The continuity of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a conservative Islamist who has been leading Turkey for two decades, will be decided this Sunday in the second round of the presidential elections, against his rival Kemal Kiliçdaroglu (center-left and secular).
Erdogan – who since 2017 assumed, after a constitutional referendum, a strict presidential regime with increasing authoritarian characteristics – consolidated himself as a favorite in the first round by obtaining 49.5% of the votes cast (very close to the 50% threshold that would avoid a second round), compared to 44.9% of the opposition leader, who questioned the official results.
After the alliance around Erdogan and headed by his Justice and Development Party (AKP) obtained a new absolute majority in parliament in the first round of the elections on May 14 with a high mobilization, the strategy of the two rivals focused on trying to secure the 5.2% of the votes obtained in the first round by the far-right Sinan Ogan, third presidential candidate and with a strong anti-immigration discourse.
Kiliçdaroglu, leader of the center-left, secular Republican People’s Party (CHP) since 2010 and running for president of a six-party coalition of Turkish opposition parties, has turned a corner in the past two weeks. to the right in an attempt to capture the ultranationalist vote, much to the chagrin of the more leftist forces that support him.
Earlier in the week, Ogan publicly declared his support for Erdogan, but two nationalist parties that supported him in the campaign and integrated into the Ancestral Alliance (ATA) chose to back Kiliçdaroglu and his speech against the 3.5 million refugees from war. in Syria who began to be welcomed in Turkish territory in 2011.
“The Syrians will leave” or “Terrorism will end” were the phrases that marked the opponent’s campaign for the second round, also in an attempt to distance himself from the recurring accusations of “collusion with terrorism” issued by Erdogan due to the support he receives. of the pro-Kurdish (and at risk of dissolution) People’s Democratic Party (HDP), defined by the Ankara regime as the political wing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) guerrilla movement.
Erdogan, who was prime minister between 2003 and 2014 before his first presidential election, also faces a political problem after his AKP admitted the small Kurdish fundamentalist party Huda-Par, the heir to an ultra-Islamist armed group from the 1990s. who elected four deputies to the new parliament.
One of the leaders of this party has already considered that it is not “appropriate” for their elected representatives to take the mandatory oath to the constitutional text, since it reflects an “ideology” contested by this Islamist current.
The inauguration ceremony of the new parliament and the swearing in of the Constitution should have taken place three days after the publication of the official results, announced last Friday -after resolving challenges and recounts-, but its postponement is understood as a form of that Erdogan avoid dissensions in the broad nationalist camp that also supports him.
Despite the fact that there are no projections, which are always fallible, Kiliçdaroglu’s task is difficult to capture the 2.6 million votes he needs to reach the Presidency.
The nationalist and xenophobic rhetoric that he also favored in his speech disappointed and demotivated many of his followers, especially in cosmopolitan centers and among young people. Which also favors Erdogan, who only needs 400,000 more votes compared to the first round.
For today’s presidential elections in Turkey, a NATO member country with some 85 million inhabitants, more than 61 million registered voters will be able to exercise their right to vote.
Source: TSF
