About a month ago, while campaigning for Turkey’s March 31 local polls, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stressed that “separating domestic and foreign policy is impossible” and that “domestic policy shapes foreign policy anywhere in the world.” In further remarks at the March 2 rally in Trabzon, he said, “The more our country grew stronger at home, the more it grew stronger and gained respect abroad over the past 17 years. The more the Turkish economy grew, the more influence Turkish diplomats gained. The more Turkish democracy advanced, the more Turkey’s say in foreign affairs increased.”

Before getting to the point, let’s use our liberty to construe Erdogan’s words and note that what he means by “our country” and “Turkish democracy” is his own rule since 2002.

In the local polls, Erdogan lost hold of Turkey’s most important city, Istanbul, the capital, Ankara, and all other big urban centers except Bursa. The fundamental meaning of this loss was described by Erdogan himself in his Trabzon speech. “Every move, every achievement of ours in domestic politics and — I underline — every election victory of ours has had very positive repercussions abroad,” he said.

The statement points to one crucial reality: The political clout derived from election victories was of significant help to Erdogan and then-Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu as the pair moved Turkish foreign policy away from its institutional trajectory and put it on an increasingly Islamist and anti-Western track from 2009 onward. Deserving a special mention in this regard are the 2010 constitutional referendum, which the government won with 58% of the vote, and the general elections the following year, in which Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party mustered a record 50% of the vote.