which a cautious opening by the governing bloc intersects with a fragmented and ambivalent opposition field; rather than capitalising on the new space, the opposition risks being caught off-balance, with its internal divergences on the Kurdish question and regional policy exposed precisely at a time when Kurdish electoral behaviour and regional realignments remain decisive for the future of Turkey’s political order.

In its early years, the AKP pursued a strategy that combined limited cultural recognition with developmentalist promises in the predominantly Kurdish southeast. This approach, coupled with the party’s distance from the secular‑nationalist establishment, allowed it to attract significant Kurdish electoral support and to weaken the hold of traditional nationalist parties. The 2013–15 “resolution process”, though opaque and ultimately unsuccessful, represented the most serious attempt in the history of the republic to address the armed dimension of the Kurdish question through negotiation. Yet the collapse of this process – amid mutual mistrust, regional spillovers from Syria and shifting electoral incentives – paved the way for a dramatic re‑securitisation. The return to armed conflict in 2015, urban warfare in the southeast and the criminalisation of the HDP reconfigured the political landscape.

For the AKP–MHP bloc, the post-2015 environment brought clear and immediate advantages, but did so by pushing Turkish politics into an exceptionally securitised phase. The convergence of renewed PKK violence, the collapse of the peace process, the Syria war and the post-coup state of emergency allowed the government to weave together a broad “anti-terror” and “survival” narrative that reached far beyond its core electorate. This discourse resonated not only with different strands of Turkish nationalism, but also with security-oriented constituencies within the bureaucracy, the armed forces and parts of the urban middle classes. In practice, it blurred the line between armed militancy, legal Kurdish politics and wider dissent, placing Kurdish actors and other opposition forces under a shared umbrella of suspicion and pressure. At the same time, this high-intensity securitisation fractured potential opposition coalitions by hardening the cleavage between Kurdish-oriented parties and Turkish nationalist actors, making any durable Kurdish–Turkish opposition alignment both politically costly and easily stigmatised. Yet, as the 2019 municipal elections showed, such alignment is a necessary (if fragile) condition for seriously challenging AKP–MHP dominance at the ballot box. The governing bloc’s strategy has therefore been to pre-empt and delegitimise precisely this kind of cross-cleavage cooperation by reframing it as collaboration with terrorism, thereby locking Kurdish voters into a double bind and constraining other opposition parties’ room for manoeuvre under an ever-present security shadow.

For the opposition, the Kurdish question thus presents a deep and enduring dilemma. On the one hand, without Kurdish support – both electoral and discursive – it is extremely difficult to assemble a coalition capable of winning national-level power. 

For the opposition, the Kurdish question thus presents a deep and enduring dilemma. On the one hand, without Kurdish support – both electoral and discursive – it is extremely difficult to assemble a coalition capable of winning national-level power. On the other hand, overt cooperation with Kurdish parties risks alienating nationalist voters, particularly those inclined towards the IYI Party or the CHP’s more security-sensitive segments. This tension has repeatedly led opposition leaders to adopt deliberately ambiguous or evasive positions, whereby they seek to maximise tactical coordination with Kurdish actors (especially at the local level and in second-round presidential contests), while avoiding clear programmatic commitments on core Kurdish demands such as decentralisation, mother-tongue education, constitutional recognition or the release of political prisoners. In practice, this ambiguity has sharply limited the transformative potential of opposition coalitions. What might, under different conditions, look like a shared project of democratisation and conflict transformation is reduced to a narrowly-instrumental electoral arrangement which is permanently vulnerable to government wedge-driving, criminalisation campaigns and media-fuelled moral panics.

By 2025, this dilemma has hardened into something close to a “shirt of fire” for opposition actors. The collapse of the peace process, the institutionalisation of the post-2016 security regime and the near-total takeover of mainstream media mean that any move perceived as accommodating Kurdish demands can be instantly reframed as a security threat or a betrayal of the “national survival struggle”. At the same time, Kurdish voters – having experienced both the promise and the violent unravelling of the peace process, as well as ongoing repression of their elected representatives – increasingly demand clarity rather than tactical silence from would-be partners in the Turkish opposition. This asymmetry of risk is striking: for CHP and IYI Party elites, even limited gestures towards Kurdish inclusion carry high short-term reputational and electoral costs; for Kurdish actors and constituencies, continued exclusion or half-measures signal that their rights and security remain permanently negotiable. The result is a structurally unstable equilibrium in which all sides know that some form of Kurdish–Turkish opposition alignment is necessary to unsettle the AKP–MHP bloc, yet none can fully own such a strategy without incurring serious political danger.

