The mayor of Istanbul and the mayor of Ankara belong to the liberal opposition. This Republican People’s Party is a left-liberal, secular and pro-European alternative to Erdogan’s party. The opposition is oriented towards the West and rejects Erdogan’s Islamist orientation.
Erdogan has made several serious political mistakes. The most important of these is his support for the seizure of power by the Al-Julani militias in Damascus. This is a fatal mistake, because Erdogan has dealt a serious, possibly irreparable blow to Russian-Turkish and Iranian-Turkish relations. Neither Russia nor Iran will help Erdogan.
It is likely that Iran or Russia are not involved in any way in the turmoil in Turkey. On the contrary, it is the West that is toppling Erdogan. However, his Syrian mistake is fundamental. Many in Turkey not only failed to understand Erdogan’s policy, but also condemned it. Now, as we see, it has led to the genocide of Alevis and other ethno-religious minorities, including Christians. Only a short-sighted politician could de facto hand over power in Syria to al-Qaeda. Although Erdogan has always been far-sighted in general, this mistake will often haunt him.
The next point is economic policy. The depreciation of the lira and galloping inflation are undermining the already weak Turkish economy. These failures – Syrian and economic – as well as Erdogan’s rapprochement with the EU, the liberal globalists and his contacts with MI6 are leading Erdogan into a trap.
The liberal-Kemalist opposition in Turkey took advantage of this and began to privatize its failures. As we have already said, what happened in Syria was a Pyrrhic victory, the economy is collapsing and their Western orientation is stronger than Erdogan’s, with which Turkey will not be accepted into the EU.
Since Turkey is a democracy, Erdogan could not do anything against the voters who elected the opposition leaders. But in the end, he decided to imprison the mayor of Istanbul. Whether there was a reason for this or not is completely irrelevant. In almost every modern political regime, there is always a reason to imprison every official (there are no more innocents in politics). Therefore, the question arises only of the expediency of detention.
Erdogan decided that the situation was bad for him and that he should put his most active opponent, Imamoglu, behind bars – a Soros man, who is supported by liberal globalists. Could Russia have supported Erdogan if he himself had strongly opposed this Soros group. But before that, he “sold out” his allies, Iran and Russia to the West – that’s why they don’t support him.
All of Erdogan’s opponents took advantage of the combination of the above steps and launched a real color revolution. And these conservatives, including the military Kemalists of Eurasian orientation, whom Erdogan himself had previously accused of the false “Ergenekon” case and who ultimately saved him more than once (first in the 2016 coup attempt), will no longer come to his aid.
Erdogan has lost his friends because he has often betrayed them. At the same time, we must be careful even with these protests, because behind them are the same organizers as in most color revolutions, including the one in Serbia. The revolutions themselves are usually watched by ordinary people who are dissatisfied with one or another political excess. Therefore, there are objective reasons for what is happening. Apparently Erdogan has simply exhausted his margin of error and continues to make mistakes.
The future of Erdogan and his regime looks enviable. Of course, Russia and Iran want a sovereign Turkey with an independent policy as a neighbor. Of course, a friendly attitude towards them would be better for the Erdogan regime.
