A couple of years ago, in the main square of a small Turkish town,
this statue was taken down.
It’s the statue of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
founder of the Turkish Republic
who transformed the country into a Western-looking secular state.
“Islamic tradition is shattered, a man’s image, Mustafa Kemal, is displayed in public,
he also orders all Turks to adopt Western style family names and is himself christened Ataturk, father of the Turks”
But here it was
the father of the Turks being wheeled away to a lesser spot across town,
and all this in the birthplace of one man in particular…
Announcer at rally shouting: "Recep Tayyip Erdogan"
The order to move the statue is a powerful symbol of the future
“the new Turkey, the great Turkey, the pioneer Turkey has won."
This is the story of how Erdogan has consolidated power allowing him to recast Turkey in his own image
The most pivotal elections in modern Turkish history are taking place in June.
Erdogan currently holds the title of president.
And if he wins the vote, the once ceremonial position will become the nexus of political power.
Ahead of it, he has one major promise:
"Turkey will wake to a new era"
That's an expression that really begs for explanation.
Onur Ant reports for Bloomberg in the Turkish capital, Ankara
We have been hearing it for some many years now, but we don't really know what new Turkey is going to be like.
Erdogan could eventually hold power until 2028.
Signalling what some call stability and others a dictatorship.
It is amazing that there's very little that we know about him as a man,
despite the fact that he spent more than nearly three decades in Turkish politics.
Here's what we do know.
Erdogan's rise to power began in the 1990s when he was elected as the Mayor of Istanbul.
He quickly became known for his powerful speeches…
“We did this for the love of God. I swear we did it for love, really. That was our aim”
But in 1999 he was sent to prison after reading a religious poem which broke Turkey’s rules on secularism.
Erdogan thought about that time in jail as a period where he really put his thoughts together,
and that really contributed to the political persona he has turned into later.
Erdogan won a landslide victory in 2002 with his Justice and Development Party, or AKP.
As Prime Minister, he ushered in what appeared to be a Golden Age - building schools and roads,
introducing free healthcare
and beginning peace talks with the Kurdish minority based in the south-east of the country.
Erdogan also led an economic recovery which saw inflation drop and the average annual growth rate reach 5.8%.
He promised there will be no corruption, there will be no poverty, he was quite impressive.
Asli Kandemir is a finance reporter for Bloomberg based in Istanbul
and he pushed an Islamist agenda gradually, and slowly.
Certain changes like…
his promotion of religious education, tighter laws on alcohol, and strictures on daily life,
…created a divide between Turkey's religious classes and those who thought they undermined the country's secular foundations.
Things came to a head in 2013 when a group of environmentalists held a protest in the heart of Istanbul.
Seeing the protests as an extension of the Arab Spring movement, Erdogan cracked down hard.
It quickly turned out into a broader show of anger,
and the critics called Erdogan to resign.
But one of the biggest tests to Erdogan's leadership was yet to come…
In July 2016 a faction of the Turkish military launched a coup, bombing Parliament and killing more than 250 people.
we saw F16s basically running over our heads, running just above our heads,
dropping bombs to places that are literally hundreds of meters away from our houses,
ground shaking beneath our feet.
It was unexpected, it was shocking a huge majority of the population felt really betrayed that night.
Erdogan appeared via Facetime urging people to take to the streets.
The call was answered.
In a country which had seen 4 successful military interventions since 1960, this one failed and Erdogan’s popularity rating soared.
It was a dramatic time for the Turkish population and the president really emerged as the savior of democracy,
at least for a part of the population,
In the aftermath a state of emergency was declared,
allowing the government to rule while disregarding routine procedures.
“The most important feature of the state of emergency is to defeat terrorist organisations, wherever they are hiding and bury them”
Tens of thousands of Turks have been jailed and many have also lost their jobs…
people from all walks of life, doctors, civil servants, people who painted the walls in the parliament.
Access to websites including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube has also been repeatedly blocked...
And today Turkey jails more journalists than anywhere else in the world.
This has attracted a lot of critics from the western governments,
from right groups and from civil society in turkey.
They've been saying that Erdoğan is using the state of emergency to target opposition figures.
As the elections approach a shrinking economy and currency crisis
have left Erdogan's “New Turkey” in the balance and the country’s divide just keeps growing.
For his supporters, he's a reformist and a revolutionary leader who has changed the landscape of Turkey
but for his opponents, he's an autocratic leader who is trying to undermine the secular establishment of the country.
So as the statues of one Revolutionary are being taken down
his opponents fear that an autocrat's may be rising.