Eli Lake, Columnist

Trump Can’t Let Erdogan Get Away With This

The Turkish president is trying to nullify the results of an election in the nation’s largest city.

May 8, 2019 at 4:30 AM UTC

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

Someone needs a talking-to.
Photographer: TATYANA ZENKOVICH/AFP

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On Tuesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced a curious new plan for “strengthening our democracy”: Because the people of Istanbul had voted the wrong party into power, the city would be holding new elections.

Alleging fraud and irregularities, Erdogan’s AK Party scheduled a revote of the city’s municipal elections for next month, which the party lost in March to a coalition of opposition parties. It’s an untenable situation for Erdogan’s Islamist party, which relies on the patronage that comes from controlling local governments.