The US and NATO need to stand up for what remains of Turkey’s democracy.
The latest moves in Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s death-by-lawfare sentence against Turkey’s liberal opposition show a dangerous blend of desperation and cunning in his bid to perpetuate autocracy.
Erdogan has spent the past trying to silence the Republican People’s Party (CHP)—the one political party strong enough to challenge the dictator-in-disguise. Between arrests of major opposition figures like Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu and kangaroo court orders to dissolve CHP leadership, this strategy constitutes a quiet and protracted auto-coup. While waiting on results from his latest legal onslaught, Erdogan has turned his gaze to Ankara, looking to finish off the party’s chances of running a strong presidential candidate in 2028.
The stakes have never been higher, the pretexts never flimsier, and the damage to Turkish democracy never greater. With Erdogan theoretically term-limited and expected to relinquish the presidency in three years’ time, the opposition senses that the time has come to end authoritarian one-party rule.
The Method in Erdogan’s Madness
Erdogan’s strategy is designed to perpetuate the regime and its stranglehold on Turkish politics and society:
The first goal is to raise an autocratic party-state. Since October 2024, government bodies loyal to the Justice and Development Party (AKP) have authorized the arrest of hundreds of CHP officials in waves, including over a dozen mayors. Imamoglu still awaits a trial outcome seven months after his arrest, all while receiving a prison sentence for previous, unrelated “offenses” that Erdogan’s government was quick to engineer. He has been languishing in prison for eight months without formal charges.
Media crackdowns have escalated. The summer of 2025 saw Turkish courts prosecute independent journalists and censor Erdogan-critical publications to tighten Erdogan’s grip on the Turkish information space. Erdogan’s jailing of journalists is well-documented. What’s novel is the imprisonment of media anchors such as Fatih Altayli, who have historically been more open to broadcasting the government’s messaging. Altayli’s increasingly critical questioning of Erdogan’s performance landed him with accusations of threatening Erdogan’s life, resulting in an unspecified amount of jail time. This is a clear attempt to intimidate influential media personalities from openly defying the President’s governance track record.
Yet perhaps most insidious is the AKP’s capture of Turkish private companies. A recent Financial Times article investigated how the AKP has exploited anti-corruption laws to swallow up hundreds of private businesses into the State Deposit Guarantee Fund, funneling profits and ownership to AKP apparatchiks.
The second major goal is to render the opposition symbolic. The Imamoglu case illustrates this clearly. On March 18, the day before Imamoglu’s arrest and less than a week before the CHP’s scheduled presidential primary, Istanbul University nullified the Istanbul mayor’s college degree—a requirement for presidential eligibility. His imprisonment served as insurance to disqualify Imamoglu on all counts, placing the CHP squarely in a campaign crisis.
And it doesn’t stop with Imamoglu. Since March 19, Erdogan has expanded his attacks to wield the courts against CHP leadership in major cities and even the party’s national leader, Ozgur Ozel. A court decision to invalidate the CHP’s Istanbul congress and prop up an AKP-approved leader against the party’s will in September marked a direct intervention in the opposition’s structure. Installing hand-picked opposition leaders is the work of autocrats, making clear how far Erdogan’s strategy has advanced.
Ankara’s Mayor Is Next on Erdogan’s Hit List
Accordingly, Erdogan is moving methodically onto his next major target: the popular CHP Mayor of Ankara, Mansur Yavas. On October 11, the Ankara Public Prosecutor’s Office filed a request with Turkey’s Interior Ministry to investigate Yavas and Ankara’s CHP leadership over alleged corruption in municipal concert financing. While Yavas slammed the claims as partisan disinformation, he agreed to cooperate with the authorities in the investigation fully.
There remains little doubt that Yavas is Erdogan’s next target for silencing. Like Imamoglu, the Ankara mayor is a highly respected, visible, and competent opposition figure with a strong support base. In 2024, he was elected with 60 percent of the vote in Turkey’s capital, home to nearly 6 million residents.
He is not as charismatic or fiery an orator as Erdogan. Still, many Turks are beginning to view Yavas as a more effective public servant than the president, praising his handling of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Turkish public opinion also shows Yavas in shape to threaten the AKP in the next election—a nationwide poll from September showed Yavas defeating Erdogan by a 16-percent margin in a hypothetical runoff. Imamoglu’s dubious campaign eligibility hanging over the CHP, the party appears likely to run Yavas as a strong alternative.
Erdogan understands the threat and is determined to prevent Yavas from becoming a nominee. The Turkish president struck Imamoglu on the eve of his nomination—once Yavas steps up to bat for the CHP, an arrest warrant or some other disqualifier is waiting.
Washington and NATO Should Stand with Turkey’s Citizens
While there have been public protests against Erdogan’s plans, they have not been supported by Turkey’s Western allies.
Washington sees a strong partner in Erdogan to achieve its goals, including potential Turkish mediation efforts in the Russia-Ukraine war, continued stabilization efforts in Syria, and Ankara’s continued efforts in Gaza post-ceasefire negotiations. The EU, for its part, has long stayed silent on Turkey’s slide into autocracy. It has mistakenly chosen to believe that Erdogan will make up for his glaring disdain of democratic values by ensuring Turkey’s new role as Europe’s premier security partner to thwart the advance of Russian military expansionism.
Instead of ignoring Erdogan, the West should recognize Erdogan’s sinister game and put rocks in his path. Washington need not interfere in Turkish politics to demonstrate solidarity between American and Turkish democracy. Congress should impose legal restrictions on Turkish companies or political entities from purchasing military or security equipment to use against pro-democracy protesters. Sanctioning Turkish officials expropriating businesses for themselves under the guise of “anti-corruption” and persecuting opposition figures would deliver an impact and a message—liberal democracy has rules, and there’s a price for breaking them.
The opportunity to stop Erdogan from systematically destroying Turkey’s democracy and propping up his hostile party-state is passing; it may have already gone.
About the Authors: Sinan Ciddi and William Doran
Sinan Ciddi is a senior fellow on Turkey at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) in Washington, DC.
William Doran is a student at Georgetown University Walsh School of Foreign Service and a research intern at the Turkey Program at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
Image: Fotofield / Shutterstock.com.
