Prime Minister Recep Erdogan won the presidential election held on 10th August by securing about 52% of the vote, to avoid any run-off. This time the President is directly elected by people. Erdogan has been prime minister since 2003 and was barred from standing for another term. He will be inaugurated on 28 August.

After victory, Erdogan told supporters: “I will not be the president of only those who voted for me, I will be the president of 77 million. Striking a note of conciliation, he said: “I want to build a new future, with an understanding of a societal reconciliation, by regarding our differences as richness, and by pointing out not our differences but our common values.” The two other candidates who contested the election were former OIC Chief, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu who was fielded as a joint candidate for the two largest opposition parties, centre-left People’s Republican Party (CHP) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). The other candidate is Selahattin Demirtas, co-chairman of the Kurdish nationalist People’s Democratic Party (HDP). Ihsanoglu secured about 38% and the third candidate, Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtas, about 10%.

Erdogan has been eyeing the presidency for a long time, especially after he passed up an opportunity to run back in 2007. In recent remarks, Erdogan clearly expressed his preference for an active presidency: “A president elected by the people cannot be like the previous ones. As the head of the executive, the president uses all his constitutional powers. If I am elected president, I will also use all of them. I won’t be a president of protocol.”

The critical question here is how Erdogan’s departure will affect the leadership of the AKP. In all likelihood, Erdogan has a keen interest in maintaining control of the party when he moves to Cankaya, the presidential residence in Ankara. After all, this is his party. By delegating power to a party confidant, Erdogan would enjoy greater policy autonomy with limited checks on his power.

Recent Turkish history provides us with a very similar example from the late 1980s. When Turgut Ozal left the Motherland Party (ANAP) in 1989 to become the first civilian president of Turkey, he was intent on maintaining full control over his party. Yildirim Akbulut became the “yes-man” for Ozal as the leader of the party and the prime minister. Erdogan may pursue this model as the Turkish constitution proscribes political impartiality and bars any political affiliation for the president.

A recent poll indicated that the party base favours outgoing President Gul’s leadership of the party by an overwhelming majority, while Erdogan serves as president.

There are four factors among others and some of them deserve mention: First, long gone are the days when secularist coalitions, backed by an all-powerful military, dominated politics and ensured religion was exiled from swaths of public life. Over three terms as prime minister, Erdogan has sidelined the military, which had toppled four governments since 1960, and installed ideological allies in key positions across institutions.

Second, economic growth in Turkey has been unprecedented. It has been world’s 16theconomy.In 2014, Turkey’s economy has grown as recovering euro-zone demand helped fuel exports. Gross domestic product jumped by an annualized 4.3% in the first quarter, trumping the 4.1% rise forecast by economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal.

The Government officials, who have repeatedly slammed analysts for misguided forecasts, quickly hailed the first growth figures for 2014 as the product of successful policies that would secure a 4% economic expansion this year. “We will easily meet our economic growth targets,” Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekcisaid. “I invite international organizations that make growth forecasts for our country to monitor Turkey’s economic realities more closely, and revise their projections.”

Third, Erdogan launched peace talks with jailed Kurdish militant leader Abdullah Ocalan in late 2012 with the aim of ending a conflict which has killed more than 40,000 people and hampered development in the mainly Kurdish southeast. He is widely seen as the only modern leader strong enough to have advanced a peace process with militant Kurds long unthinkable in a country where nationalist sentiment runs deep.

Fourth, Turkish foreign policy under Erdogan has been very successful. The basic tenets that guided Turkey’s foreign policy included innovative ideas and pragmatism. Prime Minister Erdoğanhas forged economic cooperation with countries in the east including Bangladesh which he visited in 2010. Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina visited Turkey in 2012 and the visits resulted in being both countries as one of the key trading partners for each other.

Ankara has become closer to both Moscow and Beijing—culminating in Turkey’s joint military maneuvers with China in October 2010, the first such with any NATO country—in what has been described by some critics as an “axis shift.”

Turkey is now an active and independent player in regional affairs and its role in the world is likely to grow under President Erdogan. By 2023, the republic’s centennial, Erdogan has promised that Turkey will be among the world’s ten leading powers. (Dhaka Courier)