What the commentators said

The Turks view their president with “chronic ambivalence”, said Simon Tisdall in The Guardian. His supporters, mainly rural conservatives and observant Sunni Muslims, see him as Turkey’s saviour, the man who “restored it to its rightful place” among the “world’s leading nations”, while urban liberals abhor his autocratic tendencies. And the West shares some of that ambivalence. European leaders value Turkey as an ostensible ally in a region where the West has few friends, and they need its help in stemming the tide of refugees from Syria, but are concerned by its human rights record (tens of thousands of people have lost their jobs, or been jailed without trial, since 2016’s attempted coup). As for Washington, it has a key airbase in southwest Turkey – but it is wondering whose side its fellow Nato member is actually on, owing to its “de facto alliance” with Iran, its activities in northern Syria (where it has threatened US troops working with Kurdish forces against Isis), and its apparent desire to build alliances with Moscow. The US has threatened to impose sanctions if Turkey goes ahead with its plan to buy Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missiles designed to down US F-35 combat jets.

On paper, Erdogan is more powerful than ever, said Henri J. Barkey in Foreign Policy. But he cannot rest on his laurels. When he called early elections back in April, he could point to a healthy economy. Since then the lira has lost 17% of its value against the dollar, and inflation is in double figures. Moreover, in parallel parliamentary elections last week, his Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost its majority, and that could prove his downfall, said Mark Almond in The Daily Telegraph. Parliament has been robbed of many of its powers by the new constitution, but MPS were allowed the right to impeach their president. With allegations of corruption “swirling” around his family, Erdogan may yet find his victory “reversed by the very constitution which he intended to cement his hold on power”.