Three hundred people submit their resignation from the Turkish Future Party and join the Erdogan’s Justice and Development.

Turkish media reported that 300 people resigned from the Turkish Future Party led by former Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in the state of Erzurum and joined Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party.

Among the resigned members was the Future Party’s Youth Branch President in Erzurum, Muhammet Firat Kirbac.

During an affiliation ceremony, the newly admitted members were handed the badge of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party by parliamentarian Selami AltinokIn.

In a speech during the ceremony, AltinokIn said that “Turkey will continue its rise through unity and solidarity under the umbrella of the Justice and Development Party.”

He stressed that the supporters of the People’s Alliance, which is made up of the Justice and Development Party, as well as other Turkish parties, “will not leave Turkey’s fate to those who take their orders from imperialist countries and terrorist organizations.”

On his part, Kirbac pointed out that the 300 members submitted their resignations after discovering that the Future Party’s leadership supports the Peoples’ Democratic Party, which Turkey considers the political wing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

This comes two weeks before Turkish people cast their votes in the Turkish presidential and parliamentary elections.

Source: Al Mayadeen

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Turkish military personnel in western Libya have been arriving in Misrata city to vote in the Turkish elections at the Turkish consulate. In Turkey and abroad, more than five million new voters are expected to participate in the upcoming Turkish elections on May 14, marking their first time casting a ballot.

The Turkish military has been involved in Libya’s civil war, supporting the Tripoli-based government and the armed groups affiliated with it. They have received military support from Turkey, which included the provision of weapons, drones, and military advisors. Additionally, Turkey has established military and naval bases in western Libya, including the Al-Watiya Airbase located south of Tripoli and in Misrata.

The Turkish military personnel have been arriving in Misrata on Turkish buses, under the protection of the Libyan 154th Protection and Guard Battalion. The Turkish consulate in Misrata has been closed to the public since May 1, in preparation for the elections.

The presence of Turkish military personnel in Libya has been a contentious issue, with some accusing Turkey of violating the UN arms embargo on Libya. The Turkish government has defended its actions, stating that it is supporting the internationally recognized government in Libya. However, the Libyan House of Representatives, which is based in the eastern city of Benghazi, has accused Turkey of interfering in Libya’s internal affairs and supporting terrorist groups. The situation has further complicated the already complex political landscape in Libya, with two rival governments vying for power.

Source: The Libya Update

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Turkey’s opposition alliance has vowed to reverse many of President Tayyip Erdogan’s policies if elected in a May 14 election, including a return to a parliamentary democracy and economic orthodoxy, and a major shift in foreign policy.

Last month Kemal Kilicdaroglu, presidential candidate of the six-party Nation Alliance, unveiled the opposition’s programme for its first 100 days in power.

Pledges ranged from a return to daylight saving time, tax and insurance reductions, and a merit-based recruitment system for all public servant employment.

Here are details of the plan:

LEGISLATIVE AND EXECUTIVE REFORMS

The main promise is a return to a parliamentary system, which the alliance says will be “stronger” than the one in place before a switch in 2018 to the current presidential system.

It would reinstate the position of prime minister, which was abolished by Erdogan through a referendum in 2017, and make the presidency an “impartial” role with no political responsibility. The president’s right to veto legislation and issue decrees would be abolished.

The president would sever ties to any political party, only serve one seven-year term and afterward be banned from active politics.

The parliament’s authority to back out of international agreements would be enshrined in the constitution. It will also have more authority over planning the government budget.

In public administration, boards and offices under the presidency would be abolished and their duties transferred to relevant ministries.

ECONOMY

The Nation Alliance promised to lower inflation, running at 44% in April, to single digits within two years and restore the stability of the lira, which has lost 80% of its value against the dollar in the past five years.

It would ensure the central bank’s independence and roll back measures such as allowing the cabinet to select its governor.

It would prepare legislation allowing parliament to pass laws on the central bank’s mission, operational independence and high-level appointments.

Policies that interfere with a floating exchange rate would end, including a government scheme that protects lira deposits against currency depreciation.

It pledged to cut government expenditure by reducing the number of planes used by the presidency, the number of vehicles used by civil servants, and selling some state buildings.

All projects under public-private partnerships would be reviewed. It would review the Akkuyu nuclear plant project – owned by Russian state entities – and renegotiate natural gas contracts, reducing the risk of dependence on certain countries for gas imports.

FOREIGN POLICY

It would adopt the slogan of “Peace at Home, Peace in the World” as the cornerstone of Turkey’s foreign policy.

