The president faces his biggest challenge in the face of Kiliçdaroglu and the blows of inflation and earthquakes
May 13. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The population of Turkey is called to the polls this Sunday for presidential and parliamentary elections that are presented as crucial for the political future of the country, a vote in which the current president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, aspires to a new term against Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, backed by a coalition of opposition parties.
The date of the vote is highly significant since the elections coincide with the centenary of the founding of Turkey as a secular republic under Kemal Ataturk, while on May 14, 1950 an election was held in which the Republican Party suffered a severe setback. of the People (CHP), currently led by Kiliçdaroglu.
Erdogan, the Turkish politician who has led the country’s politics for the longest time – nearly 20 years between his tenure as prime minister and then as president – is facing what could apparently be his biggest challenge at the polls, with some polls giving Kiliçdaroglu the lead just days before the vote.
The 69-year-old Turkish president has promoted during his tenure a conservative social model and a policy of expanding Turkey’s influence in the international sphere, especially in the region, which has led to a distancing from some Western allies within NATO.
In this sense, Turkey has been involved in various diplomatic clashes with European countries -sometimes over its positions on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), considered by Ankara to be a terrorist group- and even with the United States for their support for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), led by the Syrian Kurdish militia People’s Protection Units (YPG).
In addition, the president has asserted Turkish military power with incursions and air operations against the PKK and the YPG in Iraq and Syria, but has also supported the national unity government in Libya during the conflict in the country and has had various clashes. with Greece –historical rival in the region– and countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Irsael.
However, he has also portrayed the country as an important mediation center, including its role in hosting contacts in 2022 between Russia and Ukraine to try to reach a peace agreement and the pact to authorize the export of grain from Ukrainian ports in middle of the conflict, achieved with the mediation of the United Nations.
Erdogan has also led a push that moves the country away from the secular model established by Ataturk and has opted for a centralization of power around the Presidency, something that has also increased the alienation of his opponents, against whom the campaign of repression.
Thus, critics of the president accuse him of silencing journalists, activists and opponents who have been critical of his policies, especially in the wake of the 2016 coup attempt, which led to a campaign of arrests that has resulted in Thousands of detainees and sentenced.
The focus of this campaign was the Islamist cleric Fetulá Gulen, a former ally of Erdogan — until the Police and the Prosecutor’s Office, alleged sympathizers of the cleric, according to the Turkish government, opened a corruption investigation in 2013 against several senior executive officials. — and whom the authorities accuse of being behind the attempt and of establishing a kind of “parallel state” within the institutions.
Despite the fact that the president seemed certain of heading for another victory when he opted to advance the elections, the deepening of the economic crisis — including inflation of more than 50 percent blamed in part on his refusal to raise interest rates — and the devastating earthquakes registered in February in the south of the country — which left more than 50,000 dead in Turkish territory — have affected their aspirations.
THE KILIÇDAROGLU CHALLENGE
In fact, the figure of Kiliçdaroglu has been gaining strength in recent months thanks to the support of a coalition made up of six opposition parties and the recent support given to his candidacy by the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).
The HDP, the target of a harsh campaign of arrests by security forces for its alleged ties to the PKK — including arrests of senior officials and public representatives on “terrorism” charges — initially said it would not present a candidate for the Presidency, paving the way for Kiliçdaroglu, whom in the end he has openly supported.
Kiliçdaroglu, 74, a member of the Alevi minority, has also been one of the most recognizable faces of the Turkish opposition in recent years, especially after leading a nearly month-long march for justice in the country in 2017 that led to one of the biggest shows of force against Erdogan since he came to power.
Various analysts have pointed out in recent weeks that the arrival of Kiliçdaroglu, described by some of his followers as ‘the Turkish Gandhi’, could open the doors to a restart of relations with his traditional Western partners, especially given that the opposition program includes avoid international decisions marked by ideological or political considerations at the internal level.
Alongside Erdogan and Kiliçdaroglu is the candidate of the far-right Nationalist Movement Movement (MHP) — Erdogan’s ally –, Sinan Ogan, while Muharren Ince, of the centrist Homeland Party, withdrew his candidacy on Thursday, something that could benefit the leader of the CHP, the party to which Ince belonged –who already ran for the 2018 elections– until the month of March.
THE VOTING SYSTEM
Turkey went from a parliamentary system to a presidential one in July 2018 as part of a reform promoted by Erdogan himself, which implies that the president is directly elected by universal suffrage, while the figure of the prime minister was eliminated.
Thus, a candidate needs to collect more than half of the votes to win in the first round, while a second round would be held in two weeks between the two most voted if none of them accumulates a sufficient number of votes on February 14. May.
On the other hand, the Turks will have to elect the 600 members of the Grand National Assembly, the official name of Parliament, through a system of proportional representation. To win seats, a party has to pass the seven per cent ballot threshold or be in an alliance that passes this threshold, which has caused these coalitions to gain increasing weight to prevent smaller parties from being unrepresented.
In this case, four minority parties have joined the National Alliance –headed by Kiliçdaroglu’s CHP and the nationalist IYI Party (Good Party)– to increase their chances, while six other parties compete under the alliance led by the HDP, which also includes Izquierda Verde.
The reforms promoted by Erdogan also imply that the president is the one who chooses the government, so if his coalition, the National Alliance, fails to maintain a majority in Parliament, it could face problems implementing its policies in case to get a new mandate.
This new term for Erdogan would also come amid complaints of unconstitutionality by the opposition, since it would be the third -something prohibited by the Constitution-, although the Electoral Commission ruled that the counter was reset to zero in 2018 after the application of the reform of the system after a referendum.