In the broader Middle Eastern and international context, the Kurdish issue has further narrowed the opposition’s room for manoeuvre, while the most recent “terror-free Turkey” initiative has heightened this constraint rather than relaxing it. 

In the broader Middle Eastern and international context, the Kurdish issue has further narrowed the opposition’s room for manoeuvre, while the most recent “terror-free Turkey” initiative has heightened this constraint rather than relaxing it. Western involvement with Kurdish forces in Syria and Iraq – justified in terms of counter-ISIS operations, stabilisation, and human rights protection – continues to feed the government’s master narrative that Kurdish political and territorial claims are embedded in a wider external project to weaken or partition Turkey. Against this backdrop, Ankara’s latest push to reframe domestic politics around the promise of a “Terörsüz Türkiye” does not only target the PKK; it seeks to redraw the regional and internal security architecture in ways that fuse counter-terrorism, border policy, and regime consolidation into a single strategic agenda.

In this new phase, the CHP has again struggled to position itself as a central, agenda-setting actor. It has offered selective critiques and procedural concerns, but it has not been able to articulate a clear, autonomous roadmap for how demilitarisation, rights, and national security could be reconciled within a post-conflict framework. The İYİ Party, shaped by its MHP origins and a strongly security-sensitive electorate, has remained largely outside the process, presenting itself as the guarantor of national unity rather than a stakeholder in any re-imagining of centre–periphery relations. As a result, the governing bloc effectively monopolises the design and language of the “terror-free Turkey” project, while the main opposition parties are reduced to reacting from the periphery.

This has direct implications for their credibility as potential governing forces. A process that aspires – at least at the level of rhetoric – to restructure the domestic order and Turkey’s regional posture inevitably raises foundational questions about citizenship, decentralisation, cross-border operations, and the future of armed non-state actors. By failing to shape that agenda, or by standing visibly outside it, both the CHP and the İYİ Party risk being perceived as either unwilling or unable to manage the country’s core security dilemmas. In a context where the government presents “terror-free Turkey” as the strategic key to a newly configured regional order, exclusion or self-exclusion from that process makes it harder for the opposition to convince both domestic and international audiences that they can assume executive responsibility without jeopardising stability. In short, the Kurdish question – now recoded through the language of a “terror-free” future – remains the opposition’s most critical and combustible fault line, and their distance from the current process structurally weakens their prospects of governing change.

AKP–MHP Governance Failures: Economy, Neo‑Patrimonialism and Social Policy

The structural strengths of the AKP–MHP regime coexist with growing and increasingly visible governance failures. These failures are especially pronounced in the fields of macroeconomic management, social policy, institutional integrity and gender equality. From a policy‑oriented perspective, they constitute potential sources of vulnerability for the ruling bloc and, conversely, potential reservoirs of legitimacy for an opposition capable of articulating credible alternatives.

First, by 2025, the economy has moved from being the AKP’s core source of legitimacy to its most visible strategic vulnerability.

First, by 2025, the economy has moved from being the AKP’s core source of legitimacy to its most visible strategic vulnerability. In the party’s first decade in power, it could credibly claim ownership of a success story built on post-2001 reforms, EU-anchored expectations and a favourable global environment; growth was robust, inflation manageable, and large segments of society experienced upward mobility. From the mid-2010s onwards, however, this configuration unravelled. Politically-driven “low interest rate” experiments, the hollowing-out of central bank autonomy, and chronic high inflation eroded real incomes and destroyed the sense of predictability that underpinned the AKP’s earlier social contract.

Poverty and inequality indicators remain acute; the professional middle classes feel squeezed; and young, educated cohorts are experiencing a combination of stagnant wages, housing insecurity and declining expectations, often expressed in a desire to emigrate. 

