President Erdogan can raise a crowd. As he travels to every corner of his huge country in the month before elections that could return him to the palace for another five years, tens of thousands turn out in sports halls, city squares and purpose-built rally grounds. His acerbic, bombastic public appearances, stage-managed with rock-star entrances and booming music, have become a hallmark of his brand of polished populism.
The 15,000-strong crowd who gathered in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo earlier this month might have been smaller than Erdogan is now used to, but their dedication made up for their numbers. Most had come from Western Europe, Turks from Germany, the Netherlands and Austria who had travelled on coaches for 24 hours just to spend one hour close to their hero. As I wandered around the grassy area outside the city’s Olympic Stadium before the doors opened, asking people why they had come, I was met with quizzical looks and identical answers. “For Tayyip!” I was told by teenagers, housewives and retired old men alike.
Erdogan has been banned from holding his rallies in those countries that they had travelled from, and so he came to Bosnia, whose Muslim president is a firm ally willing to do any of his bidding.
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