Rexhep tayyip erdogan biography

He narrowly won a 2017 referendum granting him sweeping presidential powers, including the right to impose a state of emergency and appoint top public officials as well as intervene in the legal system.

A year later, he secured outright victory in the first round of a presidential poll.

His core vote lies in small Anatolian towns and rural, conservative areas.

In 2019, his party lost in the three biggest cities - Istanbul; the capital, Ankara; and Izmir.

Losing the Istanbul mayorship narrowly to Ekrem Imamoglu of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) was a bitter blow to Mr Erdogan, who was the city's mayor in the 1990s.

He never accepted the result.

Mr Imamoglu was ahead of the president in the opinion polls before he was barred from running in the May elections. The president and his allies were accused of using the courts to disqualify the popular mayor from the vote.

Turkey's third biggest