At the beginning of this month, the US Foreign Policy website published an article that touched on the health status of the Turkish president, claiming that he may be unable to continue ruling Turkey beyond 2023 for health reasons, and looking into those he considered alternative options after him.
It is an article that raised many questions about its content, timing, messages it envisages, and the implications of some of the details it provided.
Erdogan's successor
On October 1, Middle East researcher Stephen Cook published an article in Foreign Policy entitled "Erdogan may be too ill to continue as Turkey's president."
In the article, Cook claimed that Erdogan's problems regarding the upcoming elections in 2023 go beyond the decline in his party's popularity in recent years and the loss of some important municipalities - such as Istanbul and Ankara in the recent municipal elections - to the point of questioning his ability to continue ruling or rather, the ability to run for the upcoming elections, for health reasons. .
The article touches on some of the events that it sees as raising question marks about the president's health status, such as his difficulty walking, leaning on another person while climbing the stairs, or his stuttering in speech, on separate occasions during the past months.
Although the writer acknowledges that it is not possible to trust and build on this "information" or evidence, he believes that together they serve as a basis for questioning the future of the Turkish president after 19 years of continuous rule of Turkey.
It seems that the scenes in the Turkish capital have taken these indications seriously, in the sense that they may express a trend in Washington or seek to create this trend, at the very least.
The Turkish president published - on his Twitter account - a video clip of him playing a game of basketball, just two days after the article was published, indicating "his keenness to exercise 3 times a week", apparently confirming his health and activity.
Soon, Cook moves to talk about the "post-Erdogan era" and the "strong" personalities nominated to succeed him, giving 3 of them over the rest: Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, and intelligence chief Hakan Fidan.
Cook believes that Soylu has become a losing bet after the leaks of the fugitive mafia man Sedat Bakr, and that Fidan prefers to stay behind closed doors, which makes Akar the most prominent and strongest candidate to succeed Erdogan.
Here, the writer moves to explain the reasons for Akar’s superiority over Soylu and Fidan, foremost of which is the military establishment’s support for him, not only because of his military background and former chief of staff of the army, but also because he is responsible for restructuring the armed forces after the failed coup in 2016, and for promoting most of the officers in the institution. The military during recent years, which makes their "loyalty to him," according to the author.
Cook concludes his article by saying that Washington's view of Akar as "pragmatic, and can work with him" is not irrational thinking, but he warns that Akar is from the same ideological background as Erdogan, and is responsible for tension with Greece in the eastern Mediterranean, as well as represents an anti-Western current In the Turkish military establishment, he said.
semantics
It was remarkable that the article accepted the events he mentioned in the context of the disease, although they had a more logical explanation, which is fatigue, and then built the entire discussion on this hypothesis, but it was not the only sign nor the most important in the article.
In the first place, there is an indication related to the subject itself, namely the idea of discussing the health of the Turkish president and the claim that he may not be able to run for the elections of 2023 and continue to rule Turkey after that. Another indication relates to timing and context, namely the Turkish-American differences that have recently exacerbated and prompted Erdogan to make a series of negative statements towards the Biden administration specifically. There is also a third indication related to the website of the article, Foreign Policy, especially since it was not the only article in this context. The same site published a second article 4 days after the first, in which it sees that "Erdogan's heir is not a problem", meaning Hulusi Akar.
It seems that the scenes in the Turkish capital have taken these indications seriously, in the sense that they may express a trend in Washington or seek to create such a trend, at the very least.
The Turkish president published - on his Twitter account - a video clip of him playing a game of basketball, just two days after the article was published, indicating "his keenness to exercise 3 times a week", apparently confirming his health and activity.
What reinforces these indications is that the article did not stop at asking questions about Erdogan’s health, but rather went to discuss the possible candidates to succeed him, and discuss this in detail, then prefer one of them or weigh him.
It is also remarkable that the article alludes to the possibility that Erdogan will succeed "another strongman, perhaps under the emergency law clause" and not in the context of normal elections, and therefore he nominated 3 military security figures for this, as previously mentioned.
This seems to reflect the double standards of the United States and the West in general when it comes to a party they consider an opponent or, at least, who is not completely in their orbit.
Perhaps the last indication is the preference of Defense Minister Hulusi Akar over the other two for reasons previously detailed.
This is even more important in view of the other article we referred to (authored by Khalil Karaveli), which saw Akar as “a loyal nationalist, but that does not mean that he is anti-Western”, in what seemed to be a marketing of the man or an attempt to convince decision-makers in the West that he is the best option for them.
The problem of justice and development
Regardless of the writer's intention and the extent to which he expresses the direction of the US administration, it is clear that the recent Turkish-US relations "do not bode well" and are not going well, according to Erdogan himself.
It is also remarkable that articles or statements regarding Erdogan's health and his chances in the upcoming elections, or either of them, were also issued by some Russian writers.
Away from the idea of putting pressure on Erdogan, present in this way, but what is remarkable is that foreign eyes do not see a strong candidate to succeed Erdogan from within the Justice and Development Party, or rather from the hard core and founding of him.
Akar and Fidan are not members of the party, and Soylu joined it only in 2012 and represents a current closer to the nationalist than to the party's intellectual roots.
This is not limited to external observers, but the reality is that the ruling party does not include among its sides today - especially from the founders - a personality with the strength of one of these three, so that it possesses charisma, strength and the ability to gather the party under its banner in the post-Erdogan stage, in order to maintain its strength and unity in particular. And it brings together in its leadership structures and cadres several and competing streams.
Therefore, it is very remarkable and dangerous that a reformist party such as the Justice and Development Party - after all that it has accomplished for its country over nearly two decades of rule - may not be able to present a candidate to succeed Erdogan from its ranks and who expresses its project, basic goals and its "factory settings".
This raises question marks about the long-term future of the party's project, as well as the extent to which the party is close or far from its original project and its first reformist premises.
In addition, the opposition is still continuing its electoral alliance, and is talking about its intention to present a consensual candidate for it in the upcoming presidential elections, which increases the level of challenge to justice and development, and to Erdogan in particular, as this means that the upcoming elections will not easily be their predecessors. And it's carrying a different kind of challenge this time around.
Therefore, in conclusion, there are challenges that the ruling Justice and Development in Turkey will face in the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections and that its presidential candidate, current President Erdogan, faces, but the most prominent challenge will remain the extent to which the party’s strength, unity, cohesion and continuity of its project will remain in the post-Erdogan era.