Erdogan's Third Term: What Can We Expect?| Inside Story

a third term for Turkish president Richard erdogan economic problems at home and balancing East-West relations are just two of the Urgent challenges he faces so what does erdogan's re-election mean for turkey and for the wider world this is Inside Story [Music] hello and welcome to the program I'm fully batibo it went to a runoff after a very tight first round but Richard has emerged as a clear winner of turkey's presidential election after overcoming probably the biggest political challenge he's ever faced he will hope his third term will further tighten his grip on power opponents have expressed dismay with the poll results starkly reflecting deep political divisions in the country a key player between East and West turkey is relations are complex such as the NATO member also being on good terms with Russia we'll be exploring what erdogan's re-election May mean for the country shortly but first Hashem al-bara in Ankara tells us what some of the most pressing issues are now that he has been re-elected and secured a comfortable majority of the parliament the next five years will be a defining moment for president but he will continue to face a wide range of issues such as the economy which has been declining over the last few years and on this many experts expect a return to economic Orthodoxy where he should give the Central Bank a give a say in the future he will also need to rebuild the entire cities devastated by the earthquake something which is going to cost him a hundred billion dollars to do that he will have to build Bridges with the U.S and the EU his ties with the International Community have trained over the last few years but he is giving indications that he is willing to mend offenses particularly when he ratified finland's bid to join NATO widely seen as a sign that he wants stronger relations with the West in exchange for more financial support to be able to fix the economy and to rebuild the cities that were devastated by the earthquake president erdogan told his people that now he's looking forward to move forward and unify everyone who voted for him or voted for the opposition we'll have to wait and see whether he will be able to deliver on all those promises for Inside Story Al Jazeera well let's take a closer look at the challenges president erdogan faces as he begins his new term in office Turkey's economy is in crisis with its people struggling with a High Cost of Living the Turkish lira has lost nearly 340 percent against the U.S dollar during the five years of President erdogan's last term and inflation is running at more than 50 percent critics blame erdogan for refusing to raise interest rates the President also faces a huge task of uniting a deeply polarized Nation the opposition has criticized his government for its stance on Syrian refugees erdogan has accused his rival of siding with Kurdish Fighters that his party regards as terrorists millions of people in the southwest of turkey are still living in makeshift homes after two devastating earthquakes in February president erdogan has promised to prioritize rebuilding in those areas now with erdogan's Victory turkia's foreign policy is also in the spotlight NATO members are hoping Ankara will allow Sweden into the military Alliance turkey has blocked Sweden's application erdogan says the country hasn't met all of turkey's demands turkey is described as the bridge between Europe and the Middle East but its relations with Russia have unsettled Western Powers it has close ties with Moscow but also provides military aid to Ukraine turkey's foreign policy over the years has expanded its Global influence it's intervened militarily across the Middle East Africa and Europe last year Ankara Health broker a deal that ended Russia's blockade on Ukraine grain supplies [Music] thank you well let's bring in our guests now for today's Inside Story in Istanbul is Helene sari artem associate professor of international relations at Istanbul medicine University in Peterborough is Ben Harris founder and editor-in-chief of bne in tele news and in Istanbul as well is Ono erim political advisor and president of dragoman strategies a warm welcome to all three of you thank you so much for joining us on inside story anur in Istanbul let me start with you please in his victory speech president erdogan called for Unity and solidarity with 48 of Turks voting for change how is he going to unite such a polarized country will he extend an olive branch to the opposition well I mean uh his uh Speech which is now known to be as his balcony speech uh did start with uh you know expressions of that he will need everyone's support and everyone coming together to achieve the goals of the The Next Century as as he pretty much you know labeled uh turkey as next model going into the second 100 Years of uh of the Turkish Republic um as far as the the numbers that he has gotten do realize that in the last two presidential elections 2014 and 2018. uh this is not much difference except for maybe a decimal or two for erdogan the 52-40 split has been there at least since 2014. how is he going to bring those 48 percent of Turks who didn't vote for him on board well first of all the first two rounds the first two times there were no second round there were no runoffs uh I mean the first one the second one wasn't