President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is continuing to make his less-than-democratic ambitions clear, and in doing so increasing social tensions in a Turkey already torn asunder along ethnic and ideological lines, with the animosity between Turks and Kurds, and Islamists and secularists, increasing daily.

The rekindled war with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which broke out shortly after the Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost its parliamentary majority in the June 7 general elections, and the daily killing of soldiers and policemen by the PKK are pouring fuel on a potentially explosive brew that promises little other than political chaos for the country.

Opposition politicians and analysts are united in their belief that Erdogan is trying to manipulate rising social tensions resulting from daily attacks by the PKK to the AKP’s benefit, in the hope that the electorate will be scared into returning the party to power on its own Nov. 1 for the sake of stability in the country. That is when early elections are due to be held after the AKP’s failure to form a coalition government with any of the opposition parties in parliament following the June elections.

Erdogan’s remarks show he has little time to spare for the political correctness required of him as a president. Constitutionally, the president, as the head of state, has to remain above party politics. Erdogan refused to do so in the lead-up to the June elections and campaigned actively for the AKP, calling on the electorate to return the party to power with 400 deputies so that it can write a new constitution for what he refers to as “New Turkey.”