Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the president of Turkey, in power since 2003. He has cast Turkey as a dynamic regional power and positioned the country as a security partner for Europe, arguing that "European security is unthinkable without Turkey." He has long hoped to raise a new generation of pious youth, but Turkey's Gen Z has proved less religious than he expected.
The CHP came ahead of AK in the 2024 local elections for the first time in two decades. Unable to bring the party down through the ballot box, Erdogan's government used the courts instead. He arrested Ekrem Imamoglu, the opposition's leading presidential candidate, on March 19th 2025 and removed him as mayor of Istanbul. More than 250 people, including CHP district mayors and businesspeople, have been detained on corruption or terrorist charges since. On October 27th 2025 new espionage warrants were issued against Imamoglu; police also arrested the editor of a pro-opposition television network and installed a state trustee as the station's boss. In 2014 Erdogan said "the new Turkey needs a new opposition"—a remark that once sounded like a plea for a worthy opponent but now reads as a threat. The former CHP mayor of Izmir and the CHP mayors of Adana and Antalya—three more of the country's six biggest cities—have also been detained. Germany held up the sale of Eurofighter Typhoon jets to Turkey in protest but backtracked in late July 2025. Hundreds of thousands of young Turks took to the streets. An estimated 30 students and recent graduates were still awaiting trial in various Turkish prisons as of late May 2025, with another 12 under house arrest. Around 400 people were detained during May Day protests. The EU said the arrests "give rise to questions" about the state of Turkey's democracy but has not let them derail security co-operation. Donald Trump has refused to condemn or even acknowledge the crackdown.
When the Mediterranean coast was hit by devastating forest fires in the summer of 2021, Erdogan provoked fury by casually tossing packets of tea to locals.
Opinion polls say only about 11% of those aged 18-29 are willing to vote for Erdogan's AK party. That age group makes up almost a quarter of the electorate.
Under Erdogan, Turkey has been a loose cannon within NATO—holding up Finland's and Sweden's accession to the alliance, blocking NATO defence plans for Poland and the Baltics, and attacking American-backed Kurdish insurgents in Syria. In Ukraine, Turkey has been opportunistic, providing drones and corvettes to Kyiv while refusing to apply Western sanctions and boosting trade with Russia.
Turkey hosted peace talks between Ukraine and Russia in Istanbul in May 2025. Zelensky was expected to meet Erdogan on May 15th.
Erdogan has gained a following across the Muslim world by taking up the cause of downtrodden Muslims. Arab Barometer data suggest he has long been the most popular leader in the Middle East. A Gallup survey in 2017 put his net favourability in Indonesia at +45 and in Pakistan at +27, the two most populous Muslim-majority countries. Support for Erdogan is also widespread in the Turkic world, which stretches from Azerbaijan to Xinjiang in western China, and among the roughly 4m people of Turkish origin living in France, Germany and the Netherlands. When Erdogan visited Pakistan in 2020, its prime minister, Imran Khan, quipped that Erdogan was so popular he could "clean sweep" a Pakistani election.
Erdogan has legions of fans among older, blue-collar Turks living in Germany; at election times he earns rather few votes from younger, better-educated Turks in North America.
His longevity in office has given him the opportunity to visit almost every Muslim-majority country, including war-torn Afghanistan. In 2011 he became the first leader from outside Africa to visit Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, in nearly 20 years, calling for more to be done to relieve a deadly famine. Mogadishu now teems with Turkish aid workers, businesspeople and teachers. Turkish firms are big investors in much of Africa and Central Asia.
Erdogan was outspoken in his support for the Arab spring in 2011, when his popularity in the Arab world appears to have peaked—though it remains high. His government has issued arrest warrants for much of Israel's cabinet on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity over the bombing and blockade of Gaza. He regularly claims to speak on behalf of Muslims everywhere: "In a multipolar world, the Muslim world needs to become a pole in its own right," he proclaimed at a meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation. Turkey took in more than 3m Syrian refugees during that country's long civil war; 69% of Syrians have a positive opinion of Erdogan. Turkey has mooted a defence agreement with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, which pundits describe as a "Muslim NATO".
His foreign admirers apparently overlook his growing authoritarianism and economic mismanagement. Much of their admiration may stem from the perception of Turkey as a prosperous democracy with close ties to Europe—all qualities Erdogan has undermined.
Erdogan's term expires in 2028, and he technically cannot run again, though he could engineer a snap election (likely in late 2027) or constitutional changes to reset his term limits. His health is a "state secret" but he has "visibly lost a step" at 71. His son Bilal Erdogan has been edging into the political limelight with public appearances and pro-Palestinian activism. Four potential successors have been named in polls: son-in-law Selcuk Bayraktar, architect of Turkey's drone programme at Baykar, at 12.9% support; former interior minister Suleyman Soylu at 32.5%; foreign minister Hakan Fidan at 33.4% (seen as the strongest candidate); and Bilal at 14.2%. However, any AK successor would face steep odds: Erdogan himself trails opposition candidates Imamoglu and Yavas in polls. Inflation remains above 30%. Most AK voters oppose dynastic succession.
After months of secret negotiations, Erdogan brokered a deal with Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the PKK, who in February 2025 called for the group to disband. On May 12th the PKK said it would comply, potentially ending a four-decade conflict that claimed 40,000 lives. Erdogan wants to expand Turkey's influence in post-Assad Syria, and a dialogue with the PKK could win him favour with Syrian Kurds and help woo them away from Israel. He also wants the support of Kurdish MPs at home amid talk that he may seek to change the constitution to allow himself to run again in the next presidential election, set for 2028. The war with the PKK cost Turkey some $1.8trn, according to the country's finance minister. This time his nationalist coalition partners urged the negotiations, unlike in 2015 when a previous peace process collapsed. By late 2025, however, the process revealed fissures between Erdogan and Devlet Bahceli, his main coalition partner. Bahceli, chair of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), wanted to push the talks forward and free Selahattin Demirtas and other Kurdish leaders. Erdogan wanted to be able to wash his hands of the process if it unravelled. Bahceli, aged 77, wants peace with the PKK as his legacy; for Erdogan, it is a means to an end.
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