Hey listen he has been battling perfectly against everybody in Turkey all the entire opposition which are uh which are you know they're like day and night most of these guys that got together under College almost candidacy they got together just to get rid of erdogan I think he was battling against everybody else he's still in the first round was able to uh you know surpass by more than almost more than five points which is pretty much about four points now more than 200 close to two and a half million votes just over 2 million votes this time so uh I don't necessarily I don't know if you can call that polarization uh you know because most of the presidential races in countries with presidential systems this is basically I mean you would probably consider this a landslide if it was in the US okay so it stops yeah Helene what are your thoughts on says this isn't a country that's polarized necessarily and that President erdogan Victory is a decisive one it is decisive if it's not polarized uh it do you share that point first of all that this is not a polarized country and how does erdogan unite Turks today oh well it is a polarized country unfortunately and this trend is a global Trend so turkey is not the only example in which polarization is getting higher and higher we see the same Trend in the United States we see a similar Trend in most of the European countries as well inside their own societies actually people are trying to decide about the Fate about their faith about their future way of living and in in terms of this perspective we see that Turkish Society is somehow split into two because one side is quite secular and liberal and the other side is quite conservative as well as nationalists we have seen and witnessed a huge rise of Turkish nationalism especially in this last couple of fix in the first and second round of the presidential elections and especially president erdogan's policy for this election was mainly based on uh Turkish nationism I'm not sure whether the help of the Turkish Society I mean the opposition part is feeling themselves as Turkish nationalists that much because the narratives that the erdogan and his party that erdogan and his party is using is mainly taking its route from history from ottoman past from the concurrence of Istanbul from the past coup d'etat in 2060 so it's mainly about a conservative past as well as a very Turkish nationalist past okay before I bring in uh Ben into the conversation oh nor I'm going to allow you to respond to what Elaine just said and also ask you about what president erdogan is going to be now towards his policy is going to be towards the nationalists and he reached out to them during the campaign of course is that Trend going to continue well you have to realize his number one supporter politically is the uh the Nationalist MHP party who's the second oldest party in Turkey he has been collaborating with them under the same Coalition for at least six seven years and there's all the indications that he will continue so I don't think there's going to be any difference in approach as far as he's concerned his policies are concerned when it comes to you know feeling uh very close to uh now of those nationalist views and as I said uh I think polarization is is really mistaken in Turkey as opposed to anywhere else uh people here the the as soon as the race is over the elections are over people just are going about their ways let's not uh you know mistake the the wars going on in social media uh between the the parts or or the polarized Parts as they call uh with the regular public more than half my family is extremely opposed to uh to erdogan a lot of my friends are we have no problem with this is when you talk about polarized political size in Turkey I don't think it's the same thing as most outside of outside of 2K would understand to be so let's get Ben's thoughts on this Ben do you expect now a much more conciliatory tone and approach from president erdogan now that the election is over will he be more focused on uniting the country I don't think so I mean erdogan is um All About power and if you watch his career um as he rose uh set up the ACT party and that has just won his party um but that was based in uh Islam conservative values and we've been talking about here polarization I think is better to describe it as a divided country and it's symptomatic of its place uh in Europe I mean right on the edge and half the countries looking East to to the Arab world and the other half is looking into Europe and um I think it's notable that you know erdogan has led this this sort of uh conservative Islamic nationalistic tainted campaign um whereas the opposition the Republican people's party I mean this is the party of Ataturk they're the founder of the modern State and it was very much he committed turkey to to uh liberal um secular State we my correspondence uh in turkey box pop young people uh young professional liberals and they're looking to the uh to the West they look into Europe and many of them said that if a country continues to go down this increasingly conservative path that they would lead they would upsticks and go and I think that's the issue here is that it's not polarized so much it's divided between these two different ideas of where the country should go and the country just voted in erdogan which means it's going to go