While promising to “work to complete the accession process” for the full membership in the European Union, the alliance has vowed to review Turkey’s 2016 refugee deal with the EU.

It would establish relations with the United States with an understanding of mutual trust, and return Turkey to the F-35 fighter jet programme.

Turkey would maintain relations with Russia “with an understanding that both parties are equal and strengthened by balanced and constructive dialogue.”

LEGAL REFORMS

The six opposition parties pledged to ensure the independence of the judiciary, which critics say Erdogan and his allies use to crack down on dissent, a claim denied by the government.

Judges’ willingness to abide by Constitutional Court and European Court of Human Rights rulings would be considered when evaluating promotions.

Judges and prosecutors who cause rights violations that lead Turkey to be fined at the two courts would be made to pay the fine. Measures would be taken to ensure courts quickly implement rulings by the two high courts.

The Board of Judges and Prosecutors would be reformed and split into two entities for more accountability and transparency.

The structure and elections processes for higher courts, such as the Constitutional Court, the Court of Cassation and Council of State would be reformed.

It would ensure that pre-trial detentions are the exception, a measure that critics say is abused under Erdogan’s rule. It would strengthen freedom of expression and broaden the right to hold demonstrations.

Source: In-Cyprus

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President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reappeared on the campaign trail in western Turkey on Saturday in the flesh, and in thundering form.

He arrived in the port city of Izmir to a sea of flags, and a large crowd that had been waiting hours under a hot sun. It was a strong turnout in an opposition stronghold.

There was no sign of the illness which caused him to drop out of key events for three days this week – just a fortnight ahead of critical elections. The polls – for the presidency and parliament – will be his toughest challenge yet, after twenty years in power.

The president spoke for almost 40 minutes, in a strong voice, mocking the opposition, raising the spectre of “terrorism”, and saying only he could deliver growth for Turkey. It was a combative performance which will have reassured his supporters and may have worried his detractors.

His main rival for the presidency, Kemal Kilicdaroglu – a secular candidate backed by an alliance of six parties – will hold a rally in the same spot on Sunday. Opinion polls give a slight lead to Mr Kilicdaroglu – a softly spoken former civil servant – but the election could well be a photo finish.

The Turkish leader, who is 69, startled TV viewers on Tuesday night when he became unwell during a live broadcast, which had to be halted. He blamed it on a stomach bug.

“When I heard the news about his health, I asked God to give me his illness,” said Gurbet Dostum, a 42-year-old Mother of two. “I am ready to be in pain for him. He gives us everything.”

But many here have less and less, due to rampant inflation which is officially around 50%. Experts have blamed the President’s unorthodox economic policies, but not Gurbet. She said those who complained were “greedy and ungrateful and just wanted more and more”.

Like many women at the rally – which was segregated – she was wearing a headscarf. The president’s bedrock is religious conservatives, but there were secular supporters there too.

“He changed the country,” said Guldana, a 57-year-old with a diamond in her tooth. “Before him Turkey was a village.”

An unemployed young woman called Ayse said she would vote for Erdogan for love of her country. “He will make us rise, and get stronger,” she said.

Those who back the president want him to extend his long rule and continue with his vision for Turkey. Many Turks want just the opposite. The electorate – like the country – is divided.

Some of those who had waited hours for the president to arrive drifted away while he was still speaking.

Source: BBC

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Thousands gathered at a rally in Istanbul on Saturday to express their support for the opposition leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

With one week to go until Turkey’s presidential and legislative elections, the latest polls are showing him with a slight lead on the current President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Polls are suggesting it will be a tight competition for both the presidential and parliamentary races, which will determine not only who will lead Turkey but also what role it may play on the international scene. 

Many wonder whether Kilicdaroglu can defeat the veteran president, who is the country’s longest-serving leader and has repeatedly defeated the other statesman in the past.

The opposition candidate has earned the support of the other five leaders of the six-party opposition alliance, and Mayors of two major cities, Istanbul and Ankara.

The coalition, known as the Nation Alliance, has vowed to reverse the democratic backsliding and crackdowns on free speech and dissent under Erdogan, seeking to scrap the powerful presidential system he introduced that concentrates vast authority in his hands.

The end of the Erdogan era?

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been in power for 20 years and has used his charisma to secure multiple victories.

However, this election on May 14th may prove to be the most challenging for him, as it comes as Turkey faces economic turmoil and high inflation. 

