^{Photo: AFP}

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has decided not to say goodbye to his seat. The elections are more than three years away, but he has already begun to take action. The only thing standing in his way is the Constitution, which limits presidential powers to two terms.

In 2017, he introduced amendments to the Basic Law that expanded presidential powers, and this allowed him to disregard the first term of 2014-2018, so Erdogan was then able to run for office two more times: In 2018 and 2023.

In order to run again, he needs a completely new Constitution that will abolish the restrictions altogether. In addition, there is talk of a new and interesting formula for victory: the winner is not the one who gets more than 50% of the vote, but the one who gets a relative majority.

In 2023, for the first time, Erdogan failed to win in one round but still had the highest result in the first round - 49%. Now he does not want to take any more risks.

His junior partner, the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party, Devlet Bahçeli, has publicly voiced the need for a new Constitution and the abolition of restrictions on one person holding the presidency. For 8 years, Bahçeli has been voicing Erdogan's innermost desires.

The new political game is taking place against the backdrop of worsening relations with the opposition. Erdogan has launched an attack from two flanks - Kurdish and nationalist - in order to quarrel and compromise both camps as much as possible.

On the one hand, his nationalist partner Devlet Bahçeli allows for the release from solitary confinement of Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan, who has been serving his sentence on the island of Imralı for 25 years. His life sentence requires a special amnesty law to change solitary confinement to house arrest. On the other hand, within a week, Erdogan removed from office and arrested the mayor of Istanbul's largest district of Esenyurt, the Republican People's Party nominee and Kurd, Ahmet Özer. Kayyum is a word to remember to understand the technology of Erdogan's actions. In business law, kayyum means external management, which is appointed in bankrupt companies by a court or regulatory decision. In Turkey, “kayyum” has become the most popular word in the political lexicon. In recent years, Erdogan has used kayyum almost 150 times to dismiss elected mayors and appoint government officials instead. However, this has always been the case in the southeastern provinces, where mayors have been accused of having ties to Kurdish terrorists, and the replacement of elected leaders has been explained by the need for security.

Now, for the first time, kayyum has been used in Istanbul. This stirred up the opposition, and thousands of people, including almost all opposition mayors, gathered in front of the Esenyurt municipality to rally in defense of Ahmet Özer. The rally was led by the mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu because this was a blow to him first and foremost. Imamoglu is Erdogan's unspoken rival in the next presidential election, but he faces a 2.5-year prison sentence with a ban on political activity for “insulting the authorities.” The decision of the first instance has not yet been reviewed on appeal, and it will only come into force after approval by the Supreme Court. Thus, the mayor of Istanbul is on the hook for the authorities. And kayyum threatens the mayor of Istanbul, too.

Another popular opposition politician is Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavaş. He currently has the highest presidential rating. Yavaş, like Imamoglu, is a representative of the opposition Republican People's Party, but of a completely different wing. Yavaş joined the Republican People's Party from the nationalists in 2014 and still retains credibility among right-wing supporters. By the way, Mansur Yavaş was perhaps the only mayor from the CHP who did not attend the rally in support of the arrested mayor of Esenyurt, Ahmet Özer, and thus was not with Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu in his public struggle against Erdogan.

This situation explains what Erdogan is counting on now that he no longer has 50% of Turkish support.

A few days after the introduction of the kayyum in Esenyurt, the authorities removed from office the elected mayors of the southeastern (primarily Kurdish) cities of Mardin, Batman, and Hanfeti. Among them is 82-year-old Ahmet Türk, the patriarch of Kurdish politics, who won the mayoral election in Mardin in the spring. This step by Erdogan indicates that it has not yet been possible to reach an agreement with the Kurds.

If so, then the opposition should be sent to the next presidential race in two columns: nationalist forces, which are likely to unite around Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavaş, and the center-left opposition around Imamoglu. This step will allow the authorities to get rid of the cautious opposition Republican People's Party, which won in some places by reaching an agreement with the right with the tacit consent of the Kurds. The simultaneous unification of nationalists and Kurds under a single umbrella is unlikely in Turkey, as the wounds from the bloody events of 1980-1990 have not yet healed.

However, the question remains: even after dividing the opposition, Erdogan needs constitutional changes, as he is currently not eligible to run in the next elections in 2028.

For this reason, Erdogan has started a game of dismissal of some mayors, accusing them of having ties to terrorists. Courts and criminal prosecutions for ties to the PKK will not allow opposition nationalists to unite around the same candidate supported by the Kurds. Both camps have about 10% of the electorate.

All of the authorities' accusations against the arrested mayor of Esenyurt, Ahmet Özer, are based only on his telephone conversations with one of the leaders of the terrorist Kurdish Workers' Party, Ramzi Kartal. However, the cynicism of the accusations is that the authorities initiated contacts with terrorists themselves in 2013. This process was called the Kurdish Initiative. Several dozen human rights activists, scientists, and artists became mediators between the PKK armed groups and the Turkish authorities to find a peaceful solution to the Kurdish issue and end the era of terror. Moreover, the media published photos in which two MPs from Erdogan's party met and had dinner with the same Ramzi Kartal. However, no one is prosecuting them for “ties to terrorists.” “The Kurdish Initiative was buried in 2015 after a series of bloody terrorist attacks. Subsequently, the co-chairs of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democracy Party, Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yuksekdag, were imprisoned.

Demirtaş is a radical opponent of any agreements with Erdogan. This is probably why the government's secret negotiations with Abdullah Öcalan do not guarantee Erdogan Kurdish support in parliament. The Kurds are guided not only by Öcalan, whose hands are covered in blood and who has not seen the light of day for a quarter of a century but also by the relatively young Demirtaş, who was the first Kurdish leader to receive votes from Turkish voters for trying to resolve the Kurdish issue without separation from Turkey.

The split of the opposition into two camps could theoretically help Erdogan stretch his time. The Constitution, amended in 2017, requires simultaneous parliamentary and presidential elections to be held every 5 years or earlier. The president or the parliament can announce an “early” election date by gaining 3/5 of the votes. If 360 votes in the Mejlis are found for this step, the president's second term will be considered completed and then he will have the right to run again for the next 5 years. The price of the issue is 45 votes because now there are 315. Therefore, if the Kurds agree to an agreement with the authorities, there is a chance to completely change the rules of the game, and if they resist, the aggravation of the “kayyum” crisis will force the Ataturkist opposition to support early elections.

And this trick can be repeated endlessly.