The policy turn after the 2023 elections – with the appointment of a more orthodox economic team and a shift towards fiscal and monetary tightening – has not reversed this damage so much as it has redistributed its costs (Akcay 2024). Stabilisation efforts have meant a spike in interest rates, rising tax pressures and de facto austerity for middle- and lower-income groups already exhausted by years of price instability. Poverty and inequality indicators remain acute; the professional middle classes feel squeezed; and young, educated cohorts are experiencing a combination of stagnant wages, housing insecurity and declining expectations, often expressed in a desire to emigrate. The government still deploys targeted social transfers, credit channels and public employment as instruments of political management, but these tools now operate in an environment where macroeconomic strain is visible in everyday life – rent, food, energy, education – and where the promise of shared future prosperity has lost much of its credibility.

In this 2025 setting, the economy no longer functions as an uncomplicated asset that can be traded for political loyalty. Rather, it is a field of permanent crisis management in which the regime must continuously balance the demands of international markets and creditors against the anger of a population living with devalued savings and compressed living standards. The AKP retains considerable capacity to distribute selective benefits and shield key constituencies, yet the structural malaise of high inflation, low trust in institutions and the erosion of the “success story” narrative has turned the economic sphere into a central fault line of regime stability rather than a pillar of its strength.

Secondly, the consolidation of a neo‑patrimonial system of rule has further weakened state capacity and public trust (Bektas 2025). Public procurement, urban development and large‑scale infrastructure projects have become key mechanisms for the redistribution of resources to politically-connected firms, creating a “crony capitalist” ecosystem in which economic and political power reinforce one another (Guven 2023). Regulatory agencies, oversight bodies and courts have been brought under tighter executive influence, hollowing out formal checks and balances. This has diminished transparency, fostered perceptions of pervasive corruption and undermined the meritocratic foundations of the civil service. From the perspective of citizens and investors alike, the predictability of rules has been replaced by personalised access and political discretion.

Thirdly, social policy domains such as education, health and gender equality have been deeply affected by ideological agendas and fiscal constraints. In education, rapid expansion in the number of universities and schools has not been matched by quality improvements. Curriculum changes and institutional appointments have reflected conservative‑religious priorities, contributing to polarisation over the role of religion in public life and perceived declines in academic freedom. In the field of women’s rights, Turkey’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention and rising concerns about gender‑based violence have been accompanied by discourses that re‑emphasise traditional family roles and question international gender equality norms. These trends disproportionately affect women, youth and urban middle‑class professionals – constituencies that might be inclined to support opposition parties, but whose grievances are not always channelled into coherent political projects.

From the vantage point of the opposition, these weaknesses of the incumbent regime ought to represent significant opportunities. Objective indicators and everyday experiences alike point to a declining quality of governance, shrinking economic prospects and growing social stratification. Yet the translation of these problems into sustained opposition support has been uneven and fragile. High levels of affective polarisation, partisan media consumption and clientelist ties limit the extent to which dissatisfaction with performance translates into willingness to vote for alternatives. Moreover, as the next section explores, the opposition’s own organisational and programmatic deficits have often prevented it from capitalising fully on the ruling bloc’s vulnerabilities.

Opposition Weaknesses: Leadership, Organisational Capacity and Programmatic Ambiguity

The main opposition parties, the CHP and the IYI Party, face a hostile structural environment but also suffer from significant self‑inflicted weaknesses. Three dimensions stand out: leadership and cadre formation; programmatic clarity and policy articulation; and internal cohesion.

In terms of leadership and cadre formation, the opposition has consistently struggled to produce figures who can rival President Erdoğan’s incumbency advantages, personalised authority and symbolic capital.

In terms of leadership and cadre formation, the opposition has consistently struggled to produce figures who can rival President Erdoğan’s incumbency advantages, personalised authority and symbolic capital. The 2023 presidential campaign crystallised this problem: Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu briefly became the focal point of anti-government expectations, yet he was ultimately unable to project a compelling leadership image beyond the core CHP electorate (Yavuz and Ozturk 2023). The post-Kılıçdaroğlu transition has not fundamentally altered this imbalance. Although Özgür Özel represents organisational renewal and a more dialogical style, he has so far not closed the gap with Erdoğan in terms of charisma, narrative dominance or perceived capacity to ‘run the state’. Similarly, Ankara Metropolitan Mayor Mansur Yavaş, despite consistently ranking as one of the country’s most popular political figures in public opinion surveys, does not project a charismatic leadership profile and remains an unknown quantity in high-stakes national politics. His strategic intentions at the presidential level are uncertain – not least because it is unclear whether his own party would nominate him – and even in the event of a candidacy, he could face legal and institutional pressures of the sort directed at Ekrem İmamoğlu. This combination of popularity without overt ambition, charisma or institutional protection further complicates the opposition’s ability to consolidate a clear and credible leadership alternative

