http://dx.doi.org/10.59704/27bbca2c7c1e79b6 https://verfassungsblog.de/turkeys-gerontocratic-constitutional-moment/ Turkey’s Gerontocratic Constitutional Moment Erhan, Doruk eng 2025-07-14 electronic resource text/html ddc:342 AKP Authoritarianism Democratic Backsliding Erdogan Erdoğan Recep Tayyip | 1954- | Politiker Parteivorsitzender Präsident Populism Türkei Türkei Erdoğan Recep Tayyip | 1954- | Politiker Parteivorsitzender Präsident Türkei Verfassungsblog Verfassungsblog--2366-7044 CC BY-SA 4.0 In less than a year, Turkish politics has undergone a profound realignment. It began in October 2024 with a remarkable speech by Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and President Erdoğan’s chief coalition partner. In one of the most cryptic U-turns of his career, Bahçeli—long a hardliner on the Kurdish question—proposed reopening the long-frozen peace process with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the separatist armed group that has waged a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state. In short, the tectonic plates of Turkish politics are shifting, and at the center of this transition stands a cast of aging men, each well past seventy.