As hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered Saturday in Istanbul for the largest demonstration against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in over a decade, one young woman explained why the mood was so fervent.
This is Turkey’s last chance to save its weakening democracy, says Dilara, a psychology student who preferred not to give her full name. “We are here for our freedom,” she says. “We don’t want to become Iran or Iraq. We’re trying to save our country.”
The protests broke out March 19, when police arrested the popular mayor of Istanbul and Mr. Erdoğan’s chief rival, Ekrem Imamoglu. The opposition leader was charged with corruption, just as he was about to be nominated as the presidential candidate for the Republican People’s Party (CHP) in elections due in 2028.
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A new wave of popular protest is gathering strength in Turkey, where President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is showing increasing signs of authoritarianism. But past demonstrations have not been enough to make him back down.
The protesters were demanding he be freed, and that the elections be brought forward.
In a letter read out to the roaring crowds of demonstrators, Mr. Imamoglu accused Mr. Erdoğan of being “afraid of his opponent.”
“If young people are on the front line,” he added, “it’s because they are the ones who feel most anxiety about the future. This is not about Ekrem Imamoglu, it is about our country … about justice, democracy and freedom.”
Wide range of protesters
That message appears to be gathering a broader range of adherents than previous waves of popular protests against Mr. Erdoğan’s increasingly authoritarian style of government.
Since he first won office 22 years ago, the president has enjoyed solid support from socially conservative Muslim women voters, who have appreciated his positive attitude toward headscarves. But among the protesters Saturday were many women wearing such scarves.
One was Zeynep, a university student who withheld her last name for security reasons, waving a Turkish flag and a balloon reading “Erdo-Gone.”
“My religion is not Erdoğan,” she says. “He used religion to cheat our people.”
Though the protests over the past two weeks have been largely peaceful, nearly 2,000 people have been arrested. “Our rights are being held captive. We cannot express ourselves, or we go to jail,” complains Serra Aktay, a law student who was also at the festive rally. “I want my country to be fair, to have a democracy, when I graduate.”
The demonstrations, now due to be held on a weekly basis according to CHP leaders, recall mass anti-government protests staged 12 years ago, which attracted over a million people, but which eventually petered out.
The new generation of students, who have known no other leader than Mr. Erdoğan, may be willing to fight longer and harder because they put little trust in his leadership, say some political observers.
Though Mr. Imamoglu’s arrest was the spark for the current protests, the list of popular grievances against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has grown in recent years to include weakening respect for human rights and rising inflation and unemployment – signs of an ailing economy.
“I think it makes a tremendous amount of sense that people, especially the youth, are angrier” than they were in 2013, says Lisel Hintz, a Turkey expert at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. “The political and economic climates are exponentially worse,” she points out.
Fundamental issues at stake
Mr. Erdoğan, meanwhile, has dismissed the protests as “a show” and asked the country to trust its justice system to try Mr. Imamoglu.
“I think the government is counting on the protesters exhausting themselves or fragmenting from within,” Dr. Hintz suggests, as has happened in the past.
But the fundamental nature of the grievances being expressed could lend strength to the protests, believes Gonul Tol, a Turkey expert and senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute.
This movement may have a better chance of success, she argues, because “these protests are addressing a much larger issue with a wider agenda. They are trying to defend democracy and their right to vote.”
If the government appoints its own mayor and keeps Mr. Imamoglu in jail, she predicts, the opposition movement could grow. But Mr. Erdoğan may not want to risk the chaos and economic downturn that continued mass protests would bring, Dr. Tol says.
On the other hand, “Erdoğan has some cards to play,” she points out. “He can use some of the tactics that he used in 2013. He can unleash his own counter protests and unleash more police brutality.”
That is a fear shared by Ceylan Akca, a parliamentarian from the Kurdish-led party DEM aligned with the opposition. “Based on previous examples, I would say it’s very unlikely for the president to take a step back,” predicts Ms. Akca. “That’s how authoritarianism works, always the iron fist.”
