The AKP will thus have no choice but to re-enter coalition talks with its political adversaries. This has led many observers both inside and outside of Turkey to breathe a sigh of relief. Finally, they say, Erdogan will be tamed and Turkey's foreign policy will be tempered. Both the Republican People's Party and the Nationalist Movement Party will be intent on reeling in Erdogan and reducing his authoritarian tendencies by keeping alive the threat of prosecuting him and his allies over corruption and by blocking his attempt to transition Turkey into a presidential system. And while the more likely coalition partner, the Nationalist Movement Party, will reinforce the ruling party's hard-line stance on the Kurdish issue, both parties advocate a shift in Turkey's foreign policy that downgrades Turkish ambitions in the Islamic world and allows for more pragmatic engagement with Syrian President Bashar al Assad. In other words, Turkey can start to inch back to its old self.
But this is a different Turkey, one that does not pivot on a mere election. Many Turks may despise Erdogan, but he still speaks for a solid 40 percent of the population whose lives have dramatically transformed under his rule. For this segment of the population, Erdogan's Turkey defends the pious and rewards the loyal. And from Erdogan's point of view, that is a sufficient base to forgo political compromises and forge ahead with his aspiration of returning Turkey to a hegemonic role in the Middle East.
This carries serious consequences for the electoral aftermath in Turkey. Attempts to form a coalition will be made, but the sincerity in those attempts will be questionable. Erdogan has been known to bend institutional barriers at will to avoid sharing power, and this time may be no different. Even as political limbo persists in Ankara, the confluence of threats developing on Turkey's southern border with Syria will drive Turkish foreign policy more than any personality will.
As the Islamic State continues to threaten Turkey with spectacular attacks, Turkey's military will follow the source of that threat into Syria. As the United States expands its presence in Syria, to include the deployment of special operations forces working alongside Kurdish People's Protection Units, Turkey will be all the more compelled to reinforce its position in northern Syria west of the Euphrates River to keep a watch on the Kurds. As Russia fortifies the loyalists in Syria and targets the very rebels whom Turkey has been backing, Turkey will augment training, weapons and supplies for its preferred Sunni rebel factions. And as large numbers of migrants flow across the Syrian border into Turkey with an eye toward Germany, Turkey will use the crisis to bargain with the Germans over recognizing Turkey as a European power without having any real intention of solving Europe's problems.
It is less clear whether pragmatism will prevail in Turkey when it comes to the task of coalition building. What is more certain is that the Nov. 1 election will have little to no impact on the forces pulling Turkey into northern Syria.
