Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was met by a crowd of supporters in Istanbul on May 29, during the opening of the newly restored Ottoman era “Archer’s Lodge,” chanting, “The king of prime ministers is from Kasimpasa.” That is the district where Erdogan grew up, and which is known to be one of Istanbul’s roughest areas. 

“I am not a king but a prime minister elected with the nation’s votes,” Erdogan responded, according to the Dogan News agency, adding, “I am your servant, not your master.” One can understand Erdogan’s touchiness, given that his authoritarian tendencies have started to come under increasing scrutiny.

Taha Akyol, one of Turkey’s most respected political analysts who is not unsympathetic towards the AKP, and for whom Erdogan is known to have a special reverence, commented in the daily Hurriyet on May 30 on how proud he was for Turkey, during this week’s groundbreaking ceremony for the massive, $6 billion third suspension bridge that will connect the two shores of the Bosporus.

“Erdogan is very successful in areas like economic growth and modernizing of infrastructure, but I thought that as his success increases he is becoming more authoritarian,” wrotte Akyol, who incidentally is the father of Al-Monitor’s Mustafa Akyol. Citing the American political sociologist Martin Lipset, Akyol also noted that the tendency to use force increases as a politician’s term in office grows longer.