The leader of Turkey’s secular main opposition, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, delivered an Oct. 18 deadline over the weekend to members of Turkey’s sprawling bureaucracy. They needed to stop engaging in illegal, “mafialike” activities. If they ignored his calls, they would not be exonerated on the grounds that they were acting under orders from their superiors, Kilicdaroglu warned.

His admonishments, relayed in a video, prompted a furious response from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Kilicdaroglu’s references to the mafia and “the stench of sewage” rising from the corridors of power were an insult to the president, Erdogan’s lawyer Huseyin Aydin, charged in a criminal complaint with the Ankara Chief Prosecutor’s office Monday.

Kilicdaroglu frequently lashes out at Erdogan. And Erdogan has taken legal action against the leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) numerous times. It’s hardly unusual that an opposition leader would act as if the government is going to be voted out of power. The problem for Erdogan is that after nearly two decades at the helm, this time around it might actually prove true.

Opinion polls consistently show Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) losing ground, with many suggesting that Erdogan’s governing alliance with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) would lose to an opposition bloc of parties in parliamentary and presidential elections that are due to be held in 2023. Erdogan still scores higher than his own party, but with the economy going from bad to worse, he too might be defeated in a second round of balloting.