2023 Turkish General Election: The Return to Democracy?

2023 is a crucial year in Turkey for two reasons. It marks the centenary of the founding of the Republic of Turkey by Mustafa Kemal alias Atatürk in 1923. Its celebration is an opportunity to establish a report on the state of the country in multiple fields: political, economic, social, cultural and international. The year 2023 is also a decisive electoral year with the holding of two elections – presidential and parliamentary – on 14 May, 2023. To understand the stakes of this exceptional year, discover the publication by Sciences Po's Center for International Studies (CERI) coordinated by Bayram Balci and Nicolas Monceau.

Ruled for twenty years by the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AK Party) embodied by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey has become highly polarised politically in recent years. President Erdoğan has turned into an increasingly divisive figure over time; its powers were considerably strengthened following the reform of the Constitution submitted to a referendum in April 2017 which instituted the presidentialisation of the Turkish regime.

At the same time, the regime's authoritarian drift has been reinforced since the abortive military coup d'état of July 2016 which led to the establishment of a state of emergency during the two years that followed. During those, thousands of Turkish citizens lost their jobs, were arrested, convicted and imprisoned in the name of the fight against terrorism.

Economically and socially, Turkey has been going through a deep crisis which has worsened since 2018 (inflation over 85% in 2022, devaluation of the national currency, rising unemployment). In terms of foreign policy, the country has experienced growing isolation on the international scene in recent years due to its regional interventionism on multiple fronts: military interventions in Syria and Iraq, involvement in the conflicts in Libya and the Nagorno-Karabakh, tensions with Greece and troubled relations with traditional Western allies.

Will the next 14 May elections lead to the AK Party and its leader R. T. Erdoğan remaining in power (for a third presidential term after the 2014 and 2018 elections) or will they, on the contrary, lead to a political alternation? In the event of victory, the opposition has indicated that it will restore the parliamentary system in Turkey instead of the presidential system put in place by the constitutional reform of 2017. These are the main issues at stake in the upcoming elections.

Discover the full publication of the CERI titled “The presidential and legislative elections on 14 May, 2023: the return to democracy in Turkey” (Élections présidentielle et législatives du 14 mai 2023 : le retour de la démocratie en Turquie, in French) composed of six research articles (one of them in English: Earthquakes and Refugees: Turkey's Political and Economic Challenges Ahead of a Presidential Election by Nevzet Celik).

On the same topic, don't miss the CERI event on 10 May, 2023 (in French as well).