In a March 12, 2013, article for Al-Monitor, I wrote, “Turkey’s future is to be decided by the nation's three most powerful men, by the equilibrium they shape among themselves and by deals they forge with each other.” The three powerful men at the time were then-Prime Minister and Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chairman Recep Tayyip Erdogan; the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) jailed founding leader, Abdullah Ocalan; and Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen, the head of the Hizmet Movement or “the Community,” who lives in self-exile in the United States.

The three men owed their power to a number of common characteristics. They all wielded enormous clout and charisma over their followers, had extraordinary organizational talents and entertained distinct visions for the future and projects for an alternative society. Their interactions, I argued, would determine Turkey's course.

After all the extraordinary developments Turkey has been through since 2013, including the AKP’s unexpectedly big victory margin in the Nov. 1, 2015, elections, I can now assert that Erdogan, using all his power and doing whatever it takes, has managed to overcome all obstacles to become "the man." Gulen and Ocalan have emerged the losers, far behind where they stood in March 2013.

For Erdogan, 2013 was an annus horribilis. The first threat to his political power came in June with the Gezi Park protests, in which more than 3 million people took part in 80 of Turkey’s 81 provinces, according to police figures. The anger boiling over in the streets targeted Erdogan directly, rather than the AKP. Pushing aside the party’s moderates, Erdogan suppressed the monthslong demonstrations with disproportionate and bloody police violence that overrode the basic rights and freedoms enshrined in the constitution.