Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during an election rally in support of Zeynel Abidin Beyazgul, candidate for the position of mayor of the Greater Sanliurfa Municipality (Anatolia)

In a meeting with young people on the evening of Friday, March 8, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that the municipal elections scheduled to be held on March 31 are his last in power according to the law, as the constitution limits the permissible presidential term to only two terms.

Erdogan added that he will work during the coming period to give confidence to those who will bear responsibility after him.

Although the current presidential term will end in 2028, this early confirmation sparked a state of discord within the country between supporters and opponents alike.

Since his early appearance as mayor of Istanbul in 1994 (he was 40 years old at the time) and then as prime minister in 2003, Erdogan has succeeded in filling the world and keeping people busy (for or against).

By 2028, Erdogan will have spent 25 years in power, as prime minister, then head of state. That is, we are facing a generation that was born, grew up, and grew up and has never known a president other than Erdogan. There are other generations who lived part of their lives during the stages of the state’s collapse in the late 1990s, and they know the difference well. Between before and after Erdoganism, this is why the man’s departure will not be an easy event.

So, the first hours that followed the announcement raised a number of initial questions about Erdogan’s motives, why the opposition expressed its skepticism, and the future of the ruling Justice and Development Party and the possibility of its cohesion after Erdogan?

Will Erdogan reassure the opposition?

Some argued that the goal of the sudden statement was to attract the sympathy of Turkish voters, to vote for the party in the municipal elections.

Guided by what Erdogan said last year, that the 2023 presidential elections are his last.

But Erdogan at the time explicitly asked the masses to vote for him, and despite that, he did not decide the elections until the second round. This time, he did not ask for that, and everyone who watched his televised interview saw how affected he seemed as he confirmed the departure date.

In my opinion, the announcement was not a maneuver. Rather, he may have wanted to reassure the opposition that he would not run again, so that it might agree to cooperate with him in completing a new constitution, instead of the current one that the military wrote after the September 1980 coup led by General Kenan Evren and approved by him. The people at that time, and many modifications have been made to it until now.

The opposition fears that the new constitution will give Erdogan the opportunity to run again, so it prefers the current constitution to remain, which does not give him that opportunity as he has benefited from the two constitutionally permitted terms.

Note that Article 116 of the current constitution stipulates that if Parliament decides by a majority of three-fifths of the total number of members (360 representatives) to renew the elections, then the parliamentary and presidential elections will be held together, and that if this procedure is during the president’s second term, he has the right to run again.

But Erdogan really seems determined to leave, and will not look for any constitutional solutions to stay. What matters to him now is to conclude his political career by preparing a civil constitution, so I expect that negotiations regarding it with the parties will begin after the municipal elections.

The opposition is skeptical

The Turkish opposition met Erdogan's announcement with skepticism, claiming that such announcements had previously been issued, but they had not been implemented.

The left-wing Cumhuriyet newspaper, which opposes and supports the Republican People's Party, republished previous statements by Erdogan, on its account on the "X" platform, in which he confirmed his departure.

However, upon examination, the credibility of Erdogan’s current position is confirmed. In 2009, he announced that the 2011 elections would be his last candidacy for Parliament, and indeed Erdogan did not run for Parliament after that at all, as he assumed the presidency in August 2014 until now.

In 2012, he announced that he would not run again for the presidency of the Justice and Development Party. Indeed, Erdogan left the party’s presidency in 2014 when he assumed the presidency (the system at that time was still parliamentary), and he did not return to the party’s presidency until after the constitutional amendment that took place in 2017, according to which the regime was transformed. Governance to a presidential system.

Last year, he announced that the 2023 elections would be his last, and his recent statements confirmed that meaning.

So, I see no justification for this skepticism on the part of the opposition. Rather, it must work to confront the demands of the moment when it wakes up and finds the field empty before it from Erdogan, whom it has failed to defeat in any electoral victory since 2002.

Post-Erdogan Justice Party

Erdogan succeeded in establishing the Justice and Development Party as a “center-right” party, and not a purely “Islamic” conservative party, similar to the successive parties founded by the late Necmettin Erbakan.

Erdogan's concept, as he founded the party with a group of peers in August 2001, was close to the thought of the late president, Turgut Ozal, and his Motherland Party.

So, the challenge before him now is how to maintain the cohesion of the party when there are multiple factions within it?

Especially since over the decades of party experience, Turkish parties were exposed to decline or disintegration following the departure of the founder or his leaving the leadership of the party, and the examples are many, but I only mention the Republican People’s Party, which was established by the founder of the republic, Kemal Ataturk, and after his departure he did not come to power except for periods of time. Few!

Not to mention the divisions within it, and its dissolution following the 1980 coup.

The Justice and Development Party includes several main blocs, the forefront of which is the Conservative bloc, and most of their figures belong to the “Milli Grush” movement founded by Erbakan, such as the party’s vice president and parliament speaker, Numan Kurtulmuş, the former justice minister, Abdul Hamid Gul, and the party’s president in Istanbul. Osman Nuri Kabak Tepe.

Next comes the nationalist bloc, and their most prominent figure is the former Minister of the Interior and the current parliamentary representative, Suleiman Soylu.

In addition to the trend of young people like Bilal Erdogan and Selcuk Bayraktar, who enjoys great popularity among Turkish youth, for his well-known role in developing drones.

These and other names have weight and symbolism that enable them to establish independent parties at any time. Some of them were actually president of another party, before joining the Justice and Development Party, such as Kurtulmus and Soylu.

Hence, the major challenge that Erdogan will face during the remaining years is to organize the party so that it escapes the curse of disintegration.

Why go far?

When Erdogan left the party presidency in 2014 to Ahmet Davutoğlu, the party almost slipped out of his hands.

Rather, it was not actually spared from splits. Davutoglu split and founded the Future Party, as did the former minister, Ali Babacan, by establishing the Progress and Democracy Party. They could have attracted an influential segment of the Justice and Development Party, but that did not happen, and the two parties were unable to include any parliamentary representative. From the ruling party.

This is only due to the presence of Erdogan at the head of the party.

Aside from these challenges, it will be beneficial for Turkey that Erdogan completes this transition during his lifetime and under his supervision, to prevent any influential shocks, and then devotes himself to writing his memoirs, which - once completed - will be an important political document that reveals what is hidden from his political experience, with all its great achievements. And also failures that his career was not devoid of.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.