Turkey's authoritarian Erdogan

Having accrued broad executive power through a 2017 rewrite of Turkey’s constitution, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is promising to have another swing at the country’s basic laws.

Just like four years ago, the pledge has kicked off a political storm -- but this time, opposition politicians say, that’s exactly what Erdogan intended.

The president’s vowing to take aim at the remains of a charter first adopted by a military junta in 1982, a move that might appear to strengthen democracy. Turkey’s opposition parties instead see an attempt to divert attention from a stumbling economy mismanaged by an authoritarian Erdogan and his increasingly unpopular party.

“Dictators do not want a democratic constitution based on human rights,” main opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, head of the Republican People’s Party or CHP, said in an interview .

Erdogan’s popularity has suffered as the economy and currency were weakened by tussles with the U.S. and Europe, and in the last 12 months by pandemic restrictions. Unemployment and prices have risen, while the president’s AK Party lost local elections in both the business hub of Istanbul and Ankara, the capital.

When criticizing the current constitution, Erdogan frequently mentions an organization created by the military to keep a close eye on the country’s universities. Yet his oversight has gone even further, presidential powers to pick loyal university chiefs were expanded, and in recent weeks scores of students in Istanbul who protested peacefully have been arrested.