Sharjah 24 – AFP: Recep Tayyip Erdogan has cemented his status as the most important figure in modern Turkish history, after victory in Sunday's presidential runoff extended his transformative two-decade rule to 2028.
The ultimate political survivor, Erdogan, 69, has overcome jail and a bloody 2016 coup attempt to steer his country through an era of diplomatic clout, economic development and political strife.
An unprecedented opposition coalition, galvanised by a biting economic crisis and fury over a calamitous February earthquake, represented the toughest national electoral challenge for the Islamic-rooted conservative.
But while polling forecast he was closer to defeat than ever, Erdogan beat the odds yet again to come within a whisker of winning in the first round before clinching victory on Sunday.
He defeated his secular opposition rival, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, by four percentage points -- closer than any other election, but enough to end his political career undefeated in national polls.
His aura of invincibility reaffirmed, none can deny Turkey's longest-serving leader is the country's most consequential since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the revered founder of the post-Ottoman republic.
Admirers laud Erdogan for unshackling religious restrictions in the officially secular but mostly Muslim state, overseeing ambitious infrastructure projects and turning Turkey into a geopolitical force.
Detractors accuse him of slipping into authoritarianism reminiscent of the Ottoman sultans, shaking Turkey's democratic foundations and impoverishing millions through misguided beliefs that contradict conventional economics.
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