ANKARA (Realist English). There are less than 10 days left before the presidential elections in Turkey. There, for the first time in 20 years, the rule of Recep Erdoğan is under real threat. The pattern of the election campaign, during which the autocrat president and the single opposition candidate, the leader of the Kemalist Republican People’s Party (CHP) Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, clashed, practically does not change.
It is difficult to find two more strikingly different rivals. The 69-year—old Erdoğan is an incendiary speaker, a great master of public campaigns. His explosive rhetoric is based on the juxtaposition of his course, a priori expressing the interests of the majority of Turks, to the positions of opponents detached from the national soil, which are disastrous for the country. Erdoğan focuses on protecting Islamic identity and family values and accuses his opponents of colluding with Kurdish terrorists, the imperialist West, murky international financiers and LGBT organizations that undermine the moral foundations. All this is accompanied by demonstrative repressive actions. So, at the end of April, 143 people were detained in 21 provinces, including politicians, lawyers, journalists and civil activists, 48 of them were arrested on charges of ties to terrorism. In early May, the detentions continued. The pro—Kurdish Left Democratic Peoples’ Party (HDP), the third largest force in parliament, is being constantly persecuted by the authorities for allegedly close ties with the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party and is now under threat of closure.
The 74-year-old Kılıçdaroğlu, financier by education and a former official, a member of parliament since 2002 and leader of the CHP since 2010, is unassuming and reserved. He knows how to speak in public, but relies not on pressure, but on argumentation. During the campaign, he prefers to communicate with voters through videos distributed on social networks, which he records at home in a modest kitchen.
In politics, Kılıçdaroğlu has a reputation for being patient, conciliatory, prone to finding compromises and reaching agreement. Largely thanks to these qualities of the leader of the CHP, the six main and very different opposition parties, after difficult negotiations, were able to unite in a National Alliance and act as a single force in the elections. Kılıçdaroğlu also managed to enlist the support of the pro-Kurdish HDP. In its campaign, the united opposition emphasizes the need to dismantle the “one-man regime”. It proposes to get rid of presidential authoritarianism and return to parliamentary democracy with its separation of powers, rights and freedoms, to ensure the independence of the judiciary and to release numerous political prisoners. And personally, Kılıçdaroğlu emphasizes that he is only going for one presidential term, and after becoming head of state, he will settle in the old small presidential palace, and not in a huge building of 1,150 rooms that Erdoğan had built for himself.
Of course, for the majority of Turkish voters in the foreground is not the seat of the future president and not the powers of various authorities, but a sharp increase in the cost of living. Although inflation has declined slightly in recent months, it was 44% year-on-year in April. The cost of medical care increased by 67%, the cost of food — by 54%. But the opposition seeks to link these problems in people’s minds with the omnipotence of Erdoğan, whose arbitrary financial policy led to huge inflation and depreciation of the lira.
Erdogan’s opponents had hoped that his sudden illness, apparently the result of overexertion after numerous rallies, would undermine his image as an unbending politician. However, Erdoğan quickly recovered and resumed public appearances three days later. He continues in the same spirit, claiming that the opposition is supported by terrorists, and the hostile position of the West towards him means a hostile position towards the Turkish people.
The stable base of support for the national populist Erdoğan is quite wide, especially deep inside of Turkey. The average survey data suggests that Kılıçdaroğlu’s rating is now 47%, and Erdoğan’s is 46%. So the second round is most likely not to be avoided.
Alexander Ivakhnik is a political scientist
