Türkiye can be criticized on many counts. Its knack for squandering its potential is legendary. Does it have good sides? Of course it does. The first and most important is its energy. In Türkiye (and by this I mean its society) there is a state of perpetual readiness, a posture as though it could spring to its feet at any moment. Yet Türkiye’s rising from its seat depends on its “belief.” Belief raises Türkiye to its feet, but here a familiar mechanism is at work: pressing the starter, so that the electrical energy stored in the car battery reaches the engine and turns into mechanical energy. In this system, the battery—the igniting, initiating force—is “steadfast determination.” When the country believes in the steadfast determination of a particular figure, its energy finds its natural channel and flows. That makes the one who is lying down sit up, the one who is sitting stand, and the one who is standing run. Call it the instinctual residue of ancient monarchical eras, or justify it with Freud’s theses on humankind and freedom—this is the situation. Now, let us give flesh to these bones and, from the opposition’s vantage point, take a look at Türkiye’s political life.
The last time our region witnessed political power comparable to that of the current President was during Sultan Mahmud II’s rule between 1826 and 1839. Even then, in the early months of his reign, Mahmud’s authority was tempered by the influence of Alemdar Mustafa Pasha, and until its destruction in 1826 the Janissary Corps still functioned as a “king maker.” Throughout most of his reign, powerful provincial notables (ayan) also circumscribed the sultan’s sway over his own realm. Despite these constraints, in terms of a ruler whose word carried the weight of law, the closest historical parallel is indeed Mahmud II’s 1826–1839 period. Likewise, it is more accurate to date President Erdoğan’s “absolute” power not from 2002 but from 2016. The appetite for security that accompanies absolute rule is insatiable, its thirst for trust unquenchable, because it rests not on a genuine need but on a mental illusion. Policies driven by this craving bring neither a sense of safety to those at the top nor prosperity and peace to those below.
It is clear that the President himself possesses the “accumulator” quality whose critical function we emphasized above—one that both sparks the engine and restarts it each time it stalls. Needless to say, this is an exceptional capacity, and by virtue of its very rarity it has long been absent within the ranks of Türkiye’s opposition.
Both the outcome of the most recent local elections and trustworthy opinion surveys indicate that the alliance headed by President Erdoğan commands roughly 40 percent of public support. If we set aside the DEM—which was pushed to the sidelines during the “opening” talks—the opposition’s social backing hovers around the 50 percent mark. Yet in any prospective government-DEM deal there is a real chance that a sizable share of that party’s electorate will remain unconvinced. Although the Turkish opposition is being squeezed and its dynamism stifled through widespread detentions and arrests—including that of Mr. Ümit Özdağ, the chair of a party with a genuine grassroots base—our history shows that the opposition has emerged stronger from such periods, provided one indispensable condition is met: the presence of an accumulator.
Türkiye’s second virtue is its love of the ballot box. This must not be seen merely as a vehicle for political gratification; it also functions as the nation’s safety valve. Affection for elections exists not only among the broad masses but also within the political elite and even among coup plotters who have seized power by anti-democratic means. Even they soon came to view placing a ballot box before the people not as an option but as a necessity. Whatever political current they overthrew, that very current re-emerged from the ballot box the junta eventually set before the public and returned to power.
Despite the many accusations of authoritarianism directed at President Erdoğan—many of which I share—I believe he has himself been strongly shaped by Türkiye’s love of the ballot box. For all the political demonization and the use of state resources to dominate the run-up to an election in his own favor, on election night he, too, waits for the result with genuine excitement. As in the 2019 Istanbul episode, he ultimately accepted—albeit belatedly—the outcome he found personally unpalatable. This should not be mistaken for a claim of democratic maturity on the government’s part; I am simply recording an objective fact, no different from noting someone’s height or weight.
I therefore propose keeping two of Türkiye’s finest qualities—energy and affection for elections—at the center of our thinking. We should concentrate on the vital role of the “accumulator” that sets energy in motion and, if the person who plays this role steps forward, on the potentially far-reaching consequences of the country’s devotion to the ballot box. Within the Turkish opposition there are two figures capable of acting as that accumulator; before 2019 their number was “zero.”
