Around 61 million voters go to the polls in Turkey today to elect a president and parliament, in a vote in which the political survival of the current head of state, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is at stake.
With most polls anticipating Erdogan’s defeat in the presidential elections, the electoral act in Turkey is also a test of the political survival capacity of the current 69-year-old head of state.
The founder of the AKP, a conservative and Islamist formation, faces the leader of the Republican Popular Party (CHP, social democrat and nationalist), Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, 74, supported by a heterogeneous coalition of six parties and a left-wing formation. of the rights of the Kurdish minority, which may have its last chance to end the growing authoritarianism of Erdogan at the polls.
Three days after the vote, the polls gave the candidate of the Alliance of the Nation, which heads the CHP and which includes five other parties, from centrists to right-wing nationalists and an Islamist formation, 49.3% of the votes. , if the undecided option is chosen (7%) it will be shared proportionally between the two candidates. President Erdogan would only receive 43.7% of the vote.
Speaking to TSFLuís Tomé, a professor at the Autonomous University, points out that the elections are dominated by the unknown.
For the legislatures, the scenario changes, with Erdogan’s Popular Alliance -headed by the AKP and repeating the coalition with Devlet Bahçeli’s Nationalist Action Party (MHP, extreme right) and two other small ultra-nationalist formations- -in advantage, with close to 44% of the votes cast against 39.9% for the Alianza de la Nación.
In this case, the vote for the Labor and Freedom Alliance, led by the Green Left Party, defender of the rights of the Kurdish population and accredited in the polls with 10.5% of the votes and which could dispossess the AKP and its allies of its solid absolute majority, will be decisive.
In a fragmented society, Kiliçdaroglu promised to restore the country’s parliamentary system disrupted in 2017 and a restoration of rights and freedoms, badly damaged by the growing presidential authoritarianism.
The fight against high unemployment and corruption, the return to an independent justice, in which verdicts are based on the law and not on political decisions, and the freedom of the media, in a country with almost 50 journalists in prison, were other of the stated priorities. by the candidate of the Alliance of the Nation.
Kiliçdaroglu also vowed to restore trust in the business community and the public, foreign relations based on national political interests, improve relations with the European Union, and maintain cordial relations with Russia, a political ally and important trading partner.
Erdogan’s campaign strategy, in a permanent association between nationalism and religion, focused on propagating the idea of a modern Turkey, which inaugurated its first nuclear power plant in cooperation with Russia, and a powerful one, with an exponential development of weapons. industry. .
The Turkish president also accused the opposition bloc of being “infidels”, of collaborating with the Kurdish guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), outlawed and considered a “terrorist organization” by Ankara and Western countries, of trying to fragment the country and to put Turkey under the yoke of the “imperialist powers”.
The Turkish electoral act will result in a choice of a partnership model between a powerful leader and an opponent who proposes consensus and negotiation.
Source: TSF
