Has Erdogan won?

Yesterday may have been decisive in the stand off between Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the youthful, rainbow alliance of his protesting opponents. In contrast to the previous ten days of cat and mouse antics, Erdogan sent the riot police back into Istanbul’s Taksim Square, removed the tent city and pulled down the street posters calling for change. With his assertive style, it was a glimpse of the old Erdogan. But for many of the urban elite in Istanbul in particular, this is part of the problem.

The protest movement had largely come from nowhere. After all, Erdogan and his AK Party government had delivered a decade of high growth and unprecedented prosperity. This was his electoral strategy, the aim being to keep his soft Sunni Islamist party firmly in power. So far so good for the bruiser politician, who came from the less fashionable side of town to the demonstrators. The new wealth delivered three national election victories, each with a growing proportion of the popular vote. Last time round, in June 2011, the AKP won 50 per cent of the vote.

But his popularity was not built exclusively on the pocket books of Turks. Erdogan had been fêted around the world for his deft diplomacy and willingness to stand up to Turkey’s critics abroad. It was his Turkey that had been invited to join the G20 and labelled a “rising power,” that had cheered on regime change during the Arab Spring and seen Turkish growth even outstrip China’s on one occasion. When the EU cut up rough with Turkey over reform, Erdogan put the European issue on the back burner and switched his attentions with dexterity to engagement with the Middle East.

With such an apparently unassailable record in office, it is no wonder that Erdogan seemed so personally slighted when the demonstrations closed Taksim Square, an iconic area that evokes the spirit of the modern Turkish nation. They began as a modest protest against a decision by the Istanbul municipality to replace Gezi Park with a shopping mall in a building with the façade of an Ottoman garrison. They were joined by various permutations of the hard left, Turkey being famous for having a “museum of ideologies.” When the riot police used the heavy hand to disperse them, Turkey’s secular, metroland elite were outraged.

The protesters, with their numbers swelled by up to 100,000 at peak moments, overwhelmed the police, whom the government called off for fear of higher casualties. For the next week or so it was the demonstrators who presided over the Taksim-Gezi area, while Erdogan proceeded with his originally itinerary that included an official visit to North Africa. Upon his return, he decided that it was time to react. Buoyed, no doubt, by public opinion polls showing that his popularity remained high, he initiated the events of Tuesday.

In the short term, Erdogan appears to have won. He is scheduled to meet representatives of the protesters today, allowing him to differentiate between the well-behaved citizens and the opportunistic extremists. He is in the midst of a bold peace process, aimed at bringing mainstream Turkey and Kurdish nationalism together. If successful, that alone would be a remarkable achievement. There will be a breathless round of foreign visits to undertake, which will allow Erdogan to look statesmanlike and declare business as usual.

But it is also clear that Erdogan has been damaged by the events of the last fortnight. The charges of heavy-handed governance and majoritarianism have stuck. He will find it a challenge to draft a new constitution to his own liking, as he is committed to doing. Suddenly, Erdogan still being in power on the 100th anniversary of the Turkish Republic in 2023 seems like a long shot, whether it is Erdogan the humbled or Erdogan the tough guy who emerges from these events.