After a tense electoral night due to the tightness of the result, Turkey will go to a second round of the presidential elections, since none of the candidates reached more than the 50% required for victory in the first round. The leader with the most votes was the current president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who got 49%closely followed by the main opposition candidate, Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, who got 45% of the votes Sinan Ogan, the far-right candidate, took 5%, while Muharrem Ince fell short of 1%.
The second round, which will be held on May 28, will be a duel between the two candidates with the most votes, Erdogan, leader of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and Kiliçdaroglu, of the Republican People’s Party (CHP). The current president is playing to maintain the power that, after 20 years at the helm of the country, has turned him into an increasingly authoritarian leader. For his part, the opposition candidate, supported by six other parties, aims to return to the parliamentary system and restore the balance of powers that Erdogan altered by creating Turkey’s current presidential system.
Despite of earthquakewhich claimed more than 50,000 lives and displaced around five million people in early February, Turkey has seen a record turnout greater than 88%, more than 64 million people. Furthermore, neither the pandemic nor the country’s deep economic crisis seem to have decisively weakened Erdogan.
Ogan voters decisive
During the next two weeks of the campaign, Erdogan and Kiliçdaroglu will try to attract the far-right followers of sinan ogan, which have become decisive for victory in the second round. This third candidate has been very critical of both Erdogan and the opposition. Ogan was expelled in 2015 from the Nationalist Action Party (MHP), a key partner of the AKP. He looks like his own Erdogan supported Ogan’s expulsionso he does not have special affection for the president.
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Ogan’s ideological stance also does not bring him closer to the opposition, since he considers that the nationalists who have joined Kiliçdaroglu, former members of the MHP led by Meral Aksener, have leaned too far to the left. The opposition coalition includes six political forces that go from the center left, traditionally represented by the CHP; going through Islamist parties, to the nationalist right. The latter did not agree to go along with the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP). However, the HDP announced weeks before the elections its support for Kiliçdaroglu’s candidacy. That rapprochement with the Kurds is not acceptable to Ogan.
Given the uncertainty and the importance of Ogan’s voters, who in the second round will have to decide for Erdogan or Kiliçdaroglu, it is possible that the far-right leader will intervene in the campaign between now and May 28 and decide in favor of one or the other candidate to guide the vote of his supporters.
The “drag effect” of the results in Parliament
During the day on Sunday, the Turks also deposited their vote for the parliamentary elections. The parties have come grouped in alliances to manage to concentrate the largest number of votes. The People’s Alliance, led by Erdogan’s AKP, obtained 49.47%, followed by Kiliçdaroglu’s CHP National Alliance, which obtained 35.09%, and the pro-Kurdish parties with 10.32%. These results confirm the forecasts that the party of Erdogan will renew control of the House.
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This is an important element for the second round, since it could condition the votes in what some experts call the “drag effect.” With the AKP being the winner in the parliamentary elections, there could be a inertia that will lead Erdogan to vote so that the president is from the same party that has a majority in Parliament. You have to keep in mind that she is the first time Erdogan goes to a second round to secure power.
If Kiliçdaroglu were to win the presidency, it would be a situation of party cohabitation in which the CHP leader would become the head of the Executive, while the Assembly would be controlled by the AKP. This circumstance would foreseeably generate clashes and political blockade. Therefore, there is the possibility that part of the voters in the second round will change their vote to avoid it, thus consolidating Erdogan’s power for five more years.
