A post-Erdogan Turkey would only partly change its foreign policy

Recep Tayyip Erdogan’sNATONATO magic is not working. With less than three weeks until the elections, Turkey’s populist leader has made up little ground against Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the candidate of the main opposition alliance, in the presidential race. (Parliament will also be up for grabs.) Most polls give Mr Kilicdaroglu an edge in the first round on May 14th and see him winning a run-off two weeks later. Mr Erdogan is trying to regain popularity by dipping into the public purse. But he is also looking for help abroad, balancing, as he has done over the past decade, between allies, Russia and other autocracies, all while flexing his muscles at home.In the past couple of months, his government has waved through Finland’s accession to , which it had been blocking since last summer; banned companies from shipping sanctioned goods through Turkey to Russia; and courted Western investors whom it once spurned. But Mr Erdogan has also assured his supporters that Turkey no longer cares what Western countries think of its foreign policy, and accused the West of backing his rivals. “Their hostile stance toward Erdogan is a hostile stance toward my nation,” he said on April 13th. “My nation will foil this plot.”