ANKARA, Turkey (AP) – In the year the Turkish republic celebrates its centennial, the country is being watched closely to see if a united opposition can succeed in ousting an increasingly authoritarian leader in the NATO member country.
Turkey’s presidential and parliamentary elections on Sunday could extend President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s rule into a third decade, or set the country on a new course.
Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the secular, center-left Republican People’s Party, or CHP, is the main challenger trying to unseat Erdogan after 20 years in office. The 74-year-old is the joint candidate of a six-party alliance that has promised to dismantle an executive presidential system that Erdogan installed and return the country to a parliamentary democracy with checks and balances.
In addition to the opposition alliance, Kilicdaroglu has secured the support of the country’s pro-Kurdish party, which gets around 10% of the vote. And the polls have given him a slight lead. The race is so close, however, that it is likely to be decided in a runoff between the two favorites on May 28.
Erdogan has lost ground amid a faltering economy and a cost-of-living crisis. His government has also been criticized for its poor response to a devastating earthquake that struck southern Turkey and killed tens of thousands of people earlier this year.
“For the first time in the 20 years since Erdogan came to power, he faces a real electoral challenge that he may lose,” said Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, director of the Ankara office of the German Marshall Fund, adding that the race was about two competing visions. .
“On the one hand, there is President Erdogan’s vision of a security state, a monist society, with power consolidated in the hands of the executive,” he said. “On the other hand, there is the vision, represented by Kilicdaroglu, of a more pluralist Turkey in which there is no alternate community, which is more democratized and… there is a clear division of powers between the executive , the legislature and the judiciary”.
Erdogan is running for a third presidential term, having previously served three terms as prime minister. The 69-year-old leader of the conservative and religious Justice and Development Party, or AKP, is already the country’s oldest leader. Erdogan, a highly divisive politician, has built his election campaign on past successes, presenting himself as the only politician who can rebuild lives after the Feb. 6 earthquake in southern Turkey that leveled cities and killed more than 50,000 people
He has also embarked on a big spending spree ahead of the election, including raising the minimum wage and pensions, to try to offset the effects of inflation.
During his campaign stops, Erdogan has tried to portray the opposition as colluding with “terrorists” as well as foreign powers that want to harm Turkey. In a bid to shore up his conservative base, he has also accused the opposition of “misguided” LGBTQ rights support and being “drunk”. On Sunday, hundreds of thousands of his followers were shown a fake video depicting a commander of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) singing an opposition campaign song.
Kilicdaroglu, meanwhile, is a soft-spoken politician who is credited with bringing together a previously fractured opposition. His six-party Nation Alliance, which includes Islamists and nationalists, has vowed to reverse democratic backsliding and crackdowns on free speech and dissent under Erdogan.
Two other candidates are also in the race for the presidential post, but are considered outsiders. They are Muharrem Ince, a former CHP leader who lost the last presidential election to Erdogan in 2018, and Sinan Ogan, a former academic who is backed by an anti-immigrant nationalist party. Ince, who heads the Homeland Party, has been criticized by Kilicdaroglu’s supporters who accuse him of splitting votes and forcing the election into a second round.
The main issue of the election is the economy and the high inflation that has eaten away at the purchasing power of families.
In Istanbul, tea shop owner Cengiz Yel said he would vote “for change” because of the government’s mismanagement of the economy.
“We worry about rent, electricity and other bills.” Yel said. “For the past year, I’ve started every nine months with more debt.”
Others profess their enduring love for a leader who improved the country’s infrastructure and lifted many out of poverty in the early years of his rule.
“I love my nation. I want to be with a leader who serves his nation,” said Arif Portakal, a 65-year-old Erdogan supporter in Istanbul.
The campaign has been marred by some violence. On Sunday, protesters in the eastern city of Erzurum threw stones as Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu campaigned on behalf of Kilicdaroglu from atop a bus. At least seven people were injured.
Voters will also vote for seats in the 600-member parliament. The opposition would need at least a majority to enact some of the democratic reforms it has promised.
More than 64 million people, including 3.2 million expatriate Turkish citizens, are eligible to vote. More than 1.6 million people have already voted in ballot boxes abroad or at airports. Electoral turnout in Turkey is traditionally high.
There are concerns about how voters among the 3 million people who have been displaced after the earthquake that devastated 11 provinces will be able to cast their ballots. Officials say only 133,000 people who were forced to leave their hometowns have registered to vote in their new locations. Some political parties and non-governmental organizations plan to transport evacuees back to the earthquake zone to allow them to vote.
Many have questioned whether Erdogan would accept an electoral defeat.
In 2015, Erdogan is believed to have worked behind the scenes to block coalition talks after his ruling party lost its parliamentary majority in elections. The party regained the majority in repeated elections a few months later. And in 2019, the ruling party contested the results of local elections in Istanbul after the AKP lost the mayoral seat. That time, however, the party suffered a more humiliating defeat in the repeat election.
Observers are anxious to see whether an organized opposition can overcome obstacles in a country where the leader exercises tight control over the media, judiciary and electoral body, and still achieve peaceful regime change.
“The world is watching because this is also an experiment, because Turkey, like some other countries, has been following the authoritarian path for a long time,” Unluhisarcikli said. “And if this trajectory can only be reversed through elections, this could be an example for other countries.”
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Mehmet Guzel contributed from Istanbul.
