Runoff election in Turkey
Kilicdaroglu bets on the Syria card, Erdogan on victory
By Cigdem Akyol
5/26/2023, 5:47 p.m
In order to still win the presidential election this Sunday, opposition candidate Kılıçdaroğlu is making ever more strident announcements. Meanwhile, incumbent Erdoğan can count on the help of the state media.
For the run-off in the Turkish presidential elections this Sunday, opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu is apparently still counting on the mood against the Syrian refugees in the country. During a visit to the province of Hatay on the Turkish-Syrian border, which was particularly hard hit by the earthquake in February, Kılıçdaroğlu promoted himself by announced, he will never let Turkey degenerate into a refugee camp. If he wins the election, he will deport all those seeking protection, said the head of the social-democratic-Kemalist CHP.
Kılıçdaroğlu thus continued his announcements, which he had formulated sharply a few days earlier. In his first public speech after the presidential and parliamentary elections, the opposition leader announced that he would deport all refugees from Turkey if he won the second ballot on March 28. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Kılıçdaroğlu claimed in one Videoten million refugees allowed into the country.
Kılıçdaroğlu wants to save Turkey “from terrorism and refugees”
Kılıçdaroğlu left open the source to which he was referring. According to the United Nations, around four million refugees are officially living in Turkey, including 3.6 million Syrians. With his attempt to fish in the right-wing basin, CHP leader Kılıçdaroğlu is targeting the 5.2 percent of voters who voted for ultra-nationalist Sinan Oğan two weeks ago.
In the elections on May 14, incumbent Erdoğan had to fear for his re-election for the first time in two decades. Polling institutes had previously seen Kılıçdaroğlu around five percentage points ahead of the defending attorney. However, on the night of the election it became clear that none of the candidates had achieved the required majority and that there would be a run-off election. This had never happened in Turkey before.
With the result of 49.5 percent for Erdoğan and 44.9 percent for Kılıçdaroğlu, the votes of the third candidate, Sinan Oğan, are decisive. Oğan stands for anti-refugee policies, which is one of the reasons why Kılıçdaroğlu advertised itself on posters with the slogan “Syrians. Become. Go” after the first ballot. But as expected, the ultra-nationalist Oğan clearly supported Erdoğan: “I call on the voters who voted for us in the first ballot to vote for Erdoğan in the second ballot,” he said in his election recommendation. Kılıçdaroğlu was undeterred. “We come to save this country from terrorism and refugees,” he wrote on Twitter. In the meantime, there is even talk of a “forced deportation” of the migrants in opposition circles.
shift to the right in Parliament
Alongside Erdoğan, the far right won the first ballot: overall, there has been a shift to the right in parliament. The AKP was able to achieve a majority together with the right-wing MHP and other small coalition partners, the “Cumhur İttifakı” alliance. Allianz received just under fifty percent of the votes. However, due to the electoral system, she managed to retain a majority in the National Assembly with 322 seats out of 600.
Thanks to the alliance with Erdoğan, the Islamist-Kurdish party Hüda-Par was able to enter parliament for the first time and with four MPs. She is linked to Turkey’s Hezbollah and blamed for dozens of political killings in the 1990s. The Hüda-Par fights the LGBTIQ* movement, demands segregated schools and a new policy in line with Islamic values. The MHP is represented by 50 parliamentarians. Overall, she did far better than most of the party’s polls had predicted. The social democratic CHP is represented with 169 seats. The pro-Kurdish HDP didn’t even stand because a ban on it is being heard before the constitutional court.
Erdoğan is banking on “security and stability”, but the coffers are empty
Even if Kılıçdaroğlu were to win, it would not be possible for the parliament and the president to block each other. This would inevitably result in a government crisis – a scenario that Erdoğan knows how to use to his advantage. In the run-off election, the president said he was certain that the voters would prefer “security and stability”. Another factor that experts see as an aspect of Erdoğan’s success: Because he has actually been able to overcome all the crises in his political career so far. These include, among other things, a ban on his AKP by the constitutional court, which was narrowly averted in 2008; the crackdown on the nationwide Gezi protests in 2013 and the failed coup attempt in 2016.
In addition, Erdoğan can actually point to gigantic infrastructure projects, such as the third Bosphorus Bridge, which opened in 2016 and is considered a technical masterpiece, and the spectacular Istanbul Airport, which began operations in 2018. Despite inflation and the economic crisis, he obviously still has many supporters in Turkey. Unlike twenty years ago, Turkey is no longer a country that takes orders – today Ankara issues orders, Erdoğan repeats regularly, appealing to national pride.
The success of the right-wing alliance “Cumhur İttifakı” can sometimes also be explained by Erdoğan’s campaign gifts: the minimum wage was recently increased three times within a year, pension entitlements were expanded, and the president promised to rebuild the destroyed houses in the earthquake areas within a year . How all this is to be financed has not yet been answered. “His big Achilles’ heel remains the economy,” says Kristian Brakel, office manager of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Istanbul. “The coffers are empty, which means that an austerity program has to come. It’s questionable how that should be implemented.”
election campaign by unfair means
The previously unfair election campaign is being continued with populist strategies. For example, “A Haber”, a government propaganda station, showed the graphic of a ballot paper. It only showed Erdoğan, Kılıçdaroğlu was simply shown as “the other candidate”, without a photo or name. The moderator pointed to Erdoğan while admonishing the audience to put the cross in the right place – otherwise the ballot would be invalid.
Erdoğan, who sometimes faltered before the first ballot, is now back in top form as usual. He thanks the Turks living abroad on Facebook and Twitter. By voting for him, they would have “strengthened the power of Turkish democracy.” He warns of a resurgence of Kurdish separatism and the division of the country. He thanks his supporters for not allowing themselves to be intimidated by members of the terrorist organization. He continues his claim that Kılıçdaroğlu collaborated with the Gülen movement, classified as a terrorist, and the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK). AKP members circulate photos of Kılıçdaroğlu on Twitter, which, like his election campaign posters, contain expressions of sympathy for the Kurdish militia YPG, which is also considered a terrorist, next to his portrait. So far, Kılıçdaroğlu has denied any cooperation with any of these organizations, and there are no serious indications for these allegations. Instead, deep fake videos are distributed at the AKP event, which are intended to show the opposition’s sympathies with the terrorist groups.
The reporting by state television TRT also showed how unequal the conditions for the candidates in this election campaign were: In April, the president was given 32 hours of broadcasting time – Kılıçdaroğlu, on the other hand, only 32 minutes. The allegation by opposition politicians that TRT has been transformed into an instrument of manipulation under government control has no consequences.