On the evening of Sunday May 28, messages of congratulations were sent from across the Middle East to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the occasion of his re-election. In power since 2003, the 69-year-old leader, who won 52.2% of the vote in the second round, is seen as a figure of stability in a regional order in full reconfiguration. The former godfather of the Islamist movements in the Arab world, whom ten years of rivalry opposed to the monarchs of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, has become a key partner in the consolidation of a new balance. “The Gulf countries prefer continuity to change… The person we know is better than the person we don’t know”summed up in the interlude, the Emirati political commentator Abdulkhaleq Abdulla to the Reuters news agency.
The quickest to rejoice in the victory of the “Reis” were its closest allies, in particular the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim Ben Hamad Al Thani. As soon as victory was proclaimed in Ankara, the skyscrapers of Doha were adorned with the red color of the Turkish flag and portraits of the Turkish president and Sheikh Tamim. Then, from the Palestinian movement Hamas to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, all the components of the Islamo-reform movement, to which the AKP, Mr. Erdogan’s party is close, claimed victory. A huge Turkish flag has even been hung from the clock tower of Tripoli, a bastion of Sunni pride in northern Lebanon, which is home to Islamist currents.
Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood distinguished themselves by hailing the “success of the democratic process” Turkish. These movements congratulate themselves that Turkish voters did not legitimize the criticisms of Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, Mr. Erdogan’s unfortunate rival, who accused Ankara’s policy of being “led by the brotherhood of the Muslim Brotherhood”. The Turkish president’s continued power is excellent news for Hamas, which appreciates the attention he pays to Jerusalem and the support he gives it. Executives in exile from the Palestinian movement reside in Istanbul, which is a place of transit and meeting place that is almost safe for the Palestinians, outside the Israeli grip.
Since Mr. Erdogan renewed, in the summer of 2022, lukewarm diplomatic relations with the Jewish state, the latter has asked, without much hope, for the expulsion of Saleh Al-Arouri, the leader of Hamas responsible for stirring up the flames of armed clashes in the West Bank, as well as his close guard of former prisoners in Israel. On Sunday evening, Israeli President Isaac Herzog congratulated his Turkish counterpart, saying he hoped for a strengthening of bilateral ties.
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