Turkey election: Erdogan battles to cling onto power as millions vote in historic runoff

Turks began voting on Sunday in a presidential runoff that could extend Tayyip Erdogan’s rule to a third decade and persist in Turkey’s increasingly authoritarian path, brawny foreign policy and unorthodox economic governance.

Erdogan, 69, defied polls and came out comfortably with a nearly five-point lead over his rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu in the first round on May 14. But he fell just short of the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff, in a race with profound implications for Turkey itself and global geopolitics.

His unexpectedly strong showing amid a deep cost-of-living crisis, and a victory in parliamentary elections for a coalition of his conservative Islamist-rooted AK Party (AKP), the nationalist MHP and others, boosted the veteran campaigner who says a vote for him is a vote for stability.

The elections will decide not only who will lead Turkey, a NATO member state of 85 million people, but also how it will be governed, where the economy will go after the currency has fallen to a tenth of its value against the US in a decade. the dollar, and the shape of its foreign policy, which has made Turkey irk the West by establishing ties with Russia and the Gulf States.

Kilicdaroglu formed a powerful coalition of Erdogan’s disenchanted former allies with secular nationalists and religious conservatives.

Opposition supporters saw it as an opportunity to prevent Turkey from turning into an autocracy by a leader whose consolidation of power rivals that of Ottoman sultans.

But Erdogan still managed to come within a fraction of a percentage point of an outright first-round victory.

In the first round of voting on May 14, Erdogan received 49.5 percent support. Kilicdaroglu received 44.9 percent support. Nationalist candidate Sinan Ogan came third with 5.2 percent support and was eliminated. The outcome exceeded expectations of pollsters who had put Kilicdaroglu ahead.

Erdogan’s success came in the face of one of the world’s worst cost-of-living crises, with nearly every poll predicting his defeat.

Ozer Atayolu, 93, who waited outside a polling station in Istanbul on Sunday, told AFP he always came first to vote “because I believe in democracy and my responsibility as a citizen.”

“I feel like a kid having fun,” said the retired textile engineer.

Kilicdaroglu did his best to keep the spirits of his disappointed supporters.

“Don’t despair,” he said on Twitter after the vote. But then he disappeared from sight for four days before re-emerging as a transformed man.

The former official’s old message of social unity and democracy gave way to speeches about the need to immediately deport migrants and fight terrorism.

His right-wing turn targeted nationalists who emerged as the big winners of the parallel parliamentary elections.

The 74-year-old had always adhered to the staunch nationalist principles of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the military commander who formed both Turkey and Kilicdaroglu’s secular CHP party.

But these had played a minor role in his promotion of social-liberal values ​​practiced by younger voters and residents of large cities.

Analysts doubt that Kilicdaroglu’s gamble will work.

Due to his informal alliance with a pro-Kurdish party, he was accused by Erdogan of collaborating with ‘terrorists’.

The government paints the Kurdish party as the political wing of banned militants.

And Kilicdaroglu’s courtship with Turkey’s hard right has been hampered by the support Erdogan received from an ultra-nationalist who finished third two weeks ago.

The political struggle is closely watched in the capitals of the world because of Turkey’s footprint in both Europe and the Middle East.

Erdogan’s warm ties with the West during his first decade in power were followed by a second in which he made Turkey the problem child of NATO.

He launched a series of military incursions into Syria that enraged European powers and pitted Turkish soldiers against US-backed Kurdish forces.

His personal relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin also survived the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine despite Western sanctions against Moscow.

Turkey’s troubled economy is benefiting from a crucial deferral of payments for Russian energy imports, which has allowed Erdogan to spend lavishly on campaign pledges this year.

Erdogan also delayed Finland’s membership of NATO and still refuses to admit Sweden into the US-led defense bloc.

The Eurasia Group consultancy said Erdogan will likely continue to try to play world powers off against each other if he wins.

“Turkey’s relations with the US and the EU will remain transactional and tense,” it said.

Turkey’s unraveling economy will be the most direct test of whoever wins the vote.

Erdogan went through a series of central bankers until he found one that began executing on his desire to cut interest rates at all costs in 2021 – ignoring the rules of conventional economics in the belief that lower rates could drive chronically high inflation. cured.

The Turkish currency soon went into free fall and last year annual inflation reached 85 percent.

Erdogan has promised to continue this policy despite analysts’ predictions of economic danger.

Turkey burned tens of billions of dollars as it tried to prop up the lira from politically sensitive pre-vote declines.

Many analysts say Turkey should now raise interest rates or stop trying to support the lira – two solutions that would cause economic pain.

“The day of reckoning for Turkey’s economy and financial markets may now be just around the corner,” Capital Economics analysts warned.