What Happens If Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan Dies?

If Erdogan Dies, It Will be Too Soon to Celebrate: Earlier today, during a televised interview, a sudden medical emergency incapacitated Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan’s office dismissed the incident as the result of a stomach bug, but rumors swirl inside Turkey that the president has had a heart attack and that his condition worsened while in the hospital.

Turkey is an authoritarian police state without free media and so it is impossible at this point to know the truth. Every democrat wakes up each morning knowing when his or her administration will end. Every dictator wakes up having to worry that today could be his last. Erdogan has long been in the latter camp.

Make no mistake: His reign will end, by death, exile, imprisonment, or execution. The notion that a man who disdains democracy would voluntarily step down or allow election monitors to confirm him to be a loser is farfetched, a fantasy of diplomats and think tankers.

 
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