Turkish Elections: Erdogan’s Autocracy Continues

The Intercept Briefing

The Intercept

Politics, Unknown, Daily News, History, News

4.8 • 6.3K Ratings

🗓️ 21 June 2023

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, the Turkish government announced it will raise its monthly minimum wage by 34 percent to address inflation and the economic crisis in the country. Despite the long-standing problems in Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently won a contested reelection, further consolidating his 20-year rule. This week on Intercepted, Gönül Tol, the founding director of the Middle East Institute’s Turkey program, joins Murtaza Hussain to discuss the Turkish elections. Tol runs through Erdogan’s decadeslong history in office, how economic and social problems in Turkey contributed to the election’s rhetoric, and what Turkey’s future may look like under Erdogan’s autocratic government.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is intercepted.
0:30.0	Welcome to Intercepted. I'm Mertazo Hussein. Last month Turkey completed a
0:39.0	historic election that sought incumbent strongman Type Erdogan returned a
0:43.4	power. Erdogan has now been the leader of Turkey for two full decades, a
0:48.4	period in which the country has been increasingly transformed into his own
0:52.7	personal fiefdom. The Turkish economy is presently in a state of crisis due to
0:58.4	inflation and currency devaluation while its political system has become
1:03.0	polarized to the point of dysfunction. Turkey is a NATO member country
1:07.8	straddling both Europe and Asia and its future political and economic fate is
1:13.2	a matter that will determine the stability of both those regions. To discuss
1:17.6	the future of Turkey in the Erdogan era we are joined by Gondol Toul, founding
1:23.2	director of the Middle East Institute's Turkey program, an author of Erdogan's
1:28.1	war, a strongman struggle at home and in Syria. Gondol great to have you with us.
1:34.5	Thanks for having me. So Gondol first can you give us a background for our listeners
1:39.6	on these recent elections specifically who are the major challenges to
1:43.2	Erdogan and what segment of the Turkish population did they represent or
1:47.6	segments of the population did they represent in contrast to his base of supporters.
1:52.0	Well there were three candidates running Murthazav for the presidential bit
1:57.3	and obviously President Erdogan who has been ruling the country for the 20 years
2:01.8	was on the ballot and challenging him is Kemal Kulichtar Oldu. He was the
2:08.7	candidate of the anti-Erdogan opposition. He led a large six-party group of
2:16.5	coalition and they are ideologically very diverse. You have Islamist in their
	...

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