The president has been aggressively slashing interest rates as part of his unorthodox economic approach. The cuts sent inflation to a 24-year peak above 85% in October before it dipped to near 50% in March. The ensuing cost-of-living crisis has gripped Turkish households and squeezed earnings and savings.

Furthermore, the Turkish leader is also facing backlash over his office’s reaction to a devastating earthquake in February, which killed over 48,000 people in the country and brought down over 100,000 buildings and homes.

Erdogan’s government was criticized for its poor response to the disaster and for failing to prepare the country for a large-scale quake. He himself has conceded that there were shortcomings in the early days of the February earthquake but insisted the situation was quickly brought under control.

Some also are questioning whether Erdogan would agree to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose. In 2019, he challenged the results of a local election in Istanbul after his ruling party lost the mayoral seat there, only to suffer an even more embarrassing defeat in the second balloting.

Source: Euronews

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Campaign songs waft through the air, political billboards and brightly coloured bunting dot the town centre, and campaign offices pulse with activity in the sunny port city of Mersin on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast.

Opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan — Turkey’s leader for two decades — are locked in a tightly fought race for the presidency ahead of the May 14 vote. That has prompted a grassroots drive to win over voters in Mersin, the capital of a swing province whose population has swelled with people who fled a catastrophic earthquake in February.

Serdar Tatar, who runs a butcher’s shop in central Mersin, previously voted for Erdogan’s Justice and Development party (AKP) but has now changed course, in part because of his financial struggles in a country where inflation is running at an annual rate of 43.7 per cent.

“There is no prosperity . . . the rich get richer, the lower class is crushed,” he said late last month. “I will vote for Kılıçdaroğlu.”

Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu are duelling to secure more than half the votes in the presidential race to avoid an unprecedented run-off. But Wolfango Piccoli, co-president for political risk at advisory group Teneo, said the contest was “super tight”. While polling has historically been patchy, some analysts suggest this will be Erdoğan’s toughest-ever contest.

Tatar is not alone in his anger over the state of the economy. The election comes at a time when many Turkish families are struggling with runaway inflation, while criticism is rising over the government’s tightening grip on the media and other institutions.

Kılıçdaroğlu has united six parties with widely different ideologies to wage a stiff resistance campaign against Erdoğan. Most polls show the opposition leader, a mild-mannered former economist, to be ahead of the more pugnacious president.

Senior officials in the opposition alliance say they are cautiously optimistic that Kılıçdaroğlu can win, although most also acknowledge Erdoğan is a shrewd campaigner who can deploy the full arsenal of the state. Kılıçdaroğlu told the Financial Times last week that he expected a mostly free voting process but did not trust Turkey’s top election board, warning that it could intervene if Erdoğan loses.

Erdoğan received extensive local media coverage last week after inaugurating the country’s first nuclear power reactor, a Russian-built plant near Mersin. He spoke via video link after he became ill with what the government described as stomach flu.

Polls indicate both men will struggle to secure 50 per cent of the vote since several other candidates are also vying for the presidency.

“For [the] first time in [the] past 20 years, Erdoğan is starting the race not in the lead but as the follower. So the opposition needs to defend its support . . . this time it’s Erdoğan who has to swing votes,” said Can Selçuki of consultancy Istanbul Economics Research.

If no candidate captures half the vote, a run-off will be held on May 28. This would mark the first time Turkey has gone to a second round since a new presidential system took effect in 2017.

“A second round is one of the few almost certainties we have,” said Piccoli.

Selim Koru, an analyst at the Ankara-based Tepav think-tank, said that while voters’ behaviour in any second round would be hard to predict, the results of the parliamentary vote — to be held at the same time as the first-round presidential ballot — would probably play a role.

The People’s Alliance, a coalition of the AKP and the ultranationalist Nationalist Movement party (MHP), at present controls the legislative branch. Polls suggest Kılıçdaroğlu’s “table of six”, formed of his left-leaning Republican People’s party (CHP), the nationalist Good party and four smaller groups, is trailing Erdogan’s coalition in the parliamentary race.

Koru said that if the People’s Alliance won parliament, it could provide a major boon to Turkey’s longstanding president. “Erdogan’s pathway to victory really can’t be a first-round win — that’s not realistic,” Koru said. “He needs to get parliament in [the] first round, then in [the] second round, argue ‘Vote for me, or else we’ll have a divided government’.”

In Mersin late last month, a truck bearing the face of Kılıçdaroğlu loudly played a catchy anthem promising “spring will come again”. A parliamentary candidate for his CHP party walked door to door, shaking hands and handing out flyers.