down that more socially conservative more religious orientated line than it had done before the reconciliation is trying to bring those two parts together um it doesn't they don't really fit right okay so two two different ideas you say Ben of where to take turkey let me come to you now on or and talk about the immediate challenges domestic challenges that President odawan faces and that is of course the struggling Turkish economy one of them the main one what are we going to see in terms of Economic Policy will we see a U-turn from president erdogan on some of his more controversial economic policies to deal with the skyrocketing inflation wow you could say a lot of things about President erdogan uh one thing you got to give him though he's he's a he's a leader he's a political uh figure that actually is keeps a very good beat of of the of the public of the uh of the citizens so if he has to change things around if he deems so he will he will do it right away right now it's no of course secret that the Turkish Academy has been under heavy fire you know especially from the West uh and that it has been you know it has its own issues that that's been going along going along for a long time but the thing is uh despite all of these despite the uh the big war right next to us despite the troubling economy in in especially in Western Europe which is our biggest export partner and despite the fact that the USA is really struggling financially I think turkey is holding its own pretty good now how long can can we can we last and how long can he can even get point we will have to see but for sure he's definitely has definitely promised for better days economically for the entire Turkish population better days economically are we going to see him change his policy on on these low interest rates I don't think so okay I don't think so and he's actually and and the and and there's a lot of uh you know despite the the very heavy uh you know media against him on this uh there's actually a lot of papers coming out as it has been before uh try you know maybe questioning what he was doing was wrong while everybody was Raising interest rates for him to lower the interest rates but as I said this is a uh this is a very debatable issue I could go on for hours and hours let's let's hear from Ben who wanted to jump in on that Ben what do you think about the economic policies well we see him deviate from these uh unorthodox or some would say unorthodox policies he's had on the economy uh and Orthodox is is a massive understatement uh he's convinced he said in an interview with Bloomberg that if you lower interest rates the central bank then you bring inflation down which flies in the Orthodoxy because it's the other way around and you mentioned uh the turkey's got 50 inflation and we think those numbers are highly massaged and that it's much higher and yet he's reduced or the central bank has reduced interest rates by 500 basis by five percent um which is insane so the currency has gone from three Lira to the dollar down to 20 now and the analysts are saying that there's going to be another now the elections are over and now the the central bank is going to let go of some of the controls because it has to there's only another 25 evaluation and at the same time um the reserves have virtually run out because they've been trying to hold the lyrics stable before the elections and at the same time turkey's running a whopping 50 billion dollar a year trade deficit and this is all answers sustainable so turkey is headed or is in a massive economic crisis already it's just not manifested yeah Haley and they are indeed concerns at the Turkish Central Bank can't continue to prop up the Lira president odawan has said he is the one who can deal with this economic crisis do you believe that well we can I think assume that the Turkish society as the majority of part of it uh actually both this statement and uh underlined their support for erdogan that he is the one who is going to solve every kind of problem and as well also we also have to understand that the most of the society also thinks that yeah the economy is bad we have problems but at the same time he is the cure so opposition couldn't change this idea about erdogan there's a huge Trust on him as a strong man and we also have to underline that the big cities are different from the other local parts of Anatolia and the main parts of the woods are coming from Anatolia small cities local places in which the people are not suffering as much as those people living in big cities regarding the high inflation regarding the high rent and so on for that reason we can assume that President erdogan's main support is coming from Anatolia not the big cities Metropolitan Metropolis like Istanbul Ankara and Ismail there are there will be problems there will be a hard time ahead of us everybody accepts that the only difference between the opposition and erdogan support is that the the people majority who are supporting Ardon are ready to suffer much more just to save him as the leader because most of these people are also thinking that this is a kind of a western game being played against turkeys High inflation is a part of this uh anti-turkey rhetoric right as president Trump in the past for example he used the sentence that he has the the ability to play with Turkish economy just with a tweet