Turkish polling stations opened once again on Sunday, May 28, for the second round of presidential elections. At stake: continuity with the risk of authoritarian drift with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, or returning to an “appeased democracy” with Kemal Kiliçdaroglu.
Turkey voted Sunday in a historic runoff that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan enters as the firm favourite to extend two decades of his Islamic-rooted rule to 2028.
The NATO member’s longest-serving leader defied critics and doubters by emerging with a comfortable lead against his secular challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu in the first round on May 14.
The vote was nonetheless the toughest the 69-year-old has faced in one of Turkey’s most transformative eras since its creation as a post-Ottoman republic 100 years ago.
Kilicdaroglu cobbled together a powerful coalition of Erdogan’s disenchanted former allies with secular nationalists and religious conservatives.
But Erdogan still managed to come within a fraction of a percentage point of winning outright in the first round.
His success came in the face of one of the world’s worst cost-of-living crises, with almost every opinion poll predicting his defeat.
Kilicdaroglu tried his best to keep his disappointed supporters’ spirits up.
His right-wing turn was targeted at nationalists who emerged as the big winners of the parallel parliamentary elections.
Analysts question whether Kilicdaroglu’s gamble will work.
His informal alliance with a pro-Kurdish party left him exposed to charges from Erdogan of working with “terrorists”.
And Kilicdaroglu’s courtship of Turkey’s hard right was hampered by the endorsement Erdogan received from an ultra-nationalist who finished third two weeks ago.
The political battles are being watched closely across world capitals 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 turned Turkey into NATO’s problem child.
His personal relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin has also survived the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine despite Western sanctions against Moscow.
Turkey’s troubled economy is benefiting from a crucial deferment of payment on Russian energy imports, which helped Erdogan spend lavishly on campaign pledges this year.
Turkey’s unravelling economy will pose the most immediate test for whoever wins the vote.
Erdogan went through a series of central bankers until he found one who started enacting his wish to slash interest rates at all costs in 2021 — flouting the rules of conventional economics in the belief that lower rates can cure chronically high inflation.
Erdogan has promised to continue these policies, despite predictions of economic peril from analysts.
Many analysts say that Turkey must now either hike interest rates or abandon its attempts to support the lira — two solutions that would incur economic pain.
Malo Pinatel, with AFP
