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The ultra-right leader sinan ogan publicly invited his followers to vote for the current president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in the second round of the Turkish presidential elections. The electoral appointment is repeated this Sunday May 28 after none of the four candidates secured more than 50% of the vote. The two most voted, Erdogan and the opposition candidate, Kemal KilicdarogluThey are now trying to appeal to Ogan’s electorate, who came third in the presidential race.
The extreme rightist obtained the 5.17% —nearly three million votes— in the first round, so the support of their voters is decisive to secure victory in the second. Erdogan, who won the first round with 49.52% of the vote, is now closer to revalidating his presidential mandate for five more years thanks to the back official of Ogan.
Kiliçdaroglu, who won the 44.88% of the vote presidential election on May 14, is at a disadvantage compared to his adversary. The opposition had also negotiated with Ogan, hoping to get his support for the 28-M elections. However, the far-right has decided on the stabilityfor supporting whoever has the majority in Parliament – the Erdogan alliance – and thus preventing the president from being from a different party, which could cause tensions and political blockades.
Sinan Ogan, intervenes this Monday in a press conference in Ankara.
Refugees as a bargaining chip
Shortly after the electoral results were confirmed and when it was clear that the presidential elections were going to a second round, Ogan, aware that his voters were decisive, established his Red lines to give their support to one or the other candidate. These included the fight against kurdish terrorismthe expulsion of Syrian refugees and respect for the secular character of the republic of Turkey. According to data from the European Union, there are 3.5 million Syrian refugees in Turkey.
This issue has been important in the campaign, especially for far-right parties like Ogan’s. In the public appearance to announce his support for the president, Ogan stated that he had reached an agreement with Erdogan on this matter. It’s about a “timetable” for the return of refugees to their country of origin: “All the conditions will be created for their repatriation,” he declared.
[Erdogan se jugará la presidencia en la segunda vuelta: las claves para que siga dirigiendo Turquía]
[El opositor turco Kiliçdaroglu impugna los resultados de más de 7.000 urnas por irregularidades]
For his part, the opposition candidate had already announced his plans to expel Syrian refugees during the campaign. However, in his statements for the second round, Kiliçdaroglu seems to have chosen to emphasize a profile ultranationalist promising increased border protection and the deportation of all refugees. Although these are measures that he had already been announcing, this speech seems to respond to the strategic interest of appeal to the Ogan constituency.
The new campaign lines
Both Erdogan and Kiliçdaroglu have tweaked their campaign strategies for the second round. As analyzed by the Middle East Eyethe current president has opted for a positive and conciliatory line that puts the emphasis on national unity. The second round does not seem to have caught them by surprise, since they launched the new campaign on Monday, the day after the first elections. Erdogan will bet on revisit the affected places by the earthquake instead of calling rallies all over the country.
Kemal Kiliçdaroglu visits this Tuesday Antioch (Hatay), a city affected by the earthquakes.
The opposition, for its part, took four days to define its strategy for the second round campaign, which suggests that they expected victory in the first, as predicted by some surveys. In addition to the nationalist turn against the refugees, they are trying to appeal to the groups of voters who, according to their reports, stayed at home: the Kurds and the youngest. Although they hoped to attract support Ogan’swhich would have assured them of new voters, now they will have to face the remainder of the campaign without that security.
The opposition alternative has not convinced
The electoral horizon looks quite bleak for Kiliçdaroglu and his coalition, which brings together six parties from centre-left, nationalists and islamists. They bet on a less authoritarian Turkey, with greater democratic guarantees and more open to the West; but, above all, they had come together to end the Erdogan eraa leader who changed the parliamentary system into a presidential system that has allowed him accumulate all executive power and part of the legislature and the judiciary.
[Kiliçdaroglu, el candidato “sin carisma” en Turquía cuya misión es unir polos opuestos contra Erdogan]
However, their proposal has not managed to attract as much vote as they had hoped and the second round does not seem like a good scene to convince the voters needed to ensure victory. It is possible that part of Ogan’s supporters will decide to vote for Kiliçdaroglu, but it does not seem very realistic.
As Ogan declared in his appearance before the press, the opposition “could not show sufficient success against the Alianza Popular [de Erdogan]that carries 20 years in the powerand failed to establish a perspective that could convince us about the future and, more importantly, they failed to secure a parliamentary majority.”
