Soner Cagaptay is the Beyer Family Senior Fellow and director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute.
Articles & Testimony
In this video, Beyer Family Fellow Soner Cagaptay provides context for the upcoming election and assesses Erdogan's prospects for success.
During his twenty-year reign as Turkish prime minister and president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has steadily consolidated power into his own hands and suppressed opposition. On May 14, Turkish voters will go to the polls to determine whether the autocratic leader will be given yet another five-year term. This will be the most competitive race of Erdogan's career: He faces a unified opposition eager to take advantage of the country's economic troubles and to the government's botched response to catastrophic earthquake in February. Many are asking if this will be the last opportunity to depose Erdogan before he assumes complete control of the Turkish government and eliminates democracy once and for all.
