Turkey’s Islamist Dictator Fails to Win the Turkish Presidential Elections

Turkey’s longtime Islamist increasingly authoritarian President failed to win a majority of the votes to avoid a run-off election Sunday against a close second-place opposition leader, despite controlling state media, limiting freedom of expression and persecuting opponents. His main challenger, who leads a secular center-left coalition that also includes Kurdish parties, pledges a restoration of representative government and the kind of secular government that was established when Turkey was founded after the breakup of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War. The second round of the presidential election are scheduled for two weeks the first round. Strategically located Turkey is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and thus officially an ally of the United States, but in practice is unreliable. The Turkish “Sultan,” who has ruled as prime minister or president for 20 years, has disputes with fellow- NATO ally Greece over borders and Cyprus, is hostile toward the Kurdish allies of the U.S., and has been increasingly warming to Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin, the ex-Soviet intelligence officer who is trying to restore the Soviet Union. Turkey has become one of the most significant recent examples, like Russia and Venezuela, of a dictatorship established by a freely elected leader who gradually undermines liberty and representative government.