Turkish voters to choose their president: Erdogan or Kilicdaroglu

Istanbul, Turkey – After months of campaigning by two dozen political parties, four presidential candidates and a mind-boggling lineup of electoral alliances, Turkish voters will once again head to the polls on Sunday to make a crucial choice between two men.

The presidential election between incumbent Recep Tayyip Erdogan and opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu marks the final moment in what is widely heralded as Turkey’s most important election in recent history.

The election period, which officially began on March 18, saw numerous twists and turns, the most dramatic of which was Erdogan confusing poll predictions to finish ahead of Kilicdaroglu, only to narrowly miss his third presidential term in the first round.

Since the first vote on May 14 — held alongside parliamentary elections in which Erdogan’s party and his allies secured 323 seats out of 600 — the level of electoral fighting has scaled back, with both candidates abandoning the mass rallies seen earlier.

Erdogan has been buoyed by his first-round performance, when he received 49.52 percent of the vote to Kilicdaroglu’s 44.88 percent.

“Let’s all go to the polls together tomorrow for Turkey’s Great Victory,” he tweeted on Saturday. “Let us repeat the will expressed in parliament on May 14 for the presidency much more strongly this time. Let’s start the Turkey Century with our votes.”

In addition to extending his 20-year rule for another five years, a victory for Erdogan would see the country pass the 100th anniversary of its founding in October.

The president later attended a ceremony in Istanbul marking the anniversary of a 1960 coup that led to the execution of Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, with whom Erdogan has often identified.

Kilicdaroglu, meanwhile, has taken a more nationalistic tone since the first round after a strong showing by right-wing voters gave third-placed, nationalist presidential candidate Sinan Ogan more than 5 percent.

“Whatever your opinion or lifestyle; I appeal to all our people. This is the last exit. Let those who love their homeland come to the polls!” Kilicdaroglu said in a message sent Saturday.

In his last public appearance, the opposition leader told a family support rally in Ankara that he would extend social security. “I will live like you, I will not live in palaces,” he promised. “I will live like you and solve your problems.”

As in the first round, Turkish citizens living abroad cast their vote before election day. Some 1.9 million voted in 73 countries and at border gates, where ballot boxes remain open until voting closes in Turkey.

Voter numbers have surged with more than 47,500 voters turning 18 in the past two weeks, bringing the electorate in Turkey to nearly 60.8 million.

Approximately 192,000 ballot boxes in 87 constituencies are open between 08:00 and 17:00 (05:00 and 14:00 GMT).

The narrowing of the election to a choice between two candidates has allowed both to gain the support of first-round contenders.

Third-placed Ogan backed Erdogan’s candidacy earlier this week, while party leaders from the electoral alliance that had supported Ogan switched their support to Kilicdaroglu.

Chief among the latter was Umit Ozdag – as was Ogan, a far-right nationalist whose Victory Party has taken an anti-migrant stance and is demanding the deportation of refugees.

By embracing Ozdag’s endorsement and turning to nationalist rhetoric, Kilicdaroglu has risked alienating Kurdish voters who supported him in the first round, said Berk Esen, a political scientist at Istanbul’s Sabanci University.

“I’m not sure that Kilicdaroglu can maintain such a high level of support in the Kurdish-majority southeastern provinces after the support of Umit Ozdag,” he said. “I think that’s going to cause some sort of reaction in that region… Ozdag’s approval comes at a huge cost.”

The first round also showed that voters’ decisions were not overly influenced by an economic crisis accompanied by rampant inflation, said Emre Peker, director of Europe at the Eurasia Group.

Instead, Erdogan shifted the debate from economics to issues of family values ​​and security, stigmatizing the opposition as supporters of terrorism and LGBTQ rights.

“One thing we can say with certainty is that identity politics dominated the campaign despite Turkey’s deepest economic problems since the 2001 financial crisis,” he said.

“This is huge and you can’t underline it enough.”

The February earthquakes, which killed more than 50,000 people in Turkey, were also expected to be a major factor in pushing back Erdogan’s vote, with critics focusing on what the president himself admitted were mistakes in the government’s response to the disaster.

But in eight of the 11 southern provinces hit by the earthquakes, Erdogan defeated Kilicdaroglu in the first round and performed best in Kahramanmaras, where he received 71.9 percent of the vote.

While acknowledging Kilicdaroglu’s achievement in consolidating and expanding his base, analysts said he failed to garner Erdogan’s support.

“The challenge lies in getting a larger share of conservative and right-wing voters in Turkey, who make up between 60 and 65 percent of the electorate,” Peker said.

Soner Cagaptay, director of the Washington Institute’s Turkish research program, added that voters found Kilicdaroglu’s “uninspired.”

“He couldn’t get voters to say, ‘I can imagine a country better run by Kilicdaroglu, I’m going to vote for him’.”