Erdogan Might Have Finally Gone Too Far

It has been more than two months since the police in Turkey detained Ekrem Imamoglu, the popular mayor of Istanbul and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s likely opponent in Turkey’s next presidential election. The international reaction has been largely muted. Turkey is rightly recognized as a geopolitically important — even indispensable — NATO ally, a dominant military power in post-Assad Syria and the natural host to delegations to negotiate peace in Ukraine. If Mr. Erdogan, who has long had authoritarian tendencies, is now setting Turkey on the path to full-fledged autocracy, the international community does not seem poised to prevent him.

Nevertheless, he might still fail. In Turkey the largest protests in a decade and, crucially, the lack of support by important political allies suggest that Mr. Erdogan’s determination to remain in power might have finally pushed him to go too far.

Mr. Erdogan has dominated Turkish politics since the early 2000s. For a long time he continued to enjoy popular support, even as he jailed opponents. He continued to consolidate power and, while elections were not fair, the opposition could still win. Last year his Justice and Development Party, or A.K.P., had a poor showing in municipal elections when disaffected conservative voters, tired of persistently high unemployment and inflation, shifted toward the Republican People’s Party, known as the C.H.P. Those elections also returned Mr. Imamoglu as the mayor of Istanbul for a second term.

Mr. Imamoglu’s arrest in March signaled something new: that in elections in Turkey, popular opposition politicians may simply not be allowed to run. Mr. Erdogan appeared to be borrowing from the playbook of President Vladimir Putin of Russia. But importantly, since Turkey — unlike Russia — does not possess the natural resources that could help fund autocratic rule, Mr. Erdogan is constrained by the need for foreign investment, state support and a majority of the public’s support or at least acquiescence to his actions.

It was immediately clear that the arrest rattled markets — the lira, Turkey’s currency, fell to a record low — and was deeply unpopular with the population. One poll suggested that 65 percent of people disapproved, and many thousands of people crowded into the streets. A few days after Mr. Imamoglu’s arrest, his party conducted a symbolic primary, in which party members and sympathizers anointed the mayor as their candidate for president.

It’s possible that this public anger could give way to apathy before the next elections are scheduled to be held, in 2028. Mr. Erdogan may be banking on it. But some of the president’s political allies in the state are signaling that they, too, object.