A similar limitation applies to the IYI Party: under its new leader Müsavat Dervişoğlu, the party retains organisational visibility and ideological coherence within nationalist and centre-right circles, yet it has not succeeded in cultivating a leadership profile capable of generating broad cross-class, cross-regional or cross-cleavage appeal. Dervişoğlu’s political persona remains largely confined to the party’s traditional nationalist base, lacking the symbolic capital, narrative versatility and policy breadth required to mobilise constituencies beyond this core. As a result, the IYI Party continues to operate primarily as a niche actor within the opposition ecosystem – important for coalition arithmetic and nationalist signalling, but structurally limited in its ability to project itself as a plausible pillar of a nationwide governing alternative.

While episodic hopes have coalesced around particular personalities – most notably Ekrem İmamoğlu after the 2019 and 2024 municipal victories – these moments have repeatedly been blunted by legal pressures, intra-party competition and strategic hesitations over presidential candidacies and coalition design (Ozpek, Ozturk, Dagi and Erkoc 2025). The imprisonment, political banning or judicial harassment of key figures further narrows the pool of credible national contenders. At the same time, neither the CHP nor the IYI Party has managed to systematically recruit, train and promote a new generation of technocratic and political cadres capable of governing complex state institutions in the event of a transition. Much of the upper and middle-level leadership still reflects the sociological profile and worldview of earlier secular-republican or traditional nationalist elites. This continuity limits the opposition’s capacity to speak convincingly to conservative, religious or peripheral constituencies that are indispensable for constructing a durable majority, even as it tries to reposition itself through discourses of “normalisation” and institutional repair.

Programmatically, the opposition has repeatedly failed to project a clear and credible alternative on core policy domains, particularly the economy, foreign policy and the Kurdish question.

Programmatically, the opposition has repeatedly failed to project a clear and credible alternative on core policy domains, particularly the economy, foreign policy and the Kurdish question. Opinion surveys and qualitative studies suggest that many citizens are aware of existing problems – rising costs of living, declining quality of education, politicisation of the judiciary – but remain unconvinced that opposition parties possess either a coherent plan or the competence to address them effectively. Opposition economic platforms often oscillate between orthodox, market-friendly rhetoric and diffuse promises of social justice, without specifying institutional mechanisms, distributional trade-offs or coalition-building strategies that would make such programmes governable. The CHP’s late-November 2025 programme revision, its first in thirteen years, illustrates this tension. The leadership presented the new economic vision as resting on four pillars – “effective and productive public administration, a fair macroeconomic stability framework, transformation in employment and production, and strategic sectoral structuring” – yet these categories remain largely generic, technocratic and weakly embedded in a broader political economy narrative that speaks to contemporary crises of precarity, climate transition and digital transformation. In foreign and security policy, the CHP and IYI Party continue to criticise the government’s personalised, militarised and transactional diplomacy, but they have struggled to articulate a positive, multi-polar vision of Turkey’s international role that goes beyond delayed calls for a “return to the West” or abstract references to “balance” between great powers. The new CHP programme’s emphasis on external “resilience” and security does little to resolve this, offering neither a detailed roadmap for relations with the EU and NATO nor a clear framework for handling regional conflicts and migration pressures. Finally, the way in which such programmes are drafted and communicated – often through elite-driven commissions and episodic party conferences rather than sustained, participatory debate with party organisations and societal actors – further limits their persuasive power. The ruling bloc can thus continue to frame the opposition not only as divided and inexperienced, but also as programmatically anachronistic: formally updated on paper, yet substantively out of sync with the demands of the current conjuncture.

