Turkey is at a crossroads in its evolution as a state. The regime that has ruled the country since January 2002 is currently going through its most serious crisis of delegitimization of authority, caused by both its domestic and foreign policies. The economy and the national currency, the lira, are in continuous decline. External aggressiveness is not bringing the expected benefits, while Ankara's relations with the European Union, Turkey's main economic partner, are at an all-time low. Relations with Washington also seem to remain at the low-level set during the Biden administration. And the arrival of Donald Trump in the White House has already brought turbulence that finds Turkey rather unprepared both economically and as a regional player. The tariffs on which the current US president insists will worsen Turkey's trade deficit with the outside world, and American initiatives in the Middle East seem to favor cooperation with Israel, even against Turkish interests.
Justice, the main weapon in an increasingly intense campaign against the Turkish opposition
The seriousness of the process of losing legitimacy for the regime in Ankara has become evident in this first half of 2025. The arrest in March and the ongoing detention of the mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoğlu, add to a long list of violations of democratic norms in Turkey. Started after the protests of May-June 2013 and continued after the failed coup attempt in July 2016, they intensified after the transformation of the state into a presidential republic, starting in January 2018. As we warned at the time, Turkey was then disappearing as a democratic parlamentary republic , becoming a political system in which the president subordinates all three branches of government: the executive, the judiciary and the legislature. The media, the so-called fourth estate in a liberal democracy, had already been overwhelmingly controlled by the Erdoğan-AKP regime for many years.
Now, the president's attention is turning to the opposition, and the arrest of his main rival, Imamoğlu, comes after a much broader campaign that shows no sign of stopping . Of the hundreds of politicians arrested in the past year, most are not from the main opposition party, CHP, but from the pro-Kurdish DEM Party. Most were elected by voters in parliamentary and local elections. In place of these local election winners, the government appoints "kayyum", i.e. people from the power’s entourage mandated by the regime in Ankara to administer the respective mayor’s offices. There are over 150 such cases , most of them in the predominantly Kurdish south-eastern region, but also in Istanbul and other cities across Turkey. The local elected officials arrested and replaced by government-appointed administrators account for more than 11 million votes. The representation of that population is therefore deeply affected, with unpredictable political effects at present.
In recent years, the persecution has also intensified against the main opposition party, the Republican People's Party, CHP (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi), the founding party of the Republic of Turkey. The intensification was especially felt after Ekrem Imamoğlu categorically won the local elections in Istanbul in March 2019, but also in the re-run in June of the same year, imposed by a Recep Tayyip Erdoğan frustrated with the March result. The local elections of March 2024 confirmed the general trend, unfavorable to the government, with the opposition clearly winning the national elections, with Ekrem Imamoğlu once again as the champion in Istanbul. Having also become the CHP candidate with a real chance of defeating Erdoğan in the presidential elections scheduled for 2028, Imamoğlu was thus a sure target for the regime. As mayor of Istanbul, he and his team had long been subject to a sustained campaign of intimidation through numerous lawsuits and inspections at the headquarters of the metropolitan mayor's office , as well as at the headquarters of district mayor’s offices led by CHP mayors. Even people who were guilty of only contacting by phone , in the past, officials who were already in prison were arrested. Imamoğlu's arrest marks the culmination of this campaign, and it was followed by other investigations against CHP and DEM Party mayors, who have also been detained. Actors and other public figures showing support for those arrested and for the massive protests that followed are also targets of the regime, with the most vocal and well-known losing important contracts for state-funded artistic projects.
Resistance to the Erdoğan regime growing amid Turkey's economic woes
But instead of giving in to growing intimidation from the government, the opposition continues to organize protests every week, with millions of people taking part. The rallies organized by the CHP in Istanbul immediately after Imamoğlu's arrest were followed by others in Samsun, Rize and, on April 19, Yozgat. These are towns where Erdoğan's party used to win local and parliamentary elections by a landslide until 2019, and has since lost them outright. CHP leader Özgür Özel is thus carrying the opposition's message and spirit across the country, while in Istanbul rallies continue every weekend.
