On Sunday, May 14, Turkish electorate will vote in the most consequential presidential election since the foundation of the Turkish republic by Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in October 1923. And the whole world is watching. Whichever candidate wins this election will define Turkey’s political, economical and geopolitical trajectory, fate and identity into the future.
The frontrunner, according to opinion polls thus far, is the opposition candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu of the Nation Alliance who is facing the current President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of the People’s Alliance. As the elections day approached, the campaign narratives and rhetoric from both alliances were intense, heated and full with stereotypical populist promises to the voters. Moreover, character assassinations, subtle insults and dog whistling arguments have dominated the election campaign period.
This election will have significant impact on Turkish history. The two contesting candidates have two different and divergent visions for the Turkish society and the State. If Kılıçdaroğlu wins, it will be a new dawn for Turkey; if Erdoğan wins, he will inscribe his name and vision on Turkey for the next century.
Never has Erdoğan been challenged in an election until this one. The sitting President has never lost an election contest against the opposition. But it seems this legendary winning track-record might be altered by Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu come May 15 or in the second round in May 28. Whatever the outcome in this Turkish election, there is no doubt this is the most important election in the world this year; and people across the globe are following it closely like a Turkish soap opera.
Erdoğan: From Trauma, Success and then Failure
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s political career started with a political trauma and a strongly held sense of grievance against the Turkish state and its secularist establishment. He was jailed for his political opinions and banned from politics at one point in time. Many assumed at that time, that the political career of this young, vocal and charismatic Istanbul mayor was over.
However, the heavens had something else in store for Erdoğan. In dramatic turn of fates, he eventually became the country’s Prime Minister in March 2003. The rest is history. During his Premiership era, Turkey became economically prosperous as its middle-class burgeoned and its economic indicators improved year by year. Erdoğan and his party, the AK Party, seemed invincible in politics and his popularity rates soared. Turkish economy at this period became a model of success envied across the world in the post-2008 economic crisis.
But soon things started to go south around 2014, when Erdoğan was elected in a new role as a President. There was a power struggle between him and the then Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu. And after the 2016 deadly and tragic coup, Turkey descended into a quagmire economically and politically. The economy started to underperform; The Turkish Lira gradually lost its stability and lost value against the US dollar; and more significantly, inflation gripped the Turkish population. Moreover, Turkey witnessed a skyrocketing brain-drain in the last five years as the educated and the youths felt hopelessness of their future in the country. Furthermore, Turkey fell back in liberty and freedom of speech indicators as the county jailed numerous journalists, activists and politicians.
Kılıçdaroğlu: From Hopelessness to Hope
The opposition candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu was a career bureaucrat before he joined national politics. The soft spoken long-time leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) is a politician known for his deliberations-oriented politics, patience and compassion. Indeed one would argue that Kılıçdaroğlu lacks the bravado, charisma or the ego required to thrive in politics in Turkey and in the Middle East. Kılıçdaroğlu’s personality is soft and lenient. And maybe this is his secret for ruling and leading the party of Ulu onder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s for almost a decade.
While in electoral politics Kılıçdaroğlu’s has been unsuccessful in defeating Erdoğan for a decade, he nevertheless was a staunch opposition politician of patience, resilience and hope against Erdoğan’s majoritarian identity politics and rhetorics. And after winning the municipal elections of Istanbul and Ankara in 2019, it seems the tide has turned in favor of Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.
The politician who was emblematic of failure and hopelessness in Turkish politics has become a source of hope for Turkey’s democracy. Moreover, Kılıçdaroğlu is the candidate of a broad coalition of parties that consists of Islamists, Nationalists, Kemalists and Liberals. And it seems he has the tacit support of the main Kurdish Party, The People’s Democratic Party (HDP).
The Kurds: Kingmakers in Turkish politics
The Kurdish people have had a predicament historical relationship with the Turkish state since its inception. Their culture and identity have been suppressed and stigmatized invariably throughout history. As an undergraduate and graduate student in Ankara and Istanbul for the last 11 years I have witnessed closely how Kurdish students are subtly marginalized, otherized and even excluded in classroom and campus social settings.
However, the last two decades Turkey has witnessed a mushrooming of Kurdish political parties and they have become significant players in the Turkish political landscape. And in this year’s Presidential elections, Kurds are the kingmakers: whoever garners the Kurdish votes will win the presidency.
The Kurdish party HDP doesn’t belong to any electoral alliance and they are not fielding any Presidential candidate. Yet, it is quite clear that the HDP leadership tacitly supports the candidacy of Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu strategically. Since 2016, Erdoğan has been in bed with the nationalist MHP and he had jailed numerous HDP politicians including their leader Selahattin Demirtaş “Selo”. Turkey’s Kurds have moved from the margins of Turkish politics and they have become the kingmakers of Turkish politics.
May 14, 2023
May 14 will go down in Turkish history as a fateful day. How Turks vote in May 14, 2023 will define Turkish history and destiny. While the majority of opinion polls unanimously indicate that Kılıçdaroğlu is ahead of Erdoğan, I personally think that it is too close to call it.
Erdoğan has accomplished many things in the last two decades but he also has his own shortcomings and mistakes. In terms of infrastructure and in the military-security industry his governments have accomplished many things Turks should be proud of. But when it comes to the education sector, youths’ employments and in the human rights and freedom of speech aspects his governments have performed poorly most recently. Moreover, the economy has been in tatters for the last five years and I think it will be a crucial factor in this election.
Kılıçdaroğlu promises an alternative vision for Turkey. He is an experienced career bureaucrat and a longtime opposition leader who can withstand the heat of the moment and all sorts of criticisms. If he wins he will focus more on the economy and welfare issues since he has a social democrat political leaning and rhetoric. Moreover, Kılıçdaroğlu could be a uniting figure for a country whose societies have been polarized by identity politics based on ethnicity, religion and even sects.
Finally, contemporary Turkey is a transformed Turkey in terms of demography and economically. Whoever wins will face a young population that has global ideals and values. Old tricks in the Turkish political toolbox might not work. Turkey’s population is highly educated, more ambitious in terms of life expectations and is competing with the rest of the world. As a sociologist who studied and lived in Turkey for the last 10 years, I will argue that Turkey has become a “global country” and its destiny and fate is intertwined with its region and the whole world. Whoever wins will face enormous old and new challenges inside the country and in the globe.
