If Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was affected by the knife-edge nature of Turkey’s crucial election, with early results suggesting the president will be forced into a runoff for the first time, he did not show it when he addressed to the fervent followers at the beginning. Monday morning hours.
Instead, as he climbed the balcony of his Justice and Development Party (AKP) headquarters in Ankara, singing with the flag-waving crowd and delivering a fiery speech, he insisted he was in charge and would seal victory, whatever it meant that the presidential race was going to a runoff or not.
His energy and confidence underscored the task of the opposition, which entered Sunday’s election full of optimism. Although he dealt a blow to his nemesis, he appears to be far from striking a blow against a relentless activist who has dominated Turkish politics for two decades.
Preventing the incumbent from an outright victory would be a first for the opposition, led by Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who heads the Republican People’s Party, which has never won a national election against Erdoğan. But everything points to the momentum being in Erdogan’s favor. With 99% of ballots counted, the incumbent has 49.4% of the vote to Kılıçdaroğlu’s 45%, according to state media.
The challenge facing Kılıçdaroğlu’s six-party opposition coalition is underscored by the fact that Erdoğan’s ruling AKP, with its ultra-nationalist partner, is poised to secure a majority in parliament. This is expected to strengthen Erdogan’s hand ahead of any runoff, all as Turkey is reeling from a cost-of-living crisis that many blame on a president who is populist and divisive in equal measure.
For some, the results will have worrying echoes of 2018, when an opposition, galvanized in its mission to oust Erdogan, confidently hoped that economic woes would help it oust the president, only to come a distant second on Election Day. elections
This battle will enter uncharted territory if the race to secure the country’s all-powerful executive presidency reaches a runoff, scheduled for May 28. But Erdoğan, who has orchestrated a dozen electoral victories since first leading his Islamist-rooted AKP to power in 2002, is clearly ready for a fight.
Shortly after the charismatic strongman’s late appearance from the balcony, Kılıçdaroğlu, a soft-spoken retired bureaucrat, struck a defiant tone in a brief statement, saying he too was confident of winning a runoff. But the scene was much more sober in an auditorium full of empty seats. And he and his allies know they are competing on an uneven playing field, with the government controlling much of the media and Erdoğan unabashedly willing to deploy state resources to support his cause.
The surprise king could be Sinan Oğan, a third presidential candidate who unexpectedly won around 5 percent of the vote. Oğan is a former member of the ultra-nationalist Moviment Nacionalista party, a partner of the AKP in parliament. Kılıçdaroğlu’s efforts to woo his supporters could be complicated by Oğan’s hatred of the Kurdish-dominated People’s Democratic Party, which is backing his presidential bid.
Erdoğan and his supporters will continue to insist, despite criticism of his economic management, that he is the only man with the experience to fix the ailing economy and rebuild it after February’s devastating earthquake. The shrewd and combative 69-year-old, who has served as prime minister three times and is seeking a third term as president, is likely to play on people’s fears of instability in a politically polarized nation.
During the campaign, his speeches were filled with diatribes against Kılıçdaroğlu, whom he accused of preparing to surrender to the IMF, of being a “drunk”, pro-LBGT and aligning himself with the “terrorists”. More of the same can be expected.
Erdoğan will also try to exploit voters’ aversion to the conflicting coalitions that ruled the decade before the AKP came to power. Although the opposition has put on its most united front in its years-long bid to oust him, the coalition led by Kılıçdaroğlu is made up of disparate parts from across the political spectrum.
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Kılıçdaroğlu will face the cost of living crisis, which is expected to be Erdogan’s Achilles heel, with inflation rising above 40 percent and the lira near record lows. But his challenge will be to convince uncertain voters that the president no longer represents their interests and that his coalition is stable and can deliver results.
Even in opposition circles there have been doubts about whether the 74-year-old Kılıçdaroğlu has the charisma to take on Turkey’s political mastermind and questions whether the coalition would have been wiser to select a younger candidate, in particular Ekrem İmamoğlu, popular mayor of Istanbul. Depending on the final results, those doubts could re-emerge, especially if the opposition’s confidence has deflated.
There is no doubt that Erdoğan is in the fight of his political life. But, once again, he’s proving to his critics that he should never be left out.
andrew.england@ft.com
