In what seemed like a neck-to-neck fight, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has clearly shown the miles he could go to win the race. The unprecedented run-off vote after his rival snatched his outright win on May 14 has culminated and unofficial votes suggest Mr Erdogan scored 52.1 per cent of the ballot boxes. The pursuit of the third consecutive term ever since e rose to power in 2003 proved to be the toughest one as of yet because of dire economic constraints and earthquake disasters. He may have been in the limelight for far too long but the freefalling Lira and touristy illusions failing to keep up with ground realities were existential challenges, indeed. The situation became all the more worrisome with the opposition candidate courting the ultranationalist audiences with promises to expel Syrian refugees. Although he could not bridge the gap, there’s no denying the fact that Turkey has had a close brush with bigoted, anti-immigrant policy. It would be extremely unfair to suggest all’s well and good under President Erdogan. His failure to rein in the struggling economy has been the centre of attention for months. More instability is bound to come as international speculators continue to downgrade their rankings. However, he cannot sweep the fallacy in his policies and disastrous handling of natural disasters in February under the rug just because he knew when to tug holes in the “extremist” narrative. Mr Erdogan is no better in his handling of the immigrant crisis and keeps emphasising his plans to send people back to Syria. In the 21st year on the hot seat, the Turkish President might realise that words alone are never enough to bring about change that matters. In order to be taken seriously as a reformist, not a remnant of the days gone by or the least of the worst options, he needs to work on how to strengthen the parliament, unroll a pro-growth agenda and actually embrace those he used to score brownie points on the campaign trail. *