Although there are differences of opinion on what to call it, Türkiye is facing a picture that has been clarified by the 2023 General and 2024 Local Elections. We are facing a change that Erdogan, the leader with the highest public credibility since the transition to multi-party life, could only delay so far despite all his skills. Let’s name it: What is happening in Turkish politics is a generational change. A change in the political elite, that the last time we experienced such a change on a similar scale was about 60 years ago. The 60s were the years when the founding cadres of the republic withdrew from politics and were replaced by new names who were almost the same age as the young republic. In the short period from the mid-60s to the early 70s, a number of leaders emerged on the Turkish political scene, each of whom would form a school of thought. In 1964, 40-year-old Süleyman Demirel was elected as the chairman of the Justice Party. In 1965, 48-year-old Alparslan Türkeş became the chairman of the CKMP, which would later become the MHP (Nationalist Movement Party). In 1970, 44-year-old Necmettin Erbakan founded the National Order Party, the first party of the national vision tradition (a movement of conservatives and political Islamists), and became its chairman. In 1972, Bülent Ecevit, 47 years old, became the chairman of the CHP (Republican People’s Party) after the resignation of İsmet Pasha, whom he had defeated in an internal party struggle. Demirel had entered politics two years before he was elected chairman. Türkeş won the leadership of his party the year he officially entered politics. Erbakan was elected as an independent MP and founded his own party one year after he entered politics. Ecevit, on the other hand, was elected chairman 15 years after he was elected as an MP in the 1957 elections. It would not be wrong to attribute Ecevit’s acceptance of his leadership at the end of a longer period of time compared to his peers to the long political life of İsmet Pasha, one of the founding fathers of the republic.
These politicians were the most important leaders of Turkish political life in their era: Demirel for 36 years from 1964 until 2000 when his presidential term ended, Türkeş for 32 years from his election as chairman in 1965 until his death in 1997, Erbakan for 41 years from his election as chairman in 1970 until his death in 2011, and Ecevit for 32 years from his election as chairman in 1972 until his retirement from active politics in 2004. Turgut Özal, who belongs to the same generation, played a dominant role in the political scene for 10 years after the democratic political life dominated by the aforementioned quartet was interrupted by a military coup. It is worth remembering that the first half of Özal’s 10 years (83-93) was passed without Demirel, Türkeş, Erbakan and Ecevit due to political bans.
This quartet of phenomenal leaders left the stage in the late 90s and early 2000s, leaving behind huge political legacies. The resulting huge political vacuum could not be filled by a new generation of leaders. In a way, Tayyip Erdoğan’s leadership became the “lonely” leadership in this great vacuum. While this “loneliness” evolved into a kind of political monopoly with intense popular support, it also enabled him to recover from his political and economic failures with minimal damage. Of course, although Erdoğan has always been comfortable with the fact that his political rivals were not in his weight class, he demonstrated his political prowess in his struggle against the “establishment” especially in his early years. He performed at a high level in forming new alliances, which is one of his best capabilities. This 20-year period, in which there were many and different chairmen of political parties, and Erdoğan’s loneliness prevailed on the stage of leaders, began to be shaken in 2019 and its political fate was widely predicted in 2024. Although the dates seem to emphasize Istanbul, what is actually happening is the emergence of a new generation of political elites. 2
Born in 1970, Ekrem İmamoğlu’s winning the mayorship of Istanbul in 2019 set the heather alight. His political performance from the first election, which he won by a small margin, to the second election, which was organized under pressure from the government, and the big difference in the second election showed that İmamoğlu would not be satisfied with Istanbul. It did not take long for Erdoğan to realize the political threat posed to him by the new political figure that caused him to lose Istanbul. He tried to limit this looming political threat with the shadow of a political ban, the difficulties created by the central administration to the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality and the siege of the mass media. Having managed to compete with the opponent he wanted in 2023, Erdoğan could not protect his opponent after the election. The CHP won a major victory in the 2024 municipal elections, with the team led by Imamoğlu emerging victorious from the intra-party political struggle. As of today, the shadow of a possible political ban still hangs over Imamoğlu. But it is possible to say that even the scenario in which the possible is realized cannot stop İmamoğlu’s progress.
