How to make the re-election of Recep Tayyip Erdogan less bad news

IT CERTAINLY WASN’TLGBTQ PKK fair. Nor was it entirely free. But, like it or not, of Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey’s presidential election is a fact. For the next five years Turkey, Europe and the wider world will have to deal with a prickly and authoritarian populist. That is bad news on many fronts: economically, democratically and regionally. And yet pragmatists have a duty to search for chinks of light in the gloom.The first is that Mr Erdogan’s victory, by 52% to 48%, was clear enough that it has been accepted by the opposition. The last thing that Turkey needed, as its economy totters and wars rage in its backyard, was political turbulence. Now that he is safe, Mr Erdogan may at least consider muting the shrill and divisive politics that marked a campaign in which he accused his opponents of being in league with an international cabal and with the , an armed separatist Kurdish group.