Vomit, yes. Looks like it. Smells like it. Feels like it.
And we witnessed the whole incident, from regurgitation to the mess spreading across the floors of our lives. Yes, vomit is what Turkish domestic politics feels like nowadays. Considerably lower than the corruption of politicians, to which we have now grown accustomed, and somehow more demoralising than the usual coercive practices of the one-man regime.
After Erdoğan dared to jail his most prominent challenger, the Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, who was detained on 19 March 2025 and sent to prison four days later, on the very day the CHP held its primary to name him its presidential candidate, the level of authoritarianism and the quality of politics moved in opposite directions. The former has risen; the latter has fallen.
Since then, the regime …
