Presidential election in Turkey: will the youth be a game-changer?


On the occasion of thematic Friday dedicated this week to the presidential election in Turkey, Europe 1 looked at the youth of this country who will play a major role in an election where Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his opponent Kemal Kiliçdaroglu are, according to the polls, neck and neck.

Six million young Turks will be able to vote for the first time in the presidential election next Sunday, ie 10 to 12% of all voters. A decisive fringe, in a country where the youth is politicized, mobilized, with traditionally a strong participation: “We vote at more than 80-85%. The diaspora has already voted with a very high participation rate”, assures Jean Marcou, professor at Sciences Po Grenoble and specialist in the Turkish political regime. A generation Z mainly opposed to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the only president it has ever known.

“According to the most extreme polling institutes, 80% of young people will not vote for the AKP, Erdogan’s party”, underlines Patrice Moyeuvre, associate researcher at IRIS, specialist in Turkey. In question, a regime synonymous with openness in the early 2000s, before taking the turn of authoritarianism over the last decade. An inadequate conservatism for the new generation which has known “only the worst aspects with the hardening and repression of recent years”, explains for his part Aurélien Denizeau, independent researcher, specialist in Turkey.

“It may be an era that is ending”

This generation is modern, secularized, ultra-connected, open to the world, aware of societal changes and “is fed up with having a way of life and a moral order imposed on it by the AKP”, list Patrice Moyeuvre. Some of the events that contributed to this rejection include the Gezi protests in 2013, where the youth opposed the AKP, and the AKP’s appointment of a rector at Bosphorus University ( Bogazici) in early 2021, leading to student protest.

It is moreover this student youth – urbanized and progressive – who most opposes the current president and often breaks with the political choices of his parents. “What mobilized the youth around Erdogan 20 years ago was the neo-urbanites who had ensured the growth of the big Turkish cities at the end of the 20th century”, recalls Jean Marcou. This previous generation wanted to improve its standard of living and access university, “especially for veiled women”.

“Outdated” aspects according to the professor, which have given way to the economic and social development desired by the children of these neo-urbanites. “Economic results have been the strength and influence of the AKP, but they are no longer ubiquitous today. Growth is still strong, but the country must manage this development through operations that bring benefits to the population and allow him to live and improve his standard of living. But this is no longer the case today”, notes the specialist. This trend weighs on the election and certainly on a youth who no longer have the same enthusiasm for the AKP as the parents. “It may be an era that is ending,” concludes Jean Marcou.

Dam in Erdogan

If the end of the Erdogan era comes, it could be replaced by that of Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, his main rival in the polls. The opponent, at the head of a coalition of six parties, hopes to benefit from this rejection of Erdogan. This is also a strategy assumed with the young electorate: “He has succeeded in recent months in creating a dynamic of ‘all against Erdogan'”, explains Jean Marcou.

The youth vote is therefore a vote of rejection more than a vote of adhesion, linked to mistrust of a coalition made up, among other things, of an Islamist party – in opposition to the need for secularism and Kemalism among young people – and former ministers of Erdogan headed by a leader “uncharismatic”, adds Patrice Moyeuvre. “Young people do not trust this very heterogeneous coalition. But today it is not the program or the personality of the opponent that counts, but the departure of Erdogan”, adds Aurélien Denizeau.

Erdogan can count on part of the youth

However, the leader of the AKP can still count on a significant proportion of young people, especially those in the countryside who have had little or no education and who will vote more like their parents or according to the more religious family tradition, more likely to want to leave “a Muslim who made Turkey strong” at the head of the state, analyzes Patrice Moyeuvre. This fringe of the population “forgives him practically all the current economic worries and even his management of earthquakes”, he adds.

But the youth that counts even more for Erdogan is that of the diasporas, present in Europe, especially Germany and France. Often pro-AKP, this young generation “little assimilated, without a university education, cut off from developments in contemporary Turkey, has a strong identity”, explains Aurélien Denizeau before adding: “In France in particular, these young people who do not know the daily life of Turks on the spot are afraid of losing a fantasized identity”.

A strong president, representative of a strong Turkey, responds to this lack of identity of a “religiously marked youth who often comes from Anatolia to Western Europe without going through the big cities”, adds Patrice Moyeuvre before qualifying : “Even if a large part is pro-Erdogan, the youth of the diaspora remains heterogeneous. Those who live in China, the United States or South Africa would be more likely to vote for the opposition”.

Erdogan’s fate is uncertain, but if the president returns for a new term, he will be able to thank the many Turks in the European diaspora who voted for him



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