On Sunday 31 March, the Turkish masses inflicted the biggest electoral defeat on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan since he came to power more than 20 years ago. These local elections returned a vote against Erdogan rather than one for the bourgeois opposition, which inspired little enthusiasm. Nonetheless, these elections are symptomatic of a storm of anger that is wearing down Erdogan’s authority. His days could be numbered.

After more than 20 years in power, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has extended his rule for another five years after a multi-party opposition, led by bourgeois liberals, failed to deal his crisis-ridden presidency a decisive blow in the second round of the presidential elections on Sunday.

The first round of the presidential elections in Turkey has not resulted in a clear winner. The current president Erdogan of the AKP (with 49.3 percent of the votes) will be forced into the second round for the first time. His rival will be Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu of the CHP, the Republican People's Party. This election was an uphill battle for the AKP, which has governed Turkey for 20 years, and yet Erdogan was not dislodged.

Outrage is overtaking grief in Turkey as millions of survivors have been left to fend for themselves since the 6 February earthquake that struck the country and neighbouring Syria.

Early on the morning of Monday 6 February, a devastating earthquake shook the Middle East, ripping the Earth apart and reducing buildings to rubble. The magnitude 7.8 quake, with its epicentre just to the west of Gaziantep in Turkey’s Anatollian region, is the strongest to hit the country in modern times. With the strength of 130 atomic bombs, it was felt as far away as Greenland.

The economic crisis gripping Turkey has pushed the Turkish ruling class into a political crisis. Splits and divisions are opening up in the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its electoral partner, the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). These events are a harbinger of revolution.

The workers of Turkey are beginning to make the ruling class tremble. A strike wave is rapidly spreading across the country. Beginning among some of the most precariously employed workers, it has spread from factory to factory. From 6 January to 14 February, there have been 65 strikes across Turkey, with new strikes erupting every day. As the strike wave has progressed, it has threatened to draw in the heavy battalions of the working class, and has already brought in workers from Erdoğan’s own heartland.

After nearly 19 years in power, the strongman image of Turkey’s longest-sitting head of state, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is rapidly deteriorating. The world economic crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic has delivered another, severe blow to his crisis-ridden regime.

The Turkish working class is beginning to move as a series of strikes and protests spread across the country. Factory workers; textile workers; construction workers; health workers; postal workers; service workers; miners; airline workers; press workers; municipality workers; and more have begun fighting back against union busting, unfair contracts, layoffs, dismissals, and unpaid wages.

For over two months now, the Turkish state and president Erdogan's regime have faced attacks from a seemingly unlikely source. Sedat Peker, a notorious mafia boss in exile, with a long record of criminal activity and of intriguingly short jail sentences, has released a video almost every Sunday for the past two months in which he claims to expose the details of connections between important AKP officials, the Turkish state, and organised crime.

Protests erupted across Turkey on Saturday 20 March after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan issued a decree withdrawing Turkey from the Istanbul convention, an international treaty to prevent and combat violence against women. The withdrawal has sparked anger, thousands have taken to the streets at protests throughout the country. 

For several weeks now, Turkey has been making international headlines for various reasons. Not the least of these were the back-to-back sackings of the governor of the Central Bank, Naci Ağbal, on 19 March, followed by his deputy. Erdoğan’s move was followed by a sharp 15% one-day collapse in the value of the lira. Mainstream, bourgeois economists were aghast at what they regarded as insane, erratic behaviour from Erdoğan. But there is method in the madness. Above all, Erdoğan is terrified of a social explosion.

Last Tuesday, a wave of student protests erupted in Turkey's biggest city, Istanbul. Students from the Boğaziçi University protested against the new rector of the university and former wannabe parliamentary candidate for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP-party, Melih Bulu, who was appointed to the university post on 2 January by Erdogan’s decree. 

The clash between Greece and Turkey, which began last July, shows no signs of abating and indeed increases in intensity week after week. It is the most serious crisis between the two countries in decades.

In recent weeks, the potential for open conflict between various states in the South-Eastern Mediterranean has increased dramatically. The Communist Tendency (IMT section in Greece) has already released a statement on the escalation of war tensions between Greece and Turkey over access to hydrocarbons in specific areas of the Mediterranean Sea. Since then, the Turkish air force and navy have been carrying out military exercises in the Eastern Mediterranean, which the Egyptian and French navy have countered with their