Internal cohesion presents a further challenge. Both the CHP and the IYI Party have been plagued by factional struggles, leadership contests and ideological disputes. In the CHP’s case, the tension between traditional Kemalist‑statist currents and more reformist or social‑democratic segments has generated recurrent crises over candidate selection, alliance strategies and the balance between identity and class‑based appeals. IYI Party, for its part, has faced difficulties in balancing its nationalist roots with the need to appeal beyond its core base, leading to cycles of fragmentation, resignations and public infighting. These internal conflicts not only consume organisational energy; they also send out negative signals to voters about the opposition’s capacity to govern coherently. Elite‑level divisions are amplified by social media dynamics, where intra‑opposition criticism often becomes more visible than constructive programmatic work.

Finally, certain strategic choices – such as an overemphasis on “softening” (yumuşama), or premature personalisation of presidential candidacies – have inadvertently strengthened the incumbents. Efforts to normalise relations with the government without clear institutional guarantees risk demobilising opposition supporters and legitimising the existing order without extracting concessions. Similarly, the early elevation of figures as inevitable presidential candidates has allowed the ruling bloc to target them through legal, media and institutional means, narrowing the opposition’s room for manoeuvre. In combination, these factors contribute to a perception that, while the opposition can occasionally win important local victories, it lacks the depth, discipline and strategic clarity required to engineer a systemic change in national politics.

Conclusion: Prospects for Change under Hegemonic Authoritarianism

The analysis presented in this policy paper suggests that the prospects for a medium‑term change in power in Turkey remain uncertain and, under current conditions, structurally constrained. The AKP–MHP coalition has succeeded in constructing a hegemonic authoritarian order grounded in bureaucratic control, nationalist‑conservative social alliances and advantageous external conditions. This order has proven resilient even in the face of serious economic downturns and governance failures. While these failures create potential vulnerabilities for the ruling bloc, they do not automatically translate into opposition gains.

For the opposition, the challenge is twofold. On the one hand, it must navigate a political arena in which the rules of the game are tilted against it: media concentration, legal repression, bureaucratic partisanship and securitisation of dissent create formidable barriers to effective contestation. On the other hand, it must confront its own internal weaknesses: limited cadre development, unclear policy platforms, leadership deficits and persistent intra‑party conflicts. 

For the opposition, the challenge is twofold. On the one hand, it must navigate a political arena in which the rules of the game are tilted against it: media concentration, legal repression, bureaucratic partisanship and securitisation of dissent create formidable barriers to effective contestation. On the other hand, it must confront its own internal weaknesses: limited cadre development, unclear policy platforms, leadership deficits and persistent intra‑party conflicts. Without significant progress on both fronts, public dissatisfaction with the status quo is likely to remain fragmented and politically underutilised.

From a policy perspective, three implications follow. First, international actors – including the EU and its member states – should recognise both the structural nature of hegemonic authoritarianism in Turkey and the fragility of opposition forces operating within it. Rather than episodic moral condemnation or purely transactional engagement, external policy should seek to support pluralism, rule‑of‑law safeguards and societal resilience in ways that do not simply reinforce government narratives of foreign intervention. Secondly, opposition parties need to invest seriously in organisational renewal: recruiting and training new cadres, formulating detailed and credible policy proposals, and building durable channels of communication with societal groups beyond their traditional bases. Finally, any realistic strategy for democratisation will have to confront, rather than indefinitely defer, the Kurdish question and broader issues of inclusive citizenship. Without a principled and politically imaginative approach to these questions, attempts to build broad opposition coalitions will remain vulnerable to securitising narratives and divide‑and‑rule tactics.

All in all, unless there is a significant shift either in the balance of power within the state apparatus or in the strategic behaviour of opposition parties, a change of government in Turkey in the medium term will remain difficult to effect. The current constellation is one in which an incumbent hegemonic bloc, despite its growing performance deficits, continues to enjoy structural advantages that the opposition has not yet found a way to neutralise. Understanding and addressing this asymmetry is crucial for any effort – domestic or international – aiming to support democratic resilience and the possibility of political alternation in Turkey’s second century.

Bibliography

Adısönmez, Umut Can, and Serhun Al. “Kitlesel Şiddet, Travma ve Hafıza: Erken Cumhuriyet Dönemi Türkiye’sinde ‘Beka’nın İzini Sürmek.” Mülkiye Dergisi 48, no. 3 (2024): 553-581.

