How's that week of no politics working out for HN?
You hear 3 reasons, typically...
- Viewed as a champion for lower class citizens, who weren't well represented in past administrations
- Supportive of religious conservatives, also not represented well in the past
- The economy has improved under his tenure. Inflation slowed, infrastructure improved, etc.
Not disputing your view of him, but he is popular for palpable reasons.
Additionally, with its foreign policies and own political and socioeconomic problems, foreign investment has gone down significantly, leading to a great exchange rate declines (1.2 USD/TRY prior to the 2008 crisis, to 3.5 USD/TRY close today).
I suggest you understand it before you criticize it. It is called Westphalian Sovereignity[0] and Europeans have very solid and good reasons for it.
This and people confuse western politics with humanity and moral standards and that is an area in which Turkey is nose-diving at an alarming rate. Very concerning indeed :(.
As for Qatar and Saudi Arabia, again, if they were not rich countries would they be allowed as much slack as they do.
Still, maybe people had enough of this level of corruption and double-standards being allowed; Which may in part explain how people vote in today's times.
That religious group has been ruling the country with their own politicians, lawyers, soldiers for the last 40 years however they want. Erdogan helped them gain power against real secular people and even jailed secular soldiers and journalists with this partnership. Many good people died in jail because of getting cancer.
Currently he is in a war against his old friend Gulen and clearing Turkey up from them. Both secular people and his fans support this action as that group ruined the country.
However Erdogan is upset at EU and US because they left him alone with his war so that's why he tries to provocate EU. Don't give a meaning to his sayings/actions.
Btw Kurds and PKK (terrorists) are very different. Don't get fooled by western media.
Turkey is a NATO ally and has a very powerful and experienced military as well as a strong sense of national identity. The USA could not openly intervene like it did with Iraq, Syria and Libya.
There are at least two problems.
First, the "will of the people" argument works only if there is a strong culture of democracy, respect for the rule of law and proper representation of minorities. None of those things exist in Turkey (I'm Turkish). Typically, what happens when Erdogan wins elections is that he views it as a "mandate" and starts oppressing the shit out of his opposition by jailing or exiling people who disagree with him. He has gone so far as to use his party to change laws in his favor. And all those infrastructure improvements he has made? They have all enriched himself and his buddies (called "crony capitalism").
Second, Turkey is an extremely important player in the Middle East. If we want the region to stop spiraling out of control, there needs to be a modern, stable and secular democracy with a Muslim population there that can be used as a model by other countries. Otherwise the region will always be in turmoil, which will inevitably spill over to Europe and the rest of the world (in the form of refugees, extremist terrorists, etc.).
That's probably for the best. In the areas that there were leaders that West did care about (or pretended to, for control and resources) and actively intervened, they created hell holes of civil war, chaos and fundamentalism.
For some reason, a lot of Turks still seem to support Erdogan. The West doesn't really care what he does, as long as Turkey takes care of most of the refugees.
A disgusting European policy.