President Erdoğan faces a no-win scenario. If he calls early elections, he risks a resounding defeat. But if he waits, he risks more than defeat—he risks being pushed aside by a generation that has already moved on.

This is President Erdoğan’s Catch-22—a political dilemma with no easy exit. The 2024 local elections made the trend unmistakable: for the first time in decades, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) emerged as the leading political force in Turkey. The symbolic blow was severe, but the structural threat is even greater. Each year, over a million young voters enter the electorate. And Erdoğan is losing them by a landslide.

Two separate polls, by Di-En and Ank-Ar, suggest that among newly eligible voters, only 17-18% support Erdoğan’s AKP. This is half the percentage point that his party got in 2024. In contrast, more than twice those numbers, around 34-41%, lean toward the CHP. This gap isn’t a statistical footnote. It’s a generational rupture. These voters are not just dissatisfied with Erdoğan’s economic management or foreign policy misadventures—they are alienated from his entire political project.

And the math is relentless. Between 2024 and 2026, approximately 2.2 million new voters will have joined the electorate. By 2028, that figure is projected to grow to over 4.4 million. If current trends hold, these new voters alone could add nearly 2 million votes to the CHP’s column—enough to tilt a close election or transform a narrow loss into a crushing defeat. In percentage terms, this could mean a 2–3 point swing in favor of the opposition—driven by young, urban, digitally connected voters who see the AKP not as a path forward, but as everything they want to dismantle before they can rebuild anything better.

The irony speaks for itself. For millions of young Turks raised under the incumbent AKP, President Erdoğan’s party is not just outdated—it’s a daily reminder of everything they want to leave behind. It stands for failure, fear, and a future on hold. What they see is not governance, but a cycle of polarization, decay, and resentment dressed up as politics. This isn’t about one leader—it’s about a system that drains their youth, mocks their hopes, and gives nothing back.

This demographic shift isn’t just background noise—it’s the driving force pushing the regime toward an impossible choice between bad and worse.

And here is the dilemma:

President Erdoğan can call early elections, gambling that the opposition is still disorganized or complacent, and hoping to win before the demographic tide becomes unmanageable. But the 2024 results suggest that this tide may already be turning. Even a strong campaign could fail to stem the losses.

Or he can wait until late 2027, relying on his coalition’s majority in the parliament. But every year of delay deepens the demographic deficit. His base is shrinking. His opposition is multiplying. Time is the one opponent his ruling AKP can’t suppress, co-opt, or distract. And no amount of conservative bravado or clientelist mobilization can outvote the calendar.

This strategic paralysis mirrors a deeper truth: President Erdoğan has lost the ability to speak to the present, let alone the future. The longer he delays, the more that future slips from his grasp. And the more obvious it becomes that Turkey’s next chapter will not be written by him—no matter which path out of the Catch-22 he takes.