Navigating Against Autocratization: How Opposition Strategies Challenged Erdoğan’s Political Dominance in Turkey

Turkey has experienced one of the most pronounced shifts towards autocratization over the last decade. The Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its leader, President Erdoğan, have implemented a strategic and pragmatic approach towards other political actors to advance autocratic governance to this degree. Throughout Erdoğan’s tenure, power-driven polarization, characterized by identity politics and anti-elitism, has been a defining feature of his political strategy, which he has thus far effectively executed. However, the recent local elections indicate that even a seemingly unassailable autocrat can face setbacks. Although Erdoğan was re-elected as president in 2023, and his alliance outperformed the opposition alliance, a year later, in the local elections, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), without relying on an alliance, surpassed the AKP and became the leading party for the first time in 47 years, securing numerous major and smaller cities. This paper seeks to examine two main questions: (1) What strategic changes enabled the CHP to deliver a significant blow to Erdoğan’s power? (2) Building on the first, how can opposition strategies be refined and developed within an autocratized political environment? To address these questions, I will base my discussion on three pillars: first, an analysis of Erdoğan’s autocratic strategy, rooted in power-driven polarization; second, an exploration of opposition strategies that disrupted Erdoğan’s power; and third, an evaluation of how opposition strategies can evolve to dismantle autocratization in both the short and long term. To provide a foundation for these inquiries, I propose first to analyze Erdoğan’s power-driven polarization strategy within its historical context. To answer this question, I will scrutinize the AKP and Erdoğan’s interactions with various political actors, such as the Gülen Community, the Kurdish movement, and secular-nationalist groups. Second, the paper will examine the CHP’s strategic adaptations that challenged Erdoğan’s dominance between the 2023 and 2024 elections. In addressing this, I will highlight the CHP’s evolving relationships with other opposition parties in response to the pro-government bloc in these elections. Lastly, based on the insights gathered from the first two sections, I will outline a broader framework for opposition strategies that have already proven effective in curbing autocratization in the short term and, potentially, reversing it in the long term.