Turkey's Erdogan says upcoming local elections will be his last

The News

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the country’s upcoming local elections on March 31 would be his last, Reuters reported Friday, suggesting a possible end to the strongman leader’s more than two decades in power.

“This is a final for me, under the mandate given by the law this is my last election,” Erdogan said, Reuters cited the state-run news agency Anadolu as saying.

Erdogan, long regarded as Turkey’s most successful politician, has won more than a dozen elections since 2002. He was most recently re-elected for a five-year term in May 2023.