In general, the population seems to be becoming more emboldened to oppose the leader in Ankara and his AKP party, fueling what could prove to be an unprecedented crisis of legitimacy. The Yozgat rally was also attended by hundreds of farmers who blocked roads in the area with tractors, signaling growing discontent in agriculture. The sector has been neglected for years by the AKP government, which has chosen to support sectors such as construction and arms production instead, but it seems that Turkish farmers can no longer stand it. The collapse of the lira, which began after Imamoğlu’s arrest, is helping Turkish exports, but it is also making exports more expensive. And Turkish agriculture is suffering deeply, because it needs to import fertilizers, seeds and technology to survive. Energy imports have also skyrocketed, with the government recently raising electricity and gas prices for both businesses (by 15-25 percent) and households (25 percent increase for electricity).
All this means additional difficulties for an economy that is growing in official statistics but sinking in reality. The market no longer believes the data of the Turkish Statistical Institute on the annual inflation rate (38.10% in March), preferring to consider figures closer to 80 percent, as they appear in analyses by academic groups such as ENAG. Turkey is also recording an increase in the trade balance deficit to almost 13 billion US dollars , or about 1% of the GDP. The tariff war started by the Trump administration in the US thus finds Turkey in a difficult moment, and the most vulnerable are Turkish farmers. After years of making do with small and always insufficient state aid, they are now facing bankruptcies that the Turkish media rarely and little reports on, precisely because they fear reprisals from the government. Businesses that depend on local agriculture are also affected, such as those in the food and textile industries, some of which have already emigrated to Europe (including Romania), but especially to Egypt, where agriculture offers raw materials such as cotton at competitive prices and quality.
The Erdoğan-AKP regime is failing to adopt sound policies for economic growth and improving the quality of life, and now seems to be concerned with staying in power at all costs. The campaign against the opposition is part of a broader strategy to ensure a third term as president for the current leader in Ankara. Although there are still three years until the presidential elections, state institutions seem to be mobilizing for alternative scenarios. Since the constitution does not allow more than two terms, the problem could have been solved through a constitutional amendment. However, the two-thirds of the votes in parliament required to trigger such a process is a pipe dream as long as the opposition has almost 270 out of the 600 seats in parliament. The only alternative, apart from a coup d'état, would be to call early elections and for the regime to impose the idea that the current presidential term, not having been completed, cannot be included in the two to which a candidate is limited. But the opposition is putting pressure on the government to ensure that the early elections also include a parliamentary election, not just a presidential one, given the sharp deterioration of the current government’s legitimacy.
Foreign policy failure: weakening the alliance with the Turkish states, compromising European integration, cold relationship with the US
The massive loss of legitimacy also extends to foreign policy. At the last opposition rally, on April 19 in Yozgat, CHP leader Özgür Özel also strongly criticized the foreign policy of the current leaders in Ankara, whom he accused of causing the bankruptcy of Turkey’s foreign policy” . The accusations come after five Central Asian states signed a joint declaration with the European Union following the EU-Central Asia summit in Samarkand on April 3-4. The declaration includes the recognition of Cyprus in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions 541 and 550, which condemn the occupation of the north and call for the recognition of the Greek government in Nicosia as the sole internationally recognized representative of the island. Of the five states, four have predominantly Turkic populations (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan). Tajikistan is also among them.
Serious from Ankara's perspective is the fact that three of them (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan) are member states of the Organization of Turkic States, established in 2009 at the initiative of the government led by Erdoğan. Turkmenistan has observer status in the OTS. Kazakhstan has already announced that it is opening an embassy in Nicosia and it is expected that the other four states will do the same. Such a scenario would completely destroy Ankara's ambition to promote the idea of two independent states in Cyprus with the support of the Turkic states. Beyond the extremely harsh public criticism coming from Özgür Özel but also from other opposition voices, the episode was also received with a wave of anger in nationalist circles in Ankara, which are extremely important to the government in the current political landscape in Turkey. The prevailing impression in those circles is that the respective declaration is actually the effect of the influence the EU is gaining in Central Asia, where the European Commission is advancing billions of euros of investment in infrastructure, energy and regional trade. And European projects are received with more confidence than those coming from China, Russia and Turkey, perceived as incapable of truly supporting regional development.
