Right up to the wire, there was a hope that Turkey might say “no” to Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s eternal-seeming authoritarian regime. It was not a big hope, admittedly. Having jailed thousands of his opponents, including one of his presidential rivals, muzzled the media and tamed the courts, all the tools were at his disposal in the June 24 elections.

Despite the overwhelming odds against them, however, Turkey’s fractured opposition parties mounted a surprisingly robust challenge. As Balkan Insight reported, at one point it seemed Erdogan might be forced into a second round in the presidential race and be deprived of an overall majority in parliament.

That hope, or fear, has now gone – and Erdogan’s victory will have consequences way beyond Turkey’s borders, because his win marks another step towards the completion of a new political architecture for Eastern Europe, the Balkans, included, defined by the rule of strongmen.

A new “Eastern Bloc” is being formed, along much the same geographical lines as that described by Britain’s Winston Churchill at Fulton, Missouri, in 1946, when he warned of an “iron curtain” descending across Europe.