Another Islamist Dictator rising: ""Tayyip, we will go to our deaths for you!"

Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu "If you want war, if you want our children to be killed in wars in the Middle East, go and vote for Erdoğan."

Another Islamist Dictator rising: ""Tayyip, we will go to our deaths for you!" (Spiegel).

Snipers are in position on the roofs while helicopters circle above the square, where a crowd of people are waving flags depicting a crescent moon. Thousands have come from Istanbul, Ankara and the Black Sea to the small city of Yozgat in Central Anatolia. They have waited for hours in the heat to cheer for their leader. They chant his name as his campaign's theme song booms from the loudspeakers: "Man of the People, Recep Tayyip Erdogan."

When the Turkish prime minister walks onto the stage, women in headscarves break out in tears and bearded men fall to their knees.

Erdogan raises his hands and shouts: "Are we brothers and sisters? Are we Turks?" The crowd responds: "Tayyip, we will go to our deaths for you!" It's campaign season in Turkey, but that barely explains the frenzy. Erdogan has described his campaign as a war of liberation. His voters, the ones he hopes will make him president, are his troops.

In Istanbul's Kasimpasa harbor district, doors are unhinged and the homeless sniff glue under bridges. This is where Erdogan grew up and where he has his roots. The adolescent Erdogan was a "Black Turk," an outsider, whose father Ahmet made a living shipping goods across the Bosporus.

The young Erdogan learned to assert himself at an early age. He sold sesame pastries on the street, and was reportedly quick to lash out when someone tried to cheat him. Old people in the neighborhood remember him as an angry youth. "Tayyip never shied away from a fight," says one man. "He used to climb on to the roof of the mosque and recite verses from the Koran."

Erdogan was a striker with Erokspor, the local football club. He attended a religious Imam Hatip school, studied business administration and worked as a bookkeeper in a sausage factory before joining the Islamist Refah Party, where he met his wife Emine.

As president, Erdogan will also cripple the last control mechanisms, warns the president of the Turkish Bar Association, Metin Feyzioglu. "There are no longer any limits to his despotism."

The duties of the Turkish president are largely limited to ceremonial matters today, but Erdogan plans to expand his powers. And once he is president, there will no longer be anyone to veto new laws. As president, Erdogan will no longer be answerable to anyone, says Feyzioglu, and his successor in the office of prime minister will be a puppet at best.

The constitutional court, which has repeatedly prevented Erdogan from becoming excessively high-handed, will likely be eliminated as a corrective body, because the president appoints the judges.

For these reasons, Istanbul law professor Bertan Tokuzlu believes that the vote on Aug. 10 will be the "most important election in Turkey's more recent history." 

There will be no turning back if Erdogan becomes president, he notes. "Then he will transform Turkey into a one-man state, once and for all."

Erdogan himself makes no secret of how he intends to govern in the future. In a television interview in late July, he announced his intention to introduce a presidential system, and he cited China and Russia as models. Government affairs, Erdogan said, are obstructed by "oligarchs in the bureaucracy," and "our path is interrupted by hurdles." In the Erdogan state, there will no longer be any hurdles.Hmmm....I've always considered Erdogan more dangerous than Ahmadinejad, time only proves me right. The 'Sick Man' of Europe has Transformed in to the 'Mad Man' of Europe. Read the full story here.