These disturbing traits could be reinforced if he is elected in the first round of the presidential vote next month. A slowing economy and an increasingly uncertain foreign policy in a turbulent region may encourage those who say Turkey needs autonomous institutions, a separation of powers, stronger economic regulation, an independent media and an effective opposition at this stage of its development, not a lurch towards more authoritarianism. Turkey’s future has become so closely bound up with Erdogan’s that it would be better for both that changes like these should flow from its forthcoming electoral cycle.
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