The first is Mr. Mansur Yavaş, whose public support has fluctuated between 57 and 65 percent over the past year. Thanks to an exceptionally rare level of popularity, he defeated the government’s candidate in the last local elections by a margin of thirty points. We have seen that he suffered no serious political damage from the government’s recent “concert-related” attacks. I must add that he has had almost no hand in safeguarding his own political image; it is what he has steadfastly refrained from doing, rather than what he has done, that has proved decisive in acquiring and retaining power as a political actor. That said, in the new political climate Mr. Yavaş’s insistence on the stance that has hitherto benefited him may now begin to cost him. During the so-called “Second Opening” process, and in the arrests of the Beşiktaş mayor and Mr. Ümit Özdağ, he adopted not an active position but one confined to measured statements—a choice that signals his persistence in the old stance. His decision to post his limited national-level opposition comments not on his main X account with 7.7 million followers but on a secondary account with 380 thousand likewise indicates this persistence. In particular, after the CHP announced that it would employ broad, participatory internal mechanisms to select its presidential candidate, Mr. Yavaş’s “reticence” on national issues is highly likely to be judged serious baggage within the party and see him relegated to the background. In my view, his emergence as the CHP’s candidate through an internal preference poll is possible only under a single scenario: Mr. İmamoğlu is banned from politics and Mr. Yavaş abandons his political reticence on national matters, taking an active role in the opposition bloc that has shown a new inclination to act jointly in the wake of the recent arrests. Even in a scenario where he remains passive but Mr. İmamoğlu is barred, it would still be difficult for Mr. Yavaş to be chosen as the CHP’s candidate.
In the scenario where Mr. İmamoğlu is not banned from politics, three main paths lie before Mr. Yavaş. One is to keep doing exactly what he has been doing—and keep refraining from what he has avoided—thus remaining mayor of the Ankara Metropolitan Municipality until his term ends. A second is to run for the presidency as the candidate of an alliance led by nationalist opposition parties; if the CHP nominates Mr. İmamoğlu in that setting, current projections suggest Mr. Yavaş would probably finish third, behind Mr. Erdoğan and Mr. İmamoğlu. The third path would be for Mr. Yavaş to adopt a new stance that actively supports the broader opposition bloc; in that event, if Ekrem Bey were elected president, Mr. Yavaş could plausibly become speaker of the Grand National Assembly and, should Türkiye revert to a parliamentary system, even the next president.
A relatively “peaceful” political climate and an openly “war-like” climate each impose their own specific conditions, so that identical actions—or inactions—can yield different results. Mr. Yavaş’s choice to remain “inside local Ankara” on national issues, once a position that fortified him, is evolving into one that weakens him in the new climate.
Whether Mr. Yavaş steps outside his political comfort zone will be one of the pivotal decisions shaping the future of the Turkish opposition. In a political environment that is moving at breakneck speed, any delay in making that choice will effectively amount to deciding not to leave that comfort zone at all.
The second figure who could play the role of accumulator is Mr. Ekrem İmamoğlu, the person who has most disturbed Mr. Erdoğan’s political comfort throughout his career. In the current climate he is paying the price in the form of a looming risk of being banned from politics and, beyond that, constant operational threats aimed at his personal reputation. His high performance and political successes seem to have nurtured in Mr. İmamoğlu a kind of utopian vision of sweeping inclusiveness: governing Istanbul, the CHP, and Türkiye all at once. Although he commands many brilliant bureaucrats—some of whom he drew into politics by making them mayors—his own “politician’s muscle” is noticeably weaker than that of his bureaucrats. The result is a force that engulfs Istanbul but cannot sufficiently hold Ankara, and more specifically the CHP. The political costs of this imbalance are visible day by day: whenever Ankara and the CHP are not strong enough, the problems that appear in the rear ranks cast a shadow over every forward move. That, in turn, means repeatedly turning back to expend fresh intra-party effort, which weakens his advance. Considering that the furthest of those advances is the goal of governing Türkiye, the political price of such forced retreats becomes clearer.
To break out of this spiral, Mr. İmamoğlu has three options. The first is to become his party’s presidential candidate without delay; this would reduce the likelihood of a political ban and would reinforce his de facto leadership with a national title. The second is to convene an extraordinary congress and be elected chairman of the CHP; that would all but eliminate the risk of a ban and sustain his position until a presidential candidacy is announced once the campaign period begins. The third scenario—if a political ban is imposed—would be to craft a design akin to the Abdullah Gül/Tayyip Erdoğan precedent. In such a case Mr. Mansur Yavaş would have to be persuaded quickly, and their joint resolve publicly declared; should this succeed, Mr. Yavaş could be nominated in the event of a ban, while after a transition to a parliamentary system Mr. İmamoğlu might become prime minister. If Mr. Yavaş cannot be persuaded to act together, assuming that another opposition figure popular enough to defeat Mr. Erdoğan at the ballot box could be found would be overly optimistic.
The political energy that would emerge if Mr. Yavaş and Mr. İmamoğlu demonstrated a will to act in concert is not a force the government could withstand under any scenario. Hence, for all actors who desire a successful future for Türkiye’s opposition, it is rational to make the establishment of a Yavaş-İmamoğlu partnership their primary field of work. Conversely, it is clear that, as a skilled politician, Mr. Erdoğan has already begun intensive efforts to prevent such a partnership from coming into being.