for that reason many of the people are thinking that this is actually a responsibility of the West and is the right person okay okay before we talk about what we can expect on the international stage I wanted to touch on the issue of the Syrian refugees and honor come to you about this uh president erdogan has promised to send back one million syrians over the next few years is this feasible is this possible or was that just campaign rhetoric he actually said he will set the stage uh a livable Humane stage for a million people to go back to Syria and as it was uh just announced I think a couple of weeks before the elections uh there was a deal uh or a collaboration I should say rather made with the state of Qatar to build uh you know housing and and and all the social surroundings of it uh for for a million refugees to go back to at least the the uh the controlled and the safe part of Syria so yes he said he he never used the word he will send them back he always is very careful about that he said he will set the stage and give all the uh necessary make sure that all the necessary things are done for them to go back willingly and that's really the difference between erdogan and everybody else Ben your thoughts about the issue of Syrian refugees presumably the Europeans are happy that erdogan is still in power because he's been able to deal with the Syrian refugee crisis and perhaps not allowed The Refuge is to get into the European Union how how do you see this evolving now that he's been re-elected well he's he's been very pragmatic he's been using it uh as a card I mean the reason why the Europeans were happy that uh they didn't turn up in Europe was that the Europe paid billions of dollars in order for him to keep them and in that sense he's become very transactional in a lot of his foreign relations uh he's become transactional about what he can get out of it and he uses the issue of the refugees as a card that he can play in order to extract concessions from Europe in the form of cash um in the Middle East there's a Reconciliation going on rapidly at the moment that um Iran and Saudi Arabia have just mentioned fences after nine years of non-diplomatic relations and the same thing with Syria itself has just been readmitted to the Arab League right and so here he is these million refugees um that zakari can play with that and I think he's going to be very careful about it but he definitely because of his relatively poor relations with Europe in the sense that he's been trying to get you he's never been able to do it but he's also looking to the east the Middle East as well in order to who has the upper hand right now Ben sorry to interrupt you but who has the upper hand now in the relationship between turkey and the EU and is he still interested in getting to the European Union given the strained relations we've seen well he's he I mean they were granted in what was the late 80 89 and 1999 giving candidate status and they've been left in the waiting room ever since and I think he said in 2017 he's basically given up on it because Merkel herself a German chancellor stood up and said turkey will never get it so I think it's clear it's not but EU remains a major Market um and turkey is very interested in that so he wants to maintain those good relations but at the same time there's not a line thing going on that's being led by China and Russia and he's also interested in doing that and I think I think he sees himself in the middle of the spider's web with good relations to the West relations to the east yeah and he and good relations with the Middle East as well so I mean again Refugee issue is a card to play in that game okay Helene let me ask you about the the relationship now with the East and West president erdogan has got one foot in NATO but he's also got one foot turned towards Moscow towards Russia is this a position that's tenable in your view yeah this will continue and this is in total harmony with turkey's traditional foreign policy approach it's a balancing act since the very beginning of the Republic for that reason especially in the last couple of years we observed that erdogan and his party is uh going through a kind of reproachment with many of the neighboring countries including Syria we are getting closer with Egypt with the gulf countries with United Arab Emirates Saudi Arabia even Greece in the west and this approachment will continue because this is quite beneficial for turkey economically we need this reproachment with the neighboring countries and as well as this also this is a very important to improve turkey's soft power which was lost to a great extent with the increase of the heart power especially in Syrian Civil War I also expect that there will be soon there will be a kind of a handshaking between arduan and Assad in Syria and I think if turkey can manage that and the problem of Syrian refugees and refugees will also be sold quite clearly quite easily by sending them back after a reproachment with the Assad regime okay uh honor Elaine says she expects a handshaking between erdogan and Syria as Assad very soon what about the relationship with Washington DC and NATO also I mean one of the point of tensions with NATO has been turkey agreeing for Sweden to join the military Alliance do you see that happening and how does the relationship with Biden now move forward well