Erdoğan’s grip on power tested as Turkey goes to
the polls
Six-party alliance led by Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu holds
slight lead in opinion polls but faces entrenched incumbent with fiercely loyal
base of support
Reuters in
Istanbul
Sun 14 May
2023 07.46 BST
Turks have
started voting in one of the most consequential elections in modern Turkey’s
100-year history – an election that could unseat President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
after 20 years in power and halt his government’s increasingly authoritarian
path.
The vote
will decide not only who leads Turkey, a Nato member of 85 million people, but
also how it is governed, where its economy is headed amid a deep cost of living
crisis, and the shape of its foreign policy, which has taken unpredictable
turns.
Opinion
polls give Erdoğan’s main challenger, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who heads an alliance
of six opposition parties, a slight lead, but if either of them fail to get
more than 50% of the vote there will be a runoff election on 28 May.
The
election takes place three months after earthquakes in south-east Turkey killed
more than 50,000 people. Many in the affected provinces have expressed anger
over the slow initial government response but there is little evidence that the
issue has changed how people will vote.
Voters will
also elect a new parliament, likely a tight race between the People’s Alliance
comprising Erdoğan’s conservative Islamist-rooted AK party (AKP) and the
nationalist MHP and others, and Kılıçdaroğlu’s Nation Alliance formed of six
opposition parties, including his secularist Republican People’s party (CHP),
established by modern Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
Polls
opened at 8am local time and will close at 5pm. Under Turkish election law, the
reporting of any results is banned until 9pm. By late on Sunday there could be
a good indication of whether there will be a runoff for the presidency.
Kurdish
voters, who account for 15-20% of the electorate, will play a pivotal role,
with the Nation Alliance unlikely to attain a parliamentary majority by itself.
The
pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic party (HDP) is not part of the main opposition
alliance but fiercely opposes Erdoğan after a crackdown on its members in recent
years.
The HDP has
declared its support for Kılıçdaroğlu in the presidential race. It is entering
the parliamentary elections under the emblem of the small Green Left party due
to a court case filed by a top prosecutor seeking to ban the HDP over links to
Kurdish militants, which the party denies.
Erdoğan,
69, is a powerful orator and master campaigner who has pulled out all the stops
on the campaign trail as he battles to survive his toughest political test. He
commands fierce loyalty from pious Turks who once felt disfranchised in secular
Turkey and his political career has survived an attempted coup in 2016, and
numerous corruption scandals.
However, if
Turks do oust Erdoğan it will be largely because they saw their prosperity,
equality and ability to meet basic needs decline, with inflation that topped
85% in Oct. 2022 and a collapse in the lira currency.
Kılıçdaroğlu,
a 74-year-old former civil servant, promises that if he wins he will return to
orthodox economic policies from Erdogan’s heavy management.
Kılıçdaroğlu
also says he would seek to return the country to the parliamentary system of
governance, from Erdoğan’s executive presidential system passed in a referendum
in 2017. He has also promised to restore the independence of a judiciary that
critics say Erdoğan has used to crack down on dissent.
In his time
in power, Erdoğan has taken tight control of most of Turkey’s institutions and
sidelined liberals and critics. Human Rights Watch, in its World Report 2022,
said Erdoğan’s government has set back Turkey’s human rights record by decades.
If he wins,
Kılıçdaroğlu faces challenges keeping united an opposition alliance that
includes nationalists, Islamists, secularists and liberals.
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