Türkiye: a month away from fateful voting
Sahib Bekir comments on pre-election situation

INTERVIEWS  18 April 2023 - 12:59

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed confidence that he will be reelected next month and his victory will amount to a message to the West, which he’s said opposes him and supports his rivals.

“I believe that my nation will finish this job without making it difficult,” Erdogan told CNN-Turk television late Wednesday, referring to May 14 vote when a presidential candidate must win more than 50 per cent of the votes to avoid a runoff two weeks later. Erdogan claimed that he was witnessing strong support from his grassroots.

There are now suggestions that Erdogan, who faces the toughest election race in his two-decades rule in power, has stepped up his criticism of Western countries, using it against his political opponents in an apparent bid to consolidate the support of nationalist-minded voters. 

He recently chided the US ambassador to Türkiye over meeting with the main opposition candidate for the presidency, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

“With these elections, Türkiye will give a message to the West. This nation is no longer thinking about the reaction of the West while it is fighting terrorism or determining its economic policies,” Erdogan said. “The West is saying that it is against Erdogan. Their hostile stance toward Erdogan is a hostile stance toward my nation — my nation will foil this plot on May 14.”

What are the president's electoral positions now? We are less than a month away from the polls. Can we say unequivocally today that the majority of voters are on his side, and that he will definitely win?

Sahib Bekir, a Turkish political expert and founder of the Voice of Türkiye news and analysis website, told Caliber.Az that Erdogan has preferences in opinion polls, which he and his party rely on.

"According to these results, they have a pretty good chance of winning even in the first round. Although in an open format, the ruling party only noted that according to these polls, they have more than 40 per cent support from voters.

But if you pay attention to the different polls being conducted, the results there are quite different depending on the political preferences of those behind these research companies.

Personally, I am rather confident that Erdogan will win. I cannot say for sure whether he will win in the first or second round. Here I estimate the chances 50/50 since there are quite a few people in the presidential race, which could prevent the main contenders from gaining more than 50 per cent at once," Bekir says.

He notes that Erdogan's campaign is structured in a very interesting way.

"For example, the media close to the president is actively repeating Joe Biden's phrase that 'we will displace Erdogan through elections,' with the help of the opposition. It is not for nothing that Erdogan points out that US diplomats and European ambassadors in the country often meet with the opposition. The same resources provide reprints from the Western media in which Erdogan is portrayed as almost a monster. This is a rather advantageous position for the president because Turks are a people who do not like it when others turn against one in mass. This is even true of the opposition. Turks simply have such psychology. They are ready to blame themselves, to say bad words against their leaders, but if a non-Turkish starts doing that they immediately change their mood, and they don't tolerate this. This is even true for the Kemalists who are against Erdogan. They do not like seeing things like that either. Erdogan understands this very well and plays on such sentiments very actively," the journalist said.

Erdogan also tries to actively highlight Türkiye's achievements during his rule, Bekir says.

"For example, there is the newly created TOGG branded electric car. There are also a number of new projects. For example, Türkiye's largest financial centre in Istanbul is expected to open in May. Also, Erdogan tries to point to military achievements of the country. For example, he has accepted the launch of the world's first UAV aircraft carrier. It has recently started building three new military frigates which is also quite a powerful move. Even many large countries with a developed military-industrial complex cannot afford that. That is, he is showing his opponents that he is making progress in defence as well.

Further, let us take the area of the recent massive earthquake. A well-known Turkish journalist, Cuneyd, said an interesting thing that despite the fact that the opposition wanted to use the tragedy as black PR against Erdogan, his party, its representatives in municipalities, and in ministerial positions are now actively helping people to overcome the consequences of what happened. But the oppositionists only came a couple or three times, took pictures with the victims, for publicity purposes, and left. The renowned journalist stressed that the opposition was acting very unkindly in this case.

This too is likely to play a role in the fact that people in the affected areas will vote more for Erdogan's party.

In addition, the president is now stressing that he has fulfilled all his previous promises. He notes that he gave his word that we would produce our own fighter jet, build global bridges, and underwater tunnels, and commission the largest airport - and he did it all. Now he also promises to rebuild all the cities that were destroyed by the earthquake. And, by the way, the biggest construction project in Türkiye's history is now underway. If I am not mistaken, more than 75,000 houses are being built simultaneously, and 100,000 more will start being built soon.

Moreover, the president has taken it upon himself to win over the Kurdish electorate at the expense of the pro-Islamic pro-Kurdish HUDA Parti, which has no links with the PKK and is, on the contrary, even at odds with it. These people have even fought with Kurdish terrorists. They are close to Erdogan because of their pro-Islamic views, and through them, he is trying to win the sympathy of most Kurds. Just the other day there was the opening of one of the largest mosques (Selahaddin Eyubi) in eastern Türkiye, in Diyarbakir, where Kurds live compactly.

In addition, Erdogan also counts on young people. He has announced the introduction of social packages, 10 gigabytes of free internet a month, and forgiven $1.4 billion in student debts. He also announced that every student would be able to buy a laptop and a phone once a year tax-free. The bottom line here is that Türkiye has some of the highest taxes on gadgets and on cars. In fact, in our country, you pay twice as much for these goods as the global average. And for students, this is quite a significant bonus. Support for paying for food in dormitories has been increased - the state has taken over quite a large share of the payment. Now students can eat quite well for a minimum amount of money. There are changes in public transport fares as well.

In general, Erdogan is working on all fronts and in all social strata," the Turkish expert concluded.

Caliber.Az