[OPINION] Erdoğan’s ‘masterpiece’: demolition of the rule of law

Adem Yavuz Arslan*

Mimar Sinan, the Ottoman Empire’s legendary architect, is remembered for three defining works: the Şehzade Mosque, his apprenticeship; the Süleymaniye Mosque, his journeyman phase; and the Selimiye Mosque, his ultimate masterpiece. Each stage represented growth, refinement, and enduring vision. More than four centuries later, his structures still rise with elegance and strength.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan often casts his own political career in similar terms, an apprenticeship, a journeyman period and finally, a masterpiece. Yet what he has built over the past three decades bears little resemblance to Sinan’s legacy. Erdoğan’s architecture is one of decay, corruption and repression.

His political apprenticeship began in 1994 as mayor of İstanbul. At first, he presented himself as a problem-solver, fixing water shortages and cleaning the streets. But beneath the image of efficiency lay a discovery that would shape his entire career: the use of municipal resources, profits from rezoning and construction projects and patronage to consolidate power. Where Sinan’s Şehzade reflected youthful elegance, Erdoğan’s early work buried İstanbul in concrete and cronyism.

The journeyman phase began with his rise to power in 2002. This was when the outlines of authoritarianism became visible. The most telling episode came in December 2013, when massive corruption probes revealed ministers hiding millions of dollars in shoeboxes and a gold trader, Reza Zarrab, orchestrating international bribery schemes. The investigations were buried, prosecutors purged and evidence dismissed. At the same time, Erdoğan orchestrated the takeover of major media outlets, forcing business tycoons, fat with state contracts, to buy newspapers and TV channels on his behalf. The result was the so-called pool media, a group of media outlets taken over by pro-government businesses and turned into propaganda tools, making them a chorus of loyalty that drowned out dissent. International watchdogs such as Freedom House and Reporters Without Borders began downgrading Turkey’s press freedom ratings, marking the country’s steady slide into censorship. If Sinan’s Süleymaniye symbolized imperial grandeur, Erdoğan’s journeyman phase came to symbolize the death of accountability and the silencing of independent voices.

The final stage, Erdoğan’s so-called “masterpiece,” has taken shape since a failed coup in 2016. Under the cover of prolonged emergency rule, corruption was no longer concealed but openly institutionalized. Major corporations were seized through state trusteeships and transferred to regime loyalists. Mafia figures became open partners of the state, their testimony exposing a web where politics, organized crime and illicit wealth seamlessly merged. Meanwhile, the last remnants of free expression were crushed. Rulings from the European Court of Human Rights were ignored, journalists languished in prison and thousands of academics and civil servants were driven into exile. Transparency International now ranks Turkey among the most corrupt states in its region, while the World Justice Project places it near the bottom of its global rule-of-law index.

Sinan’s Selimiye Mosque still towers over Edirne as a testament to vision and permanence. Erdoğan’s masterpiece is something else entirely: an economy in crisis, a judiciary stripped of independence, a political system captured by mafia-style patronage. It is not a legacy of endurance but of collapse.

Erdoğan once boasted that he, like Sinan, had moved from apprenticeship to mastery. Yet history will not remember him as a builder. It will remember him as a demolisher. Unlike Sinan’s domes, Erdoğan’s so-called masterpiece will not stand the test of centuries. It is a fragile architecture of fear and corruption, destined to crumble under the weight of its own decay.

*Adem Yavuz Arslan is a journalist with over two decades of experience in political reporting, investigative journalism and international conflict coverage. His work has focused on Turkey’s political landscape, including detailed reporting on the 2016 coup attempt and its aftermath, as well as broader issues related to media freedom and human rights. He has reported from conflict zones such as Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq, and has conducted in-depth research on high-profile cases, including the assassination of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink. Arslan is the author of four books and has received journalism awards for his investigative work. Currently living in exile in Washington, D.C., he continues his journalism through digital media platforms, including his YouTube channel, Turkish Minute, TR724 and X.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Turkish Minute.