ISTANBUL, Turkey — As Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan approaches the toughest election of his career on Sunday, he has marshaled many of the state’s resources to tilt the playing field in his favor.
Mr Erdogan, who has come to increasingly dominate the country over the past two decades, has tapped the Treasury for populist spending programs and raised the minimum wage three times in the past year and a half. His rival barely appears on the state broadcaster while the speeches of Mr. Erdogan are issued in full. And this weekend’s vote will be overseen by an election board that, during recent polls, has made questionable calls that have benefited the president.
And yet Mr Erdogan could still lose.
Recent polls show him trailing main challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu in a tight race that could see a runoff later this month. But Mr Erdogan’s grip on the country could also contribute to his undoing, if voters abandon him because of his strongman ways and persistently high inflation that has left Turks feeling poorer.
“The elections are not fair, but they are nevertheless free, and that is why there is always the prospect of political change in Turkey,” said Sinan Ulgen, director of the Istanbul-based research group EDAM. “The prospect exists and is now palpable.”
Mr. Erdogan has eroded democratic institutions, staffing the judiciary with loyalists and limiting freedom of expression. His main rival, Kilicdaroglu, has promised to restore democracy if he wins.
The closed race speaks to the complicated nature of Turkey. Political scientists say it is neither a full democracy nor a full-blown autocracy, but a mixture of the two in which the leader has outsized power but where elections can still bring about change.
Turkey has never descended into total autocracy because electoral politics retains a sacred place in national identity, a place revered by Erdogan himself. He and his ruling Justice and Development Party have regularly defeated their opponents at the polls over the years without signs of foul play, giving Mr. Erdogan a mandate.
Mr Erdogan rejected speculation he would refuse to step down if he lost, calling a question about the possibility “very ridiculous” during an interview with Turkish broadcasters on Friday. He came to power through democracy, he said, and he would respect the process.
“If our nation chooses to make such a different decision, we will do exactly what democracy demands,” he said.
Turkey’s political ambiguity is also reflected in its global position.
During the term of Mr. Erdogan, much of Turkish foreign policy has become personally associated with him, as he has proven to be a necessary but problematic—and sometimes baffling—partner of the West. He condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and sent aid to the Ukrainian government while not only refusing to join Western sanctions on Russia, but also expanding trade ties with the Russian president Vladimir V. Putin and approached him.
He has argued with the United States over Syria policy and disparages Washington in his speeches. It heads a NATO member state but has stymied the alliance’s expansion, delaying Finland’s ability to join and still refusing to accept Sweden.
All of this has, at times, left Western leaders wondering whose side they really are on.
A change in leadership in Turkey would resonate around the world, given the country’s unique position as a predominantly Muslim society with a staunchly secular state and a vast network of economic and diplomatic ties spanning Asia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East.
Kilicdaroglu has promised that if he wins, he will improve relations with the West and make Turkish foreign policy less personal. But what exactly that would look like is hard to predict: it represents a coalition of six political parties with widely divergent ideologies, and its track record offers few clues. Before entering politics, he was an official who headed Turkey’s social security administration.
After Erdogan ascended to the national stage as prime minister in 2003, he was widely seen as a new model Islamist democrat who was pro-business and interested in strong ties with the West. During its first decade, Turkey’s economy boomed, lifting millions of people into the middle class.
But more recently, after facing mass street protests against his governing style, becoming president in 2014 and surviving a failed coup attempt in 2016, he purged his enemies from the state bureaucracy, civil liberties limited and centralized power in their hands.
Mr. Erdogan maintains a fervent following, especially among working-class, rural and religious voters, who love his rhetoric about defending Turkey against a range of domestic and foreign enemies. She has rejected Turkey’s state secularism, expanding Islamic education and changing regulations to allow women working in government to wear headscarves.
The political opposition says its consolidation of power has gone too far and portrays Sunday’s vote as a make-or-break moment for Turkish democracy that could inspire other states struggling with would-be autocrats.
Erdogan’s advantages are clear, starting with the perks citizens can receive through ties to his political party, including state jobs, social support or local services such as new roads, analysts said.
The president’s use of power to make electoral gains has raised questions about how fair these elections really are.
“It’s more like a hybrid regime, where there are multi-party elections, but where the opposition does not enjoy the same opportunities as the government to convey its ideas and policies to voters,” said Ersin Kalaycioglu, a professor of political science at the Sabanci University. in Istanbul.
Mr. Erdogan has extended his dominance over the media. Major news networks are owned by businessmen close to Mr. Erdogan, while media that criticize his policies are often persecuted with fines and lawsuits.
A recent analysis by state-funded broadcaster TRT found that in April, Kilicdaroglu received only 32 minutes of air time. Mr Erdogan has 32 hours.
“TRT acts as a public relations company tasked with running the election campaign of the ruling party and its presidential candidate,” Ilhan Tasci, a member of the opposition party at the state broadcasting regulator, said in a statement when he publish the data.
Overseeing Sunday’s vote is the Supreme Electoral Council, a panel of judges. For decades, he was widely considered independent and trustworthy, but two recent decisions tarnished his reputation in the eyes of opposition supporters.
In 2017, while votes were being counted in a referendum on Turkey’s switch from a parliamentary to a presidential system, the junta decided to override the electoral law and include ballots that did not have an official stamp proving their authenticity . The referendum passed by a narrow margin, allowing Mr. Erdogan, the president at the time, greatly expanded his powers.
In 2019, after an opposition candidate beat Erdogan’s candidate in the mayoral race for Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, the council annulled the results, citing irregularities and ask them to refer The same opposition candidate also won it by an even bigger margin.
Those decisions raised questions about the electoral board’s willingness to rule against Mr. Erdogan, said Hasan Sinar, an associate professor of criminal law at Istanbul’s Altinbas University.
“On paper, they’re neutral,” he said. “But when the government stays in power for so long, no one in that position can be neutral anymore.” Any doubt about the neutrality of the electoral board was harmful to Turkey’s democracy, he added. “This should never be poisoned by doubt,” he said.
In recent weeks, Erdogan has used his bully pulpit to bash the opposition, warning that the country would suffer under his leadership and accusing them of conspiring with terrorists. Erdogan’s interior minister, Suleyman Soylu, who oversees the security forces, went further, casting doubt on the results before voting began.
The election was “an attempted political coup by the West,” Soylu said last month during a campaign stop. “It is a coup attempt formed by bringing together all the preparations to purge Turkey.”
A few days later, Mr. Soylu said that the party of Mr. Kilicdaroglu was “always open to deception.”
Despite the problems, Turks remain hopeful that Sunday’s poll will express the will of the people. This week, after Mr. When Soylu asked the electoral board to share detailed data on polling stations and voter registrations so his ministry could set up its own system to tabulate the vote, the electoral board pushed back, saying it only had the power to count votes. .
Others noted the long commitment of Mr. Erdogan with electoral politics, hoping that means he would accept his own loss if it happened.
“Turkey has a long tradition of multi-party democracy and a very strong attachment to the integrity of the vote,” said Mr. Ulgen, director of EDAM. If a clean vote is taken, it would probably be respected, even by Mr. Erdogan added.
But problems could arise if the results are very close, causing candidates to challenge them or question the process.
If the spread is very thin, said Mr. Ulgen, “all options are on the table.”
Gulsin Harman contributed to the report.