İmamoğlu stood out with characteristics that we have not observed much in the political leaders before him. He puts forth a hyperactive performance that keeps his contact with the citizens as warm as he does and for which we do not come across any sign that he is not natural. He has an extreme determination to persuade. We see that his personal ability to establish dialogue is reflected in forming political alliances. Imamoğlu is a political name very suitable for the politics of uniting 4 tendencies reminiscent of Özal. For example, he is able to appoint a police chief known for his nationalist identity as the head of the Metropolitan Police Department, while nominating a candidate from the CHP and making him the mayor of Esenyurt, who ensures that the HDP/Green Left (Kurdish nationalists/separatist and leftists) does not nominate a candidate. While taking new steps to facilitate the religious needs of Alevis, he does not refrain from co-operating with some Sunni-sofi structures. He is aware of the contribution of being from Trabzon to his appearance as a “natural nationalist” and he is active in using the room for maneuver this contribution provides him. It is clear that a person who reads the Koran in Eyüp Sultan Mosque, plays the Akçaabat horon (a type of folkloric dance) well and has a Black Sea accent is immune to the public reaction that his contacts with the HDP and the Green Left might create. Except for the horon part, we have seen in the recent past that Erdoğan has benefited from this immunity. Beyond these natural and given aspects, İmamoğlu’s most striking feature seems to be in finding and evaluating competent people. Since 2019, we have seen many “no name” figures come to the fore first in the municipal administration and then in the political arena. It was İmamoğlu who made Sinem Dedetaş, the first woman who served as the President of the Istanbul Chamber of Naval Engineers, the General Manager of City Lines, who made her a mayor candidate for Üsküdar in 2024 after her distinctive work here, and eventually paved the way for her to become the Mayor of Üsküdar. He made Mahir Polat, who was an expert on the history of art and architecture at the General Directorate of Foundations, the Head of the Department of Cultural Assets of IMM (Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality) in 2019, and then expanded his area of responsibility and made him Deputy Secretary General of IMM, and finally a candidate for Fatih Municipality in the local elections of 2024. Polat lost the election in Fatih, known as the AK Party’s stronghold, by a margin of seven thousand votes. However, both in his duty in IMM and during the election process, he carried out works that pushed the government very hard. The election of Mithat Bülent Özmen, whom he transferred from the Presidency of the Natural Gas Importers Association to IMM and appointed as the General Manager of İGDAŞ (the natural gas distribution company of IMM), as the Mayor of Eyüp Sultan in the 2024 elections is a good example of İmamoğlu’s talent in selecting and evaluating competent names. His appointment of Pelin Alpkökin, a faculty member from ITU who did her PhD on rail systems at Nagoya University in Japan, as the head of IMM’s Rail System Department and later as the deputy secretary general in charge of transport is also a remarkable “head hunter” success. The executive/popular leader figure, which is formed when the ability to select managers is combined with the warm relationship with the public, makes İmamoğlu the “primus inter pares” of the new generation of political leaders.
Born in 1979, Fatih Erbakan founded the Yeniden Refah (New Welfare Party) in 2018 and was elected its chairman. He had laid the foundations of his party with the Necmettin Erbakan Foundation, of which organization he accelerated, after he lost the presidential race in the party of his father Necmettin Erbakan. Just like his father, he was often tried to be caricatured. In fact, he was quite generous in giving material to those who tried to do this, just like his father. The first years of his party were spent in an effort to make a presence in the field dominated by the AK Party. It cannot be said that he was successful in these years. However, he was able to create a structure with the rapid organization skills of the National Vision tradition. When this core structure was combined with the AK Party’s economic failures and the dissolution of the Saadet Partisi (Felicity Party) at the 6-party table, Erbakan’s field expanded. He grew his party with his anti-vaccine stance, his high-pitched outbursts on issues of conservative sensitivity that the government preferred not to raise its voice, and his ability to reach the classical National Vision demographic. His most strategic move was to withdraw his candidacy in favor of Erdoğan when it was certain that he had collected enough signatures. This move calmed the widespread right-wing and conservative anxiety against Kılıçdaroğlu and consequently made Fatih Erbakan one of the main contributors to Erdoğan’s victory. The pictures he gave and the position he took together with Erdoğan rapidly favored Erbakan politically in the eyes of the People’s Alliance masses. His continued opposition to the government immediately after the election and his refusal to cooperate in the process leading up to the municipal elections were reciprocated by the public. The Yeniden Refah Partisi, which was the 3rd largest party in the country in terms of the number of members, became the 3rd largest party in Türkiye in both the mayoral election and the provincial general assembly election in 2024. Its vote in the provincial general assembly reached almost 7 per cent. It won two provincial and 39 district municipalities, one of which was the metropolitan Şanlıurfa. Almost since the establishment of the AK Party, the Yeniden Refah Partisi has achieved to take votes from the ruling party’s vote pool unlike many other parties which tried and failed to do so. It has both built a safe political space for the sociocultural segments of the society that have difficulty in finding a political space outside the AK Party, and also has become a leader “inoculated” against the black propaganda of the government by having a major share in Erdoğan’s re-election with its support at the most critical moment. Fatih Erbakan was the first person in Turkish politics to leave his father’s party and become a leader in politics. He achieved this by organizing his new party from the bottom to the top, after competing with and losing to his father’s friends in the political party in which his father was the chairman. Most of the time he progressed despite the pressure of the government. Both his traditional Islamist ideological base and his personal political resilience make Erbakan a long-lasting new generation leader.
