Unsurprising victory delivered through surprising path. Erdoğan won the presidential race in the first round and the "People's Alliance" he formed with nationalist MHP gained the majority in the parliament. However, the help of MHP turned out to be a necessity in both elections, as Erdoğan's AKP didn't get enough seats to form a majority in the parliament on their own. AKP's vote dropped from the 49.5% of the previous election to 42.4%, but MHP's vote of 11.2% pushed Erdoğan to the victory, as well as allowing the alliance to form the majority in the parliament. The consensus of polls regarding MHP's vote was between 5% and 8%, with the party losing at least half of its nationalist voter base to İyi Party, a party formed by former MHP members who were opposed to the alliance the party formed with Erdoğan. İyi Party then formed an alliance of their own, named "Nation's Alliance", with Kemalist social democratic main opposition party CHP and Islamic conservatives Felicity Party to combat the alliance of AKP and MHP. Among the two nationalist parties, İyi Party was expected to have the bigger amount of support. Contrary to the expectations of polls, however, MHP received more votes than İyi Party on election night, edging them out by 1%. With a small group of CHP voters known to be sympathetic towards İyi Party and the drop-off in CHP's vote from 25.3% to 22.7%, it's safe to assume a small amount of İyi Party's votes came from former CHP voters. That means the nationalist voter base, which is roughly around 17%, opted for their traditional party rather than the newly formed one, supporting the alliance with Erdoğan who had in the past spoke very negatively of Turkish nationalists during the attempted peace process with the Kurds. Having since embraced a Turkish nationalist rhetoric himself, Erdoğan was clearly able to win over more nationalists than expected.
There could be two reasons for the discrepancy. The glaring one is the sympathetic behaviour of the Nation's Alliance towards the jailed pro-Kurdish presidential candidate Selahattin Demirtaş, having advocated for his temporary release for a fair campaign and CHP's presidential candidate, Muharrem İnce, having personally met him in prison. The leader of İyi Party, Meral Akşener, clearly tried to distance herself from the association with Demirtaş, knowing the possible consequences of such an association would have on her appeal among the nationalists. The election night suggests that her attempts may have failed to a certain degree. The other possible reason for the results is the thought that by supporting the People's Alliance, nationalists would have a chance to have a say on government affairs of the country for the first time in decades by way of MHP. Erdoğan's dominance of the politics is unlikely to change, however he will have to tread lightly in order not to alienate MHP. Erdoğan was visibly less enthusiastic after the election compared to the previous triumphs, which is most likely because his party needed the support of another party to win an election for the first time. Creating a dependancy may well have been the gamble of Devlet Bahçeli, MHP's leader, all along. The breakdown of the peace process and Erdoğan's perceived nonchalance towards the ISIS offensive in Kobani, alienated many Kurds that were previously supporters of his. With the Kurdish voters gone, Erdoğan completely flipped the script and embraced Turkish nationalism to make up for the lost votes. Bahçeli did not immediately start turning sympathetic towards Erdoğan but he first stopped his harsh criticism of him after the renewed outbreak of PKK violence and then was fully on board with turning into allies after the failed coup attempt in July 2016. With the supporters of Fethullah Gülen, an Islamic preacher who lives in self-imposed exile in the United States and is known in Turkey as a CIA puppet, within the army being accused of staging the coup, it's almost certain that Bahçeli, an ultranationalist with strong Eurosceptic and anti-American tendencies, perceived the coup attempt as an American plot to stop Erdoğan from launching a campaign against Kurdish militant groups and turned to supporting him.
This dependancy creates a slippery slope for Erdoğan. There already are problems within the People's Alliance, Bahçeli's pleas for a general amnesty, aimed to release certain prisoners affiliated with the nationalist movement, were shut down by Erdoğan. There were also reports of significant clashes between members of the two parties leading up to the election. One prominent AKP member was quoted as saying that the alliance would not continue after the election, much to the frustration of Bahçeli who claimed "It would not be possible to buy them out or use them". After the results of the election, it's impossible for AKP not to continue the alliance. That means a continuation of campaigns against Kurdish militant groups, within Turkey as well as across the Syrian and Iraqi borders. This is where things get tricky. The Turkish economy is going through a rough patch. Turkish lira went through significant devaluation leading up to the election. Erdoğan's pressure on the country's Central Bank, the widespread corruption that disrupts the free market and his constant bickering with Western countries resulted in a sharp decrease of foreign investments in the country. With Turkey failing to take the necessary steps in industrialization after the widespread privatization campaign that revitalized the country's economy, the country became increasingly dependent on the hot money flow from abroad. The US and EU have made their disapproval of Erdoğan's campaigns into Syrian and Iraqi Kurdish territories very clear and hold significant power of sanctions. This places Erdoğan between two rocks. He can't backtrack from his Kurdish policy to continue the alliance with MHP and he might face sanctions from the West as well as failing to attract foreign investments from them. Erdoğan's vow to further increase his control of the country's economic offers doesn't bode well for the future, either. Erdoğan's long-term plan might be to the distance themselves from the West completely and position themselves closer to Russia and that's evidenced by the up trend in trade and industry partnerships between the two countries. However, a potential Turkish-Russian alliance hinges on Erdoğan backtracking from his hopes of an Assad-less Syria. Such a move would contradict his support for the Muslim Brotherhood, as evidenced by his passionate campaigning for Mohamed Morsi in Egypt and his mourning of Morsi's overthrow as well as his positive remarks about the organization.
Regardless of this equation with multiple variables, Erdoğan being able to win the first presidential race after the constitutional referendum that gave the position sweeping powers, leads Turkey in a different direction. Erdoğan's grip on the country's social and economic affairs, as well his repression of freedom of expression, influence on mainstream media and his cult of personality will continue to get stronger. Erdoğan's right to sign executive orders was temporary for the state of emergency declared after the coup attempt of June 2016, but now is permanent due to the changes made to the constitution. The public's concern with the country's economy is on an upwards trend but clearly not enough to look for alternatives just yet. Concerns about democracy, justice, liberty and peace, on the other hand, seem to be limited to a group of people that cannot form a majority. Those people will now look for a branch to hold on to as they are freefalling from a cliff, with the haunting regret that they should've been able to prevent getting anywhere near the cliff in the first place.
