How can we explain the fascination that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan exerts on a majority of Turks? His popularity seems unalterable, the proof is that neither the earthquake of February 6, which left 50,000 dead, nor galloping inflation (60% annual average), nor his frenzied authoritarianism, have managed to turn his electoral base away from him. , conservative and pious. Produced on the occasion of the celebration of the centenary of the creation of the Turkish Republic by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (October 29, 1923), Romain Besnainou’s documentary, Erdogan, the Sultan’s Revenge, sheds light on the upheavals that have occurred over the last twenty years in Turkey under the leadership of its irremovable president.
In charge for twenty years, re-elected on May 28, 2023 for a third five-year term while the Constitution only allows two, this extraordinary leader seduces as much as he divides. Considered a “prophet” by his followers, he is described as an “executioner” by his detractors, quick to criticize him for his posture as sultan as well as the radical modification of the country’s DNA. Unsinkable, the father of Turkish political Islam, 69 years old, has survived all the bad times, mass protests, corruption scandals, an attempted overthrow in 2016, the local currency which continues to depreciate , the failings of his government, particularly at the time of the earthquake.
“Pride regained”
Footage shot after the tragedy in the thousand-year-old city of Antakya reduced to dust shows an angry Turk: “Where is the state? We went three days without help, no one came! “. He has lost faith in Recep Tayyip Erdogan and assures that he is not the only one. “No one in these ruins is ready to forgive him.” Against all expectations, the president was re-elected in the second round with 52% of the vote a few months later. The polls said he was losing, the opposition imagined him leaving his “Sublime Porte”-style palace on the outskirts of Ankara – more than a thousand rooms, five times Versailles – but he triumphed. What is his recipe? Above all, his supporters are grateful for “newfound pride,” they say.
We better understand the fervor that drives them when we enter the premises of Teknofest, an annual arms exhibition that has become the high mass of Islamo-conservative power. School groups, engineers, tech fans, businessmen and modest families flock there every year to admire the latest achievements of the Turkish defense industry, whose growth is dazzling. The star of the party is Selçuk Bayraktar, the designer of the drone of the same name. CEO of the family business Baykar Makina which produces these unmanned vehicles used by the Ukrainians to counter the Russian invasion, he is also the son-in-law of President Erdogan, the husband of his youngest daughter Sümeyye.
“The drone gives hope to our people (…) and maybe one day we will be number one in the world,” explains in the documentary this engineer trained in Boston, for whom Teknofest is a talent incubator. “People who come here tell themselves that they can succeed too…”. Around him, the crowd is dense. Young girls ask for a selfie. From afar, a young man shouts, “God bless you! You and Dad Erdogan! »