The failure described above adds to the failure in the direct relationship with the EU. Recently, the members of the European Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee approved in early April, after the arrest of the mayor of Istanbul, a report showing that Turkey is no longer considered eligible to become part of the EU due to the continuous deterioration of democratic standards” . In such cases, the European Commission is obeying Parliament’s decisions and has no arguments to advance the accession process with Turkey, especially since the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe also reacted strongly after the Imamoğlu episode. I also believe that continuing negotiations for the modernization of the EU-Turkey customs union with a regime that seriously undermines the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary and citizens' rights is no longer a question. One must also take into account the constant threats from Ankara against Greece and Cyprus, as well as against projects of European interest that include Greece and Cyprus, such as the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) and the Great Submarine Interconnector (GSI), which I have written about elsewhere.
Contrary to some expectations, such aggressiveness will certainly prevent Turkey from fully participating in the EU defense mechanism. Inclusion in the 150-billion-euro Security Action for Europe (SAFE) program requires a bilateral EU security agreement with Turkey, as with the UK. But this would be put to a vote in the Council of Ministers as a decision under the second pillar, the common security policy, where unanimous support is required. Greece and Cyprus, as well as other states, would certainly oppose such an agreement with Turkey. There remains the possibility of a direct agreement between the European Commission and relevant ministries in Turkey on the participation of Turkish companies in various defense contracts. That is, not the Turkish state, but only Turkish companies selected by Brussels and the EU member states could be involved in such collaboration, which would require only a qualified majority, which is easy to obtain, in the Council of Ministers.
Nor can we speak of great Turkish policy successes in the relationship with the United States. As we indicated in another article for Veridica, the Trump administration aims to complete the Abraham Accords process, which the current president himself initiated in 2020. And Ankara's policy sometimes goes against this goal and against the interests of the main US ally in the region, Israel. Moreover, Israel and the US are involved, directly and indirectly, in the IMEC and GSI projects mentioned above. If the Turkish government does not understand these stakes and chooses to keep rattling regional partners, it will probably end up irritating an American president who, as we have seen, is capable of unpleasant surprises even for the oldest US partners.
Rising tensions and growing challenges for the government in Ankara
The developments in Turkey in recent months thus seem to indicate profound challenges for the government that has ruled the country for decades. It is now facing what is increasingly emerging as a serious crisis of legitimacy, both domestically and internationally. Against this background, a growing proportion of the population seems to be beginning to understand that what is at stake is not just the opposition, but the entire country, which is faced with growing deprivation, injustice and abuse.
The government is responding with arrests, with nearly 2,000 people detained since mass protests began over the fate of the Istanbul mayor, who is also the opposition candidate in the presidential elections. There are so many that the trials have been grouped into clusters. A first trial, for the first group of 189 people , began in Istanbul on Friday. The defendants include students, lawyers, and journalists who reported on the protests. Other groups will follow, but the files are generic and do not contain clear, concrete, and individualized accusations. The regime is thus allowing the continuation of an infamous tradition in Turkish justice: vague laws are abused by prosecutors and judges who act in the government's ideological line and not in compliance with the letter and spirit of the laws. The rule of law, expected by generations of Turks, will not be established by this government either, hence the growing tension between it and a population increasingly willing to fight for its rights.
The following developments will also take place around this tension. We will see whether, at the twelfth hour, the authorities will choose to respond to citizens’ expectations, or whether they will permanently and irreversibly lose their legitimacy and support, with consequences that are hard to imagine at this point in time.