Akçay, Ümit. “Revisiting the Rise and Decline of Authoritarian Neoliberalism: A Political Economy Analysis of Akp’s Initial Decade.” Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies 26, no. 6 (2024): 972-987.

Akkoyunlu, Karabekir, and Kerem Öktem. “Existential insecurity and the making of a weak authoritarian regime in Turkey.” In Exit from democracy, pp. 37-60. Routledge, 2018.

Ayan Musil, Pelin. “How incumbents create uneven patterns of competition during autocratization: the AKP case of Turkey.” Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 24, no. 2 (2024): 277-295.

Baser, Bahar, and Ahmet Erdi Öztürk. Authoritarian politics in Turkey: Elections, resistance and the AKP. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017.

Bektas, Eda. “Neopatrimonial Rule through Formal Institutions: The Case of Turkey.” Government and Opposition (2025): 1-22.

Bilgiç, Ali. “Reclaiming the national will: Resilience of Turkish authoritarian neoliberalism after Gezi.” South European Society and Politics 23, no. 2 (2018): 259-280.

Esen, Berk, and Sebnem Gumuscu. “Rising competitive authoritarianism in Turkey.” Third world quarterly 37, no. 9 (2016): 1581-1606.

Gökalp Aras, Nefise Ela. “A game changer in EU-Turkey relations: The opportunities and pitfalls of migration policy.” The International Spectator 54, no. 4 (2019): 47-61.a

Gürpınar, Doğan. “Allies: The AKP-MHP Coalition and the Defense Intellectuals.” In Apparatchiks and Ideologues in Islamist Turkey: The Intellectual Order of Islamism and Populism, pp. 103-120. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2022.

Güven, Ali Burak. “Towards a new political economy of Turkish capitalism: Three worlds.” Turkish Studies 24, no. 1 (2023): 177-196.

Kesgin, Barış. “Turkey’s Erdoğan: leadership style and foreign policy audiences.” Turkish Studies 21, no. 1 (2020): 56-82.

Öniş, Ziya, and Mustafa Kutlay. “The dynamics of emerging middle-power influence in regional and global governance: the paradoxical case of Turkey.” Australian Journal of International Affairs 71, no. 2 (2017): 164-183.

Oyvat, Cem, Hasan Tekgüç, and Alper H. Yagci. “Pious people, patronage jobs, and the labor market: Turkey under Erdoğan’s AKP.” Public Choice 203, no. 3 (2025): 465-491.

Özbudun, Ergun. “Turkey’s judiciary and the drift toward competitive authoritarianism.” The International Spectator 50, no. 2 (2015): 42-55.

Özdemir, Yonca. “AKP’s neoliberal populism and contradictions of new social policies in Turkey.” Contemporary Politics 26, no. 3 (2020): 245-267.

Ozpek, Burak Bilgehan, Ahmet Erdi Ozturk, Ihsan Dagi, and Taptuk Emre Erkoc. “Opposition’s paradox of victory: electoral success and authoritarian retrenchment in Turkey.” Southeast European and Black Sea Studies (2025): 1-17.

Özpek, Burak Bilgehan. “Paradigm shift between Turkey and the Kurds: From ‘clash of the titans’ to ‘game of thrones’.” Middle East Critique 27, no. 1 (2018): 43-60.

Ozturk, Ahmet Erdi. “Turkey’s Post-2016 Foreign Policy Drivers.” Policy (2021).

Sandal, Nukhet Ahu, and Ahmet Erdi Ozturk. “Critical junctures of securitisation: The case of the AK party in Turkey.” Alternatives 48, no. 1 (2023): 38-53.

Yavuz, M. Hakan, and Ahmet Erdi Öztürk. “Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu: Life and Socialization.” In Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and the New Republican People’s Party in Turkey, pp. 45-73. Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland, 2023.

Yavuz, M. Hakan. “The politics of fear: The rise of the Nationalist Action Party (MHP) in Turkey.” The Middle East Journal (2002): 200-221.

Yavuz, M. Hakan. “Understanding Turkish secularism in the 21st century: A contextual roadmap.” In Islam, Populism and Regime Change in Turkey, pp. 54-77. Routledge, 2020.

Yeşil, Bilge. “Authoritarian turn or continuity? Governance of media through capture and discipline in the AKP era.” South European Society and Politics 23, no. 2 (2018): 239-257.