Turkey’s President Erdogan may yet be defeated

MUHAMMAD SHEIKHOUNI came to Turkey from Syria in 2006, long before his native country plunged into civil war, and fell in love with Recep Tayyip Erdogan. A decade later, after setting up a tourism and construction company in Bursa, the former seat of the Ottoman empire, the businessman joined the president’s ruling Justice and Development (AK) party. This year, after Mr Erdogan called early elections for June 24th, Mr Sheikhouni decided to run for a seat. In the meantime, he also changed his last name—to Erdogan.

Inside his election tent, pitched on one side of a large square in Bursa, Muhammad Erdogan can hardly peel his eyes from the president’s image, printed on one of the walls, as he delivers his talking points. “There’s no one else like our reis,” he says, using the Turkish word for chief. “He opened his doors to the people of Syria, he helped the Somalis and he stood up for Palestine. He’s not only the leader of Turkey, but of the whole Muslim world.”