After winning landmark presidential and parliamentary elections, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has taken a giant step towards one-man rule in Turkey. This is an extremely worrying development in the largest Muslim Nato member state. Since the July 2016 failed military coup Turkey has been under a state of emergency, which makes it hard to believe election campaigns were fought cleanly. Government control of media meant opposition parties were not given equal airtime. Journalists and human rights defenders have been prosecuted and jailed, sometimes for bogus terrorism offences. Farcically, one of the six candidates for the Turkish presidency campaigned from jail.

Though Turkey is not a dictatorship, it is now an illiberal democracy. The public votes but the government pays no more than lip service to minority and individual freedoms. Mr Erdoğan, the leader of the Justice and Development party (AKP), will take up the vast presidential powers he fought for – and won in a referendum last year. He will now control a powerful system of government that abolishes the role of prime minister and shrinks the role of parliament. He can now legislate by decree. The new president and his party control the body that appoints the judiciary. Until these changes judges and prosecutors had been a thorn in Mr Erdoğan’s side. But a quarter of them were dismissed in a crackdown last year. Little wonder the judiciary now gives Mr Erdoğan standing ovations. So much for the separation of powers.

Mr Erdoğan is a politician who developed a party, became that party, and is now in the process of becoming the state. In 2003 he sold himself as a technocrat, before donning Islamist garb. Mr Erdoğan may be committed to the symbols of Islam, but he seems much more committed to himself. His victory on Sunday was made possible by joining with an ultra-nationalist party that had previously opposed him. It would have been better if Mr Erdoğan had gracefully slipped into Turkey’s traditionally ceremonial presidential role and mentored a younger generation. Instead he could be in power until 2034.

Mr Erdoğan’s AKP came to power after a financial crisis wherein the political elite were seen as either exhausted or corrupt. Inflation was in double figures. Interest rates hit 6,000%. Mr Erdoğan delivered growth and stability. The economy is double the size it was a decade ago. Yet Mr Erdoğan’s story could easily be one of hubris and nemesis. He faces incipient economic and diplomatic crises. In Turkey inflation is creeping upwards, the currency is falling – putting pressure on companies that borrowed in dollars. Mr Erdoğan’s vow to continue to “liberate Syrian lands” bodes ill for regional peace. He has replaced able ministers with supplicants. Turks are deeply divided. Graft allegations stain the AKP and the opposition fared much better than polls predicted. Mr Erdoğan has ascended to great heights but that would make a fall all the more dramatic.