If one replaced the cliched “Moment of Truth’’ with “Year of Truth,” 2014 may well be the “Year of Truth” for Turkey. First, the local elections at the end of March and then the first-ever direct election of the president by popular vote will make 2014 the “determining year” for Turkey. We were already expecting it to mark the beginning of the direction of the coming decade, but it is something else to be the “Year of Truth."

The “Year of Truth” may spell the end of the Erdogan era and with it, the eventual demise of so-called moderate Islam. 2014 derives its importance because the words “Turkey” and “Recep Tayyip Erdogan,” which in many ways are synonymous, and the “Year of Truth” cover it all.

The “Taksim-Gezi incidents” in their mildest definition or “Gezi riots” in their most extreme — they broke out at the middle of 2013 and rapidly spread to nearly the entire country — have tarnished Erdogan’s image on an unprecedented scale and basically brought an end to his dreams of being elected a “president with increased powers” in 2014 and installing an executive presidential system in Turkey.

Erdogan had dreams of ruling Turkey with an “one-man rule” until 2024 by securing constitutional amendments that would enable installing a kind of Latin America-France-Russia-mixture presidential system that would enable him to be elected president for two successive five-year terms.