Summary: Apart from still acting as a party leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is also acting as an executive president, which is in contradiction with Turkey’s parliamentary system. Such an unusual political practice is possible only because the prime minister, the real holder of executive power, has agreed to devolve his powers to the president. But Ahmet Davutoğlu does not have too many other options. It is clear that Davutoğlu needs Erdoğan’s hand to govern. On the other hand, this de-facto arrangement cannot last forever since even a charismatic leader like Erdoğan cannot continuously act against the constitution. Davutoğlu’s performance for the next few months will crucial for Erdoğan’s political fate and his desire for presidentialism. Analysis Erdoğan’s Final Countdown to Absolute Power? by Emre Erdoğan February 19, 2015 Washington, DC • Berlin • Paris Brussels • Belgrade • Ankara Bucharest • Warsaw OFFICES Analysis Considering his exceptionally successful track record as a political strategist, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s victory in the presidential elections in August was hardly surprising to anyone. Less obvious was his successor as prime minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, a professor of international relations and well-known architect of Turkish foreign policy during the AKParty era, irst as an advisor, then as the minister of foreign afairs. While his foreign policy preferences were not shared by a signiicant majority of the public, 1 getting Erdoğan’s support suiced, leading to his appointments irst as leader of the AKParty then as prime minister following the presidential election. In his irst speech at the AKParty congress where he was elected chairman, Davutoğlu gave clues of why he was Erdoğan’s favorite. He allocated a signiicant part of this speech to the Gezi Protests and the corruption allegations of December 2013, and framed these events as coup attempts and attacks on Turkey’s political and economic stability under the AKParty rule. Davutoğlu also listed the Kurdish Peace Process among the central pillars 1 http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/iw/origi- nals/2013/02/poll-davutoglu-akp-syria-policy-unpopular- turkey.html# of his future policies, showing that he will maintain Erdoğan’s political priorities. He also promised to act “hand-in-hand” with the president. Constitutionally, Turkey is a parlia- mentary democracy where the execu- tive branch acts as the irst among equals — a feature designed to prevent political instability — and the presi- dent’s powers are largely symbolic. he president’s veto power acts as a check mechanism, one that has been frequently used in the past, especially when the president and the parliament had diferent political agendas. As he had promised in his presiden- tial campaign, Erdoğan is much more active than previous presidents. He acts like a party leader rather than the president of the republic. Recent polls show that his approval rate is tied to his party base or voters, about 50 percent, and that the remaining 50 percent is strongly opposed to him. his picture was diferent during the previous administration. While President Abdullah Gül was a partisan candidate elected by the parliament in 2007, his approval rate luctuated between 70 and 60 percent, showing that he received support from other parties’ constituencies. Erdoğan’s elec-