Look on my works and despair

My warnings about the dangers of adopting a presidential system, as Turkey has done, seems to be borne out by the unveiling of a new palace for the president, despite the previous one proving no slum to 12 consecutive chief exceutives, including the current incumbent Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who felt moved to create the ugly modernist mish-mash as part of his drive to make a 'new Turkey'.  Follies rarely come with a bill of $350m.
With 1,000 rooms spread over 200,000 square metres, it makes Ceaușescu's (unfinished) Palace of the People look restrained in its modesty.  When construction began, the Romanian despot had already converted his position into a fully-fledged executive presidency.  It is a peculiarity of autocratically-inclined presidents that, Ozymandias-like, they must stamp their legacy with a symbol of their megalomania.  Francisco Solano Lopez, the nineteenth century tyrant of Paraguay who through war and execution reduced the population of his country by more than 80%, not only constructed an extravagant residence but an opera house worthy of Paris or Milan.  He was killed by a Brazilian soldier on the same day that he had signed his own mother's death warrant (he had previously had her flogged for questioning his hereditary right to rule, saying he was a bastard in the official sense of the word).
Viktor Yanukovych, the kleptocratic former Ukranian president who seemed to take as his role models Sukarno, Mobutu Sese Seko and 'Baby Doc' Duvalier, had his Mezhyhirya estate on the most distant outskirts of Kiev extravagantly upgraded to make it the last word in opulence.  After he fled taking the easy way out like Nero (he was not overthrown), ordinary Ukrainians walked around the grounds stunned at the size of the garage, private zoo and three floating duckhouses (eat your heart out, ex-MP Peter Viggers).  Coincidentally, it had also been the retreat of pre-World War II local communist chief and then that of the Nazi governor for this part of Ukraine.
No doubt, Blaise Campaoré in his 27-year rule as president of Burkina Faso had a luxuriously outfitted palace, trappings denied to his population which bumped along the bottom of the UN Human Development Index.  He won't be able to enjoy that anymore, having fled in the last three hours to the safety of Ghana, only a day after he said protests that killed 30 of the opposition wouldn't oust him.  He had over-reached himself proposing a draft law that would extend his reign.  Erdoğan may reach a tipping point eventually too but not yet.