I'm just making throwing a little little fact to a previously made to me a very unjustified uh comment that turkey is being turkey is being made look like he that she is uh sort of using this as a card against Europe to get money uh turkey only received just over six billion dollars from the European Union uh in in exchange turkey has spent more than 45 billion dollars on the Syrian refugees so to call Turkey uh holding this as a stake against Europe to get money is is first on based and secondly very unjust uh going back to what happens with NATO well I guess when you say nato you really talk we're really talking about the United States I don't know buy the message aside no one has really come up to date as to why Biden and to a degree Trump in his in his last uh a year or two was so hostile against Ricky no one has really come up with an answer or an explanation as to why cure care was not delivered the F-35 said it was that it that that she paid for or no one was able to explain why uh turkey was asked from the F35 program uh you know once as single-sidedly without any reason and against all the uh you know contracts that has been signed so I think uh what happens next uh between the relationship to the the turkish-american relationship really depends on how the how Biden Administration uh and the and the United States government acts I think the burden is upon them to make the next move what about uh the session of Sweden to Nato uh or nor will president erdogan now accept to ratify Sweden's secession now that the election is over look it's no secret that these are mostly uh political decisions but right arduan puts you know in in the beginning put a very straightforward you know uh statement out there that the international recognized terrorist organizations they do something about it uh that he will he will continue and if they don't if they you know continue to Harbor these terrorists who are you know maybe some are not accepted as terrorists every some everywhere but some are erdogan said he will not move but saying having said that I do understand that these are more political decisions than anything else okay Ben I'll give you the last word and allow you to respond to to owner who was saying that it's not right to call turkey's relationship with the EU transactional and also get your thoughts about on uh the future of the relationship with Washington and Russia at the same time well complicated issues I mean I see it's transactional in the sense that you know with the issue of Sweden's membership of NATO the the turkey rolled over and accepted Finland straight away um but as my colleague was saying you know there's these um the Kurdish um uh People's Party the pkk uh and they a lot of those uh guys who have taken refuge in Sweden and elegance made it very clear that you need to Aid lift the sanctions that were imposed on us um about five years ago NB you need to extradite these guys um who we claim or believe or see as terrorists um Sweden went as far as putting through a new terrorist law which comes into effect on June 1st and my understanding of it is that uh Ankara is waiting to see the effect of that and whether if any of these guys are pkk guys are expedited back to Turkey before he goes ahead and takes off the um agrees to NATO's um agrees to to note Sweden joining NATO as for Washington I mean yeah the the issue with the fighter jets the US made fighter jets has also been a um a thorn in the side and haven't been sent but again that's part of the the problem with that was it was scuppered because erdogan agreed to buy this s 400 uh anti-missile system from Russia which is non-nato and the Americans took great exception to that and this is what's ended up as a between those two things and it's example both of elegant playing both sides is also an example of him wanting to develop his own military capacity and not be totally dependent on NATO and Washington in that sense don't see turkey as a team player although as part of the alliance and is it again sits in the middle playing both sides every time um and this is what is in a lot of trouble we we're gonna have to leave it there obviously there's still a lot of ground to cover in this conversation but we'll leave it there for today thank you so much to all three of you for joining us on Inside Story Helene sari artem honor Irene and Ben Aries thank you and thank you as well for watching you can always watch this program again anytime by visiting our website at aljazeera.com for further discussion go to our Facebook page that's facebook.com forward slash AJ Inside Story and of course you can join the conversation on Twitter our handle is at AJ inside story from me fully batibo and the whole team here in Doha thanks for watching bye for now

Channel: Al Jazeera English

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Keywords: Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera English, Turkey election2023, al Jazeera, al jazeera English, al jazeera live, al jazeera video, aljazeera English, aljazeera latest, aljazeera live, aljazeera live news, erdogan, kemal, latest news, news headlines, turkey cost of living crisis, turkey earthquakes, turkey election 2023, turkey elections, turkey elections 2023, turkey opposition alliance, turkey politics

Id: FOWM5H0YLcc

Length: 29min 0sec (1740 seconds)

Published: Mon May 29 2023