In the 2018 election, Erdoğan and former presidential candidate Muharrem İnce received almost the same share of votes in the wider Mersin province — highlighting the importance of the area ahead of this month’s election.

On a single day, candidates from at least four parties canvassed businesses in an attempt to secure votes.

“People want something to change, for the order to change,” said Gülcan Kış, a CHP candidate for parliament, after addressing more than two dozen people in a leafy, upscale part of Mersin.

Kış pushed back against widespread criticism that Kılıçdaroğlu lacked the charisma to energise voters. The 74-year-old opposition leader has sought to turn his studious air to his advantage, posting campaign Twitter videos from an office surrounded by books.

One monologue on Kılıçdaroğlu’s Alevi faith, something many supporters worried would be used against him in a predominantly Sunni Muslim country, has garnered more than 114mn views.

“[Kılıçdaroğlu] brought . . . very ‘un-like-minded’ people together and took a step towards changing the order and system of this country by gathering around the same table,” Kış said. “In fact, this turned into a struggle beyond Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’s struggle, and it turned into a struggle for integrity.”

At Tatar’s butcher’s shop, a pensioner contemplating the poultry offerings was distraught about the economic situation for ordinary Turks and suggested that her patience was running out.

“I used to have chicken once a week. Now only once a month,” said the woman, who asked not to be named. “This government hasn’t changed things in 20 years — why will things be different now?”

Across town in the market, however, not all locals were feeling the economic pain. A shopper perusing tomatoes said the prices were “quite reasonable for the season”.

And Firdevs Aktürk, an MP candidate for Erdoğan’s AKP party, defended the president’s unconventional economic policies.

Strolling through stalls of fruit and vegetables and shaking hands with stallholders and patrons, she said that Turkey’s problems were not too different from those of other nations: “There is an economic crisis in all countries in the world right now.”

“Our president is personally making announcements [on how to improve the economy],” she added. “And he will announce more in the future.”

Source: Financial Times

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Turkey elections 2023: More than five million first-time voters are set to participate in the upcoming elections on May 14th in Turkey, with their turnout expected to have a significant impact on the outcome of the tight race between incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the Republican People’s Party, or CHP. 

Ozer Sencar, the director of the Turkish polling organisation MetroPoll, reports that 78 per cent of voters in the 18-24 age group have expressed an intention to vote, with half of young voters preferring Kilicdaroglu. Erdogan, on the other hand, is expected to receive about 30 per cent of the vote in this age group. According to experts, young people in Turkey are expressing a growing sense that meritocracy is no longer sufficient to rise up the ranks in public institutions.

Top rivals try to woo young voters

Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu have both attempted to appeal to the youth vote in recent years. Teknofest, the country’s largest technology event, has been organised by the government and Selcuk Bayraktar, the man behind Turkey’s drone programme and Erdogan’s son-in-law, with the aim of drawing in young talent from across the country. The event has become an opportunity for the government to demonstrate that it can still generate ideas and events meant to inspire young people in the fields of cutting-edge technology.

According to Sencar, Erdogan is trying to appeal to the nationalistic feelings of the new generation with his campaign focused on the defence industry. Technological developments such as the defence industry, Sencar says, are also intended to increase young voters’ positive expectations for the future with Erdogan. Meanwhile, Kilicdaroglu has sought to appeal to young people’s sense of freedom.

On the campaign trail, the opposition presidential candidate makes heart emojis with his hands and tells young people they can criticise him as much as they want without fear.

Why Turkey’s elections are important for the world?

Home to 85 million people, Turkey wields significant power on the world stage. It is a NATO member having strong defence ties with Russia, and for which it has been at loggerheads with the American administrations. Turkey is also sitting over Sweden’s application to join NATO over the latter’s alleged support to the Kurdish organisations that Ankara views as terrorists.

Turkey, under Erdogan, has turned hostile towards India, and it has backed Pakistan’s claims on Kashmir unacceptable to New Delhi.

So, the world, including policymakers in Delhi, would like to see a pragmatic administration take over the reins in Ankara. However, it remains to be seen what card the majority of the Turkish voters have up their sleeves.

Source: WION

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With his two-decade rule in the balance, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has pulled out all the stops on the campaign trail as he battles to survive his toughest political test yet and shield his legacy from an emboldened opposition.

Erdogan, the son of a sea captain, has faced stiff political headwinds ahead of a May 14 election: he was already facing blame over an economic crisis when a devastating earthquake in February left saw his government accused of a slow response and lax enforcement of building rules that may have saved lives.

