Postcard from Istanbul
DIVINE fortune, and perhaps not a little political engineering, helped President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan this Eid.
Protests over the dawn arrest on 19 March of Ekrem İmamoğlu, Istanbul’s mayor and emerging opposition force, began to fizzle out when the government extended the usual three-day religious festivities well into April with a nine-day public holiday. It wasn’t just that all the revolting students had been sent home: after 20 years of Erdoğan’s rule, our politicians are now just a bit rubbish.