Turkey is facing its worst crisis since 2016 when several dozen junior officers tried to stage a coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Islamist government.
The coup plotters cited an erosion of secularism, elimination of democratic rule, disregard for human rights, and Turkey's loss of credibility in the international arena as reasons for trying to overthrow Erdogan.
It was brutally put down in a few hours. The army — once the guardian of secularism in Turkey — was brushed aside by Erdoğan's hand-picked general officers and the timid lower ranks who feared Erdoğan's retaliation.
Today, the issue is what the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) can do to halt the final slide into autocracy that began on March 19 when a court ordered the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu on "corruption" charges. The courts had long since been co-opted by Erdoğan and had become an instrument of state control.
Indeed, Erdoğan's more than two-decade journey to dictatorship has taken place gradually as he absorbed each element of Turkish civil society into Erdoğan's political machine, the AKP. The army, the courts, the unions, and the bureaucracy have all been intimidated and threatened, their independence destroyed.
But the arrest of İmamoğlu may have precipitated a tipping point. The popular mayor was ahead of Erdoğan in the polls, and the usually pliant parliament was getting ready to vote for early elections due to the collapse of the Turkish lira and rising inflation.
The significance of this moment for Turkey cannot be overstated. İmamoğlu’s arrest feels like yet another breaking point—perhaps the point of no return—that will determine whether Turkey will recover its democracy or slide further toward a Russian-style autocracy. The crackdown sparked an immediate surge of civic resistance in the streets, galvanizing Turkey’s largest protests in over a decade. More than 1,500 people were detained and over 200 were arrested, including journalists. Demonstrations erupted not only in liberal strongholds but also in cities long aligned with the ruling party, signaling a broader crisis of legitimacy for the government. The CHP brought hundreds of thousands of people into the streets for a mass rally—one of the largest in recent memory. It was a powerful demonstration of public outrage and a clear signal of the opposition’s ability to mobilize beyond elections.
Ozgur Ozel, CHP's leader, said, “Turkey is at a historic political breaking point." He's calling for early elections, currently scheduled for June 2028.
“We cannot wait another three years,” Ozel said. “We want elections now because we know we can win now. Imamoğlu has more public backing today than ever before. We are confident we are in a strong position to win.”
In addition to arresting Imamoğlu, Erdoğan induced the mayor's alma mater, Istanbul University, to yank his diploma. This effectively sidelines Imamoğlu because of a law that says all presidential candidates must have a university degree.
The CHP is ignoring that law and held a primary on March 23, and instead of limiting the primary vote to party members, the CHP opened the race to all voters. The results were amazing. "Nearly 15 million people participated in this voluntary, symbolic election—an extraordinary show of civic resistance with no legal standing but immense democratic weight," writes Ayça Alemdaroğlu, a scholar at Stanford University and a Global Fellow at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO).
Erdoğan considers Imamoğlu a threat for several reasons. Imamoğlu’s political ascent began in 2019 when he twice defeated Erdoğan’s handpicked candidate for Istanbul mayor, overturning decades of conservative rule. He achieved this under deeply unfair conditions, with 90% of the media under government control and elections heavily tilted in favor of the ruling party. His victory was made possible by a broad alliance of six opposition parties, unified around the goal of restoring democracy. Although that alliance fell apart after their loss in the 2023 presidential election—securing Erdoğan a third presidential term—İmamoğlu nonetheless won the mayorship again with an even wider margin.
Erdoğan's rise to power has mirrored the total inability of the political opposition to coalesce around a single candidate to challenge the president. Part of the problem is the secularism vs. Islam debate that has roiled Turkey's politics since the 1980s. Is it too late for the opposition to put their differences aside and defeat Erdoğan using democratic means?
Erdoğan has so effectively co-opted the opposition through intimidation and expert political maneuvering that it's unlikely his opponents will score a breakthrough. The president still has a sizable base of support that he can turn out into the streets. He has the army and the police. He controls the electoral apparatus. And he controls the media.
Against all of that, what does the opposition have?
