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Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: Prophetic Leader or Political Suicide?

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It has become commonplace to label Turkey as an autocracy following the despotic policies of its president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. A wave of ideological purges succeeded the failed coup d'etat of June 2016, by a faction within the Turkish Armed Forces, namely the Peace at Home Council. The motivating factors behind the coup appear to be a combination of an increasing feeling of eradication of secularism within the country, and Turkey's declining influence on the global political stage. The supposed spearhead of this entire operation has been namechecked as Fethullah Gullen, a Turkish religious figure who used to be an ally of the president but withdrew his support amidst the 2013 Turkish corruption scandals, and whom Erdoğan equally accused of having organised. However, it is highly likely that such accusations serve as pretenses for the president to consolidate his grip over the country in an attempt to erode the influence Kemalist ideology and revert to Islamic rule, thus effe