As polls show a tight race, critics have drawn parallels with the circumstances that brought his Islamist-rooted AK Party to power in 2002, in an election also shaped by high inflation and economic turmoil.

His opponents have vowed to unpick many of the changes Erdogan has made to Turkey, which he has sought to shape to his vision of a pious, conservative society and assertive regional player.

The high stakes are nothing new for a leader who once served a prison sentence – for reciting a religious poem – and survived an attempted military coup in 2016 when rogue soldiers attacked parliament and killed 250 people.

With so much at stake in the presidential and parliamentary polls, the veteran of more than a dozen election victories has taken aim at his critics in typically combative fashion.

Accusing the opposition of seeking advantage from a catastrophe, Erdogan has made several visits to the quake zone where more than 50,000 died, vowing rapid reconstruction and to punish builders who skirted building regulations.

He has peppered the election run-up with celebrations of industrial milestones, including the launch of Turkey’s first electric car and the inauguration of its first amphibious assault ship, built in Istanbul to carry Turkish-made drones.

Erdogan also flicked the switch on Turkey’s first delivery of natural gas from a Black Sea reserve, promising households free supplies, and inaugurated its first nuclear power station in a ceremony attended virtually by President Vladimir Putin.

He has enjoyed extensive coverage from mainstream media while state media has paid scant attention to his main challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, prompting accusations of an unfair playing field from the opposition.

His attacks against the main opposition alliance have included accusations of support from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has been waging an insurgency since the 1980s in which more than 40,000 people have been killed.

Kilicdaroglu, who was endorsed by the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), has responded by defending Kurdish rights and accused Erdogan of “treating millions of Kurds as terrorists”.

As he seeks to shore up his appeal among conservative voters, Erdogan has also spoken against homosexuality, describing LGBT rights as a “deviant” concept he would fight.

‘Building Turkey together’

Polls suggest voting could go to a second round and some show Erdogan trailing. This hints at the depth of a cost-of-living crisis sparked by his unorthodox economic policies.

Authorities’ drive to slash interest rates in the face of soaring inflation aimed to boost economic growth, but it crashed the currency in late 2021 and worsened inflation.

Despite indications his party could return to more orthodox policies, Erdogan last month stressed that interest rates would fall as long as he was in power and that inflation would decline with them.

The economy was one of Erdogan’s main assets in the first decade of his rule, when Turkey enjoyed a protracted boom with new roads, hospitals and schools and rising living standards for its 85 million people.

“If he loses, that will damage his image. But for the people who love him, they will not give up on him very easily,” said Seda Demiralp, chair of the Department of International Relations at Isik University in Istanbul.

Halime Duman said high prices had put many groceries out of her reach but she remained convinced Erdogan could still fix her problems. “I swear, Erdogan can solve it with a flick of his wrist,” she said at a market in central Istanbul.

Humble roots

The president rose from humble roots in a poor district of Istanbul where he attended Islamic vocational school, entering politics as a local party youth branch leader. After serving as Istanbul mayor, he stepped onto the national stage as head of the AK Party (AKP), becoming prime minister in 2003.

His AKP tamed Turkey’s military, which had toppled four governments since 1960, and in 2005 began talks to secure a decades-long ambition to join the European Union – a process that later came to a grinding halt. 

Western allies initially saw Erdogan’s Turkey as a vibrant mix of Islam and democracy which could be a model for Middle East states struggling to shake off autocracy and stagnation.

But his drive to wield greater control polarized the country and alarmed international partners. Fervent supporters saw it as just reward for a leader who put Islamist teachings back at the core of public life and championed the pious working classes.

Opponents portrayed it as a lurch into authoritarianism by a leader addicted to power.

After the coup attempt authorities launched a crackdown, jailing more than 77,000 people pending trial and dismissing or suspending 150,000 from state jobs. Media rights groups say Turkey became the world’s biggest jailer of journalists for a time.

Erdogan’s government said the purge was justified by threats from coup supporters, as well as Islamic State and the PKK.

At home, a sprawling new presidential palace complex on the edge of Ankara became a striking sign of his new powers, while abroad Turkey became increasingly assertive, intervening in Syria, Iraq and Libya – often deploying Turkish-made military drones with decisive force.

The drones also helped Ukraine defend against Russian invasion.

The interventions won few allies, however, and faced with a struggling economy the countdown to the election, Erdogan sought rapprochement with rivals across the region.

