Published in the Jerusalem Post, 27 April 2023
Recent events have not been playing to the advantage of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and there seems a real chance that he and his AK party may not emerge victorious from the presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for May 14.
Erdogan certainly hopes to be re-elected, if only to preside over the celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Turkey, which take place later this year. Modern Turkey came into existence on October 29, 1923 under its first president, Mustafa Kemal. His great achievement was to replace the creaky, autocratic, religion-based rule of the Ottoman past with a secular westernized form of administration. He was later formally endowed by parliament with the title Ataturk, Father of the Turks.
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Having jailed thousands
of political opponents, journalists and leading public figures, Erdogan has
also systematically restricted impartial coverage of national and international
events by the media. According to
Reporters Without Borders (RSF), about 90 per cent of Turkey's national media
is now under government control. In March the government refused to renew
the broadcasting licence of the German media outlet Deutsche Welle.
Even so, Erdogan’s power
is still subject to certain restrictions.
Much to their credit, those operating Turkey’s electoral system have
succeeded in remaining largely independent of government interference. Operating under close supervision, the
electoral process in Turkey has managed to stay relatively free and fair.
Erdogan and his party
have fallen in the public’s estimation for a number of reasons. After the violent earthquakes of February 6
left millions of Turks homeless, both president and ruling party were widely
criticized for their long-term failure to reform the country’s building
regulations in advance of the disaster. They were also condemned for mishandling the
search and rescue efforts afterwards, while questions have been asked about how
precisely the huge sums raised by a so-called earthquake tax imposed since 2002
(approximately $4.7 billion in total), have been disposed of.
Inflation in Turkey, out
of control for a long time, officially stood in March at just above 50%, which
is bad enough, but financial experts are saying the true rate is over
100%. Starting in early 2021 the Turkish
lira began to fall sharply in value. By
January 2022 the currency had lost 83% of its value, and the decline continued.
Over the year to February 2023, it had
lost a further 40% against the American dollar.
It has steadied in
recent months, as has the rate of inflation, but the extended cost-of-living
crisis has gripped all Turkish households and squeezed earnings and savings. This is why Erdogan launched his re-election
campaign with a party pledge to slash inflation to single digits and boost
economic growth.
Erdogan’s main opponent in the presidential poll is Kemal Kilicdaroglu. Unlike previous presidential elections when Erdogan faced a disunited opposition, Kilicdaroglu is fighting as a unity candidate for six opposition parties. He also has the unofficial backing of Turkey's pro-Kurdish HDP which, because of a court case alleging links to Kurdish militants, is running for parliament under the banner of another party, the Green Left.
Kilicdaroglu’s chances
of winning the election outright in the first round may have been dented by the
decision of a former center-left party colleague, Muharrem Ince, to join the
presidential race. Ince runs the secular
nationalist Homeland Party and has a strong presence on social media. Young voters in particular are said to have
been impressed by his dance moves on TikTok.
Pre-election polls are
notoriously unreliable. Recent surveys published online, though lacking
information about the numbers polled or the methods employed, all show
Kilicdaroglu leading Erdogan. The results of a poll published on April 14
showed Kilicdaroglu with 50.3% as against Erdogan’s 43.8%. A poll by the
organization Politpro published on April 22 gave Kilicdaroglu 47.7% and
Erdogan 43%. If these figures really indicate the nation’s voting
intentions, then Kilicdaroglu stands a chance of winning the presidency in the
first round.
That leaves open the
question of whether, if Erdogan were to lose, he would agree to a peaceful
transfer of power. In 2019, when his party lost the municipal election in
Istanbul, he insisted on a re-run, only to be shocked when the voters not only
re-elected the original winner, Ekrem Imamoglu, but by a much larger margin. Imamoglu
will not be participating in the forthcoming presidential poll. Found guilty of
insulting public officials, he was sentenced last December to 31 months in jail
and barred from all political activity. Yet according to a very
recent report in Le Monde he is not languishing in some prison
cell, but has been criss-crossing the country for weeks receiving a rapturous
reception. The paper did not divulge how he has evaded
incarceration.
Public opinion polls add
to the excitement, but the only votes that count are the ones at the ballot
box. There are several weeks yet before the elections and, as the saying goes,
a week is a very long time in politics.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-741329
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