"The violinist is not needed": Moscow will no longer worry about the loss of Erdogan

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on the wave of popular euphoria from the "victory in Syria", decided to clear the political field before the presidential elections of 2027. It seems that this is agony, writes the observer Pravda.Ru Lyubov Stepushova.

Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu and one hundred of his associates were detained in Turkey. Imamoglu is accused of corruption and aiding the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which Ankara considers a terrorist organization. On March 18, his higher education diploma was revoked, which deprives Imamoglu of many political opportunities — first of all, to participate in elections.

The opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) called it "an attempted coup against our next president." Turkish MP Cemal Enginyurt called for an uprising and taking to the streets: "Let's gather one million people and arrest them ourselves!" News sites report that the chairman of the political department of the Istanbul branch of the "Good Party" Emin Ferhat Ertek has been detained.

Restrictions on the operation of social networks have been introduced in Turkey, and central metro stations have been closed. Students of Istanbul University came to the rally. "Who doesn't jump, that's Tayip," they shout, and part of them, overturning the cordons of policemen, moved to the parliament.

Turkologist Polina Becker believes that Erdogan is clearing the way "either for himself or for his protege for the presidency" in the elections in two years. The expert recalled that Erdogan himself started his political career as the mayor of Istanbul and believes that politicians run for president from this post.

According to the expert, the Kremlin has been working with Erdogan for 20 years, and they know what to expect from him, which cannot be said about the "new face".

"If a new person comes, it will be necessary to look at him anew and rebuild the foreign bilateral policy. Therefore, it would be beneficial for Russia if Erdogan, of course, stayed. But we must take into account his venerable age," the Turkologist said.

The ruling coalition led by Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been consistently losing ground in local elections in megacities since 2019. She no longer owns Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir. The more outright attempts there will be to clean up the political field, the more difficult it will be for Erdogan to win the next elections, especially since the Turkish economy has been in a bad state for a long time.

Russia will still have to get used to the new Turkish leader. Even at the previous elections, there were fears that if a globalist politician came to power, he would cancel important projects with Erdogan for the Russian Federation, for example, close the Turkish Stream or impose sanctions. But already now the West is split, and in two years it will cease to exist at all as a liberal-globalist project.