During a recent visit to Istanbul ahead of Turkey’s important May 14 elections, I was struck by many things.
The first was to learn how deeply the people were hurt by the February 6th earthquake. Not only were people grief-stricken, but at the end of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s 20-year rule, his highly centralized and dysfunctional governance system was partly responsible for the large number of casualties. I realized that it was there. President Erdoğan’s re-election is no longer the default, and this election has important implications not only for the Turkish people but also for the global balance of power.
Not surprisingly, friends, former colleagues, and ordinary people were talking about the election and the earthquake. Many expressed fears about a major earthquake expected in Istanbul and shared various evacuation plans. I encountered people stocking up on water in their cars, looking to buy property abroad, and making plans to move to a new, safer apartment.
Concerns about the Istanbul earthquake and upcoming elections seemed to put the country on the brink of a nervous breakdown.
I was also surprised by the fact that almost everyone was convinced that Erdogan would lose the next vote. In my interviews with journalists, opposition officials and even bureaucrats, there was a blind certainty that this was Erdogan’s last stand. They were so overconfident about the chances of an opposition victory that, of the dozens of friends and acquaintances I met in Istanbul, only two — a journalist and a media executive — said they believed Erdogan would ultimately win.
Of course, there are good reasons to make such assumptions. A six-party opposition coalition is leading in the polls. President Erdogan’s authoritarian deal with Turkish society seems to have collapsed, and young people want change. Double-digit inflation means a once-efficient patronage system is now openly criticized as nepotism. The government’s inept response to the earthquake has revealed that behind the facade of state omnipotence, institutions are hollowed out, funds are tight, and corruption is rife. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) can no longer monopolize politics as it did a decade ago, and fewer candidates than usual are standing in the parliamentary elections to reflect this.
But there are also reasons to be careful. There are still six weeks until the election, but a lot can happen in Turkey in that time. I am concerned about the certainty of change and its impact on Turkish society if President Erdoğan retains power. For many, it will mean more than losing an election — a feeling of being cheated, perhaps public anger, and nihilism about the country’s future. For people on both sides, Turkey’s political struggle has come to represent a deeply personal and existential struggle.
Of course, there are still many voters who believe Erdogan is the best person to lead Turkey. (See a recent Metropole survey.) i got you 43.5% would vote or consider voting for Erdogan, while 51.6% said they would not.) During Erdogan’s first decade in power, AKP policies liberalized Turkey and lifted many citizens out of poverty by expanding social security and services. In the second half of his two-decade rule, Erdogan has skillfully used culture wars, nationalism, and identity politics to give Sunni conservatives a say in Turkey’s destiny. With a unique mix of neo-Ottomanism and Islamism, he has rebranded Turkey as an unstoppable emerging power. For the AKP base, only Erdogan can “Make Turkey Great Again.”
But to others, Erdogan holds Turkey responsible for its authoritarian tendencies and economic despair. For them, issues of world order are secondary to economic survival. Many would ask, “Who can run the country better?” — or, rather, “Under what government will I live a better life?”
The opposition argues, with some force, that the problem is not just Erdogan himself, but the country’s entrenched one-man system, enacted in a narrowly passed referendum in 2017. The opposition party is a rather awkward coalition of six parties, ranging from the right to the Social Democratic Party, supported externally by the pro-Kurdish HDP. Its main pledge is to overthrow Erdogan’s one-man government and restore parliamentary institutions and the rule of law.
That the opposition has survived in an extremely authoritarian environment, despite a daily barrage of government propaganda and fake news, is a key testament to Turkish society’s desire for change.
But the opposition’s Achilles heel is its likely candidate, 74-year-old Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu of the Republican People’s Party (CHP). A former civil servant, he is a soft-spoken social democrat from Turkey’s Alevi/Alawite minority. The debate over Kılıçdaroğlu resembles the debate among US Democrats before the 2020 elections: Yes, he’s a very nice guy, but can he slay the dragon? After a year of infighting and drama, the opposition finally settled on Kılıçdaroğlu. Their strategy was to shore up his election by having the popular mayors of Istanbul and Ankara, Ekrem Imamögül and Mansur Yavash, serve as his deputies.
Kılıçdaroğlu isn’t trying to be another version of Turkey’s mercurial leader. Rather, he positions himself as the polar opposite of a dictator — an ordinary family man making anti-corruption videos from his middle-class kitchen, a quiet uniter of different factions in Turkish society.
But his task will not be easy, because Turkey is the country that popularized the concept of the “deep state” in the world and has a long tradition of calling itself the guardian of the regime. Voter suppression is a reality in the Kurdish regions, and controlling the ballots in the vote-counting process is key to victory. And if Erdogan’s victory is as unlikely as the polls suggest, why do Turks think “he seems calm”? Perhaps it’s because the Turkish president has control of state power and has already used the courts to remove some of his main rivals, such as Kurdish politicians Selahattin Demirtaş and İmamoğlu. A fragmented opposition has just surged in the polls, reportedly with the support of government trolls, a tactic used in Hungary and Russia. Moreover, Turkey’s new electoral law is untested. Because of this, I suspect the opposition will have a hard time both monitoring the vote and gaining a majority in parliament.
The problems facing Turkey do not end with Erdogan’s defeat. Immediately after the election, the economy is certain to face headwinds and possibly even a currency crisis. If President Erdogan’s AKP retains a parliamentary majority, it could severely limit his government’s ability to deal with the economic fallout from inflationary pressures and years of economic mismanagement.
Meanwhile, the Turkish president has moved sharply to the right, forming alliances with smaller parties that offer minimal benefits but great ideological burdens. These include the New Welfare Party, whose main demand is the lifting of laws protecting women from domestic violence, and the ultra-conservative Huda Pal, a descendant of the notorious Turkish Hezbollah, which reigned terror in the Kurdish community in the late 1990s. This poisoned chalice may help Erdogan here and there, but it is seen as an existential threat to Turkey’s secularists, Kurds and Alawites.
Many people ask me if it is possible to dream of free elections in Turkey and if Erdogan will make any concessions if he loses. The answer is yes. If the margin is small, say 1% vs 2%, forget about it. The election will be contested like US President Donald Trump vs Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. But if the opposition wins by more than 2%, there is no turning back. Erdogan cannot contest a decisive victory because he built his legitimacy on elections.
The most dire outcome for Turkey would be a close-fought situation in which both sides claim victory. For opposition parties, it will be essential to have an effective organization to monitor the results of the May 14 vote across the United States. In the 2019 local elections, the opposition won Istanbul (and other big cities) thanks to its vigilance. Several the observer was asleep The ballot boxes will be sealed to prevent fraud, and the opposition will have to take similar measures across the country, including in the conservative interior and Kurdish countryside.
Turkey will face a difficult year ahead no matter who wins. A recent visit made me realize how this country, once a rising star on Europe’s periphery, has been torn apart by earthquakes, economic hardship and, above all, polarization. If the opposition wins, it has a chance to restore democracy and perhaps even effective economic governance. However, the reckless politics of recent years will make it difficult to build national consensus on important issues.
Only in the best of circumstances can the elections be the beginning of a long process to repair Turkey’s political and economic system.
But in any case, it’s good to start.