Source: Inquirer.net

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan next Sunday puts his two-decade legacy on the line in a knife-edge vote against a powerful alliance built on anger over economic hardship and his authoritarian turn. 

The 69-year-old has become one of Turkey’s most important and divisive leaders since his Islamic-rooted party ended half a century of secular rule and launched an era of social transformation.

Turkey became a strategic player with a vibrant economy and a modern army of drones that shifted battlefields in wars stretching from Libya to Ukraine.

Erdogan’s global stature soared when he helped stem Europe’s migrant crisis in 2016 — and then plunged when he unleashed a crackdown on dissent later that same year.

He enters one of the biggest elections of Turkey’s modern era with his popularity weighed down by a crippling cost-of-living crisis and the social aftershocks of a February earthquake that claimed more than 50,000 lives.

The real possibility of defeat has seen Erdogan defiantly turn to sharply polarising themes that have given the polls a powder keg feel.

He accuses the West of funding his “pro-LGBT” rivals and portrays himself as a defender of conservative values against attacks by foreign “terrorists”.

The increasingly febrile atmosphere prompted opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu to ask supporters to stay home if they win.

“If we go out, there may be riots, armed people may take to the streets,” the 74-year-old secular opposition leader warned.

– ‘Political coup’ –

The nation of 85 million appears as splintered as ever about whether Erdogan has done more harm than good in the only Muslim-majority country of the NATO defence bloc.

The entry of two minor candidates means that Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu will likely face each other again in a runoff on May 28.

But some of Erdogan’s more hawkish ministers are sounding warnings about Western efforts to undermine Turkey’s might through the polls.

The parliamentary and presidential polls will see Erdogan face a six-party alliance that crosses Turkey’s vast political spectrum and includes some of his former allies.

Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu has repeatedly referred to US President Joe Biden’s 2019 suggestion that Washington should embolden the opposition “to take on and defeat Erdogan”.

“July 15 was their actual coup attempt,” Soylu said of a failed 2016 military putsch that Erdogan blamed on a US-based Muslim preacher.

“And May 14 is their political coup attempt.”

– Splintered society –

Erdogan continues to be lionised across more conservative swathes of Turkey for unshackling religious restrictions and bringing modern homes and jobs to millions of people through construction and state investment.

Turkey is now filled with hospitals and interconnected with airports and highways that stimulate trade and give the vast country a more inclusive feel.

He empowered conservative women by enabling them to stay veiled in school and in civil service — a right that did not exist in the secular state created from the Ottoman Empire’s ashes in 1923.

And he won early support from Turkey’s long-repressed Kurdish minority by seeking a political solution to their armed struggle for an independent state.

But his equally passionate detractors point to a more ruthless streak that emerged with the violent clampdown on protests in 2013 — and became even more apparent with sweeping purges he unleashed after the failed 2016 coup attempt.

Erdogan turned against the Kurds and jailed or stripped tens of thousands of people of their state jobs on oblique “terror” charges that sent chills through Turkish society.

Polls show younger voters who have no memories of the corruption and economic crises that ravaged Turkey before Erdogan’s rise preferring Kilicdaroglu by a two-to-one margin.

– Democratic traditions –

Erdogan’s biggest problems started when he decided to defy the rules of economics by slashing interest rates to fight inflation in 2021.

The lira crashed and inflation hit an eye-popping 85 percent since his experiment began.

Millions lost their savings and fell into deep debt.

Polls show the economy worrying Turks more than any other issue — a point not lost on Kilicdaroglu.

The retired civil servant pledges to restore economic order and bring in vast sums from Western investors who fled the chaos of Erdogan’s more recent rule.

Kilicdaroglu’s party will send out 300,000 monitors to Turkey’s 50,000 polling stations to guarantee a fair outcome on election day.

A Western diplomatic source pointed to Turkey’s strong tradition of respecting election results.

Erdogan’s own supporters turned against him when the Turkish leader tried to annul the opposition’s victory in 2019 mayoral elections in Istanbul.

But the source observed a note of worry among Erdogan’s rank and file.

“For the first time, (ruling party) deputies are openly evoking the possibility of defeat,” the source said.

Source: News.com.au

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

Erdogan, 69, defied opinion polls and came out comfortably ahead with an almost five-point lead over his rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu in the first round on May 14. But he fell just short of the 50% needed to avoid a runoff.

Voting began at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) and will finish at 5 p.m. (1400 GMT). The outcome was expected to start becoming clear by early evening.

Source: Saltwire

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