Born in 1973, Selahattin Demirtaş continues to improve his “record” every day as the longest imprisoned chairman in our political history. Although he is being held in prison based on the “trench incidents” and many other cases in the atmosphere that emerged after the 15th July coup attempt despite the European Court of Human Rights ruling, Demirtaş’s perception as a political threat dates back to the 2015 June elections. Demirtaş received 13 per cent of the votes in the general elections in the first year of his leadership with the HDP. This was the highest vote ever achieved since the (Kurdish nationalist/separatist) ecole founded their first political party in 1990. They won 80 parliamentary seats and increased their votes to 10.2 per cent in Istanbul, 17.9 per cent in Mersin, 17.8 per cent in Erzurum and 77.7 per cent in Diyarbakır. The Ak Parti government went into crisis and was able to consolidate itself by going to re-election in November after a controversial process. It was clear that although Demirtaş was raised in a “separatist” political tradition, he had the ability to reach out beyond the classical voters of his party. He was politically resistant to all kinds of pressure. At times, this pressure also came from the PKK terrorist organization. Demirtaş’s leadership since 2014 can be defined as a leadership that has been tested and proved itself even in physical absence, especially when he entered prison in 2016. In this context, it is noteworthy that Demirtaş became the third candidate to receive the highest number of votes in the presidential election in 2018 while he was still in prison.
In this political tradition, where the heavy shadow of the separatist organization has always been present, it would not be wrong to talk about a Demirtaş who has been strengthened in the years he has been in prison, as opposed to a Öcalan image that has weakened in the last 10 years. In fact, Demirtaş, who announced his retirement from active politics after the 2023 General Elections, has a leadership approval among his party members despite himself. Although there is a widespread public acceptance that Demirtaş can regain his freedom if he makes a deal with the government, his continued imprisonment has also led him to gain political legitimacy beyond his own political mass. In this respect, it is clear that Selahattin Demirtaş is one of the most important figures in Turkish political life, whether he is in prison or as the chairman of his party.
Born in 1954, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is the longest-ruling president in the history of the republic and the leader who has won the most elections in the multi-party era. According to the current constitution and his repeated personal statements, this is his last term as president. Of course, the constitution can be amended, a formula can be devised as it has always been, or his personal wishes can change. Even if he runs again, even if he nominates a replacement, fundamental changes are inevitable. They can sometimes be delayed by the disproportionate use of force, but they cannot be eliminated.
The personal aura of all those in the AK Party tradition who have been mentioned as leader for a possible post-Erdoğan era seems to be incomparably weaker than that of Erdoğan. Even Erdoğan’s rational political opponents will admit that Erdoğan may not be considered successful in many respects, but his success in terms of political leadership is self-evident. One of the biggest disadvantages of leader parties is the cultisation of the leader and the fact that this political cultisation creates a barrier difficult to overcome for leader candidates from the cadres who are distinguished by their talent. Due to this barrier, all of the possible leader candidates within the party after Erdoğan seem to be insufficient in terms of their specific weight. Therefore, it is possible to predict that the AK Party’s leader for the post-Erdoğan period will be someone who is outside of active politics but whose ties with Erdoğan cannot be disputed.
This name could be Erdoğan’s son-in-law Selçuk Bayraktar, born in 1979, because of his game-changing investments in the defence industry and the social reputation he has gained as a result. Bayraktar’s father, Özdemir Bayraktar, was an engineer from Trabzon who adhered to the National Vision tradition. After completing his education from Kabataş High School to ITU, he devoted his life to making idealistic moves in the defence industry. The father Bayraktar was meticulous about ensuring that his two sons received the necessary education for the continuation of these idealistic moves. His younger son Selçuk Bayraktar studied Electronics and Communication Engineering at ITU after Robert College. Afterwards, he completed his first master’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania and his second master’s degree at MIT. Selçuk Bayraktar is the latest and most popular example of the “religious engineer with a technical university” figure that started with Necmettin Erbakan in the conservative tradition. One of the most remarkable aspects of Selçuk Bayraktar was that he did not fall under Erdoğan’s shadow despite being the son-in-law of the most powerful figure in Türkiye. As it is known, Berat Albayrak, who had great political ambitions, was both under Erdoğan’s “comfortable” shadow and failed to organize his political life. Bayraktar, on the other hand, did not receive the expected social image damage from the allegations of “son-in-law privileges” frequently voiced by the opposition, and reached a social acceptance beyond the electorate of the People’s Alliance. The global success of the UAV-SUAV systems they produced resonated with the masses who already had a high yearning for success in this field. The success of the systems they produced in terrorist operations in Syria, Iraq and within our borders, their role in the Karabakh War and the initiative they took in favor of Ukraine in the Ukraine-Russia war also increased this broad acceptance. The tradition of the opposition, which pays attention to harmonize with the government when national security is at stake, has protected Bayraktar from the damages of political polarization to a great extent. This protection, his ability to exist as an identity that is not crushed under Erdoğan’s name, and the breadth of his opportunities make Selçuk Bayraktar the most plausible option that the AK Party can offer to the change in the political elite in the country after Erdoğan. It can also be stated that the fact that he has never been in active politics is an important risk factor in the fluctuations that will occur after a political alliance and administration expert like Erdoğan.
The change in the political elite in Türkiye, which started a few years ago, also means a generation change. It is highly likely that this change will be largely completed by the next general elections. Although it is difficult to predict whether the new political elites will be as long-lasting as the quartet of Demirel, Türkeş, Erbakan and Ecevit, we can say that the new leaders will not experience the almost quarter-century-long loneliness of Erdoğan at the top.
