Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan hopes to extend his rule into a third decade in a May 14 election but faces his toughest test yet at the ballot box, with his popularity hit by a cost-of-living crisis driven by runaway inflation.

Here are some of the milestones in the career of a politician who has brought significant change to Turkey, steering its traditionally secular society towards his Islamist vision, establishing the country as a regional military power and using the courts to crack down on dissent:

March 1994: Erdogan is elected Istanbul mayor as part of the Welfare Party, led by Islamist politician Necmettin Erbakan.

April 1998: Erdogan resigns as mayor after a court sentences him to prison for inciting religious discrimination over a poem he recited in 1997 comparing mosques to barracks, minarets to bayonets and the faithful to an army. He is jailed from March 1999 to July 1999.

August 2001: He establishes the Justice and Development Party, or AK Party (AKP), and is elected chairman.

November 2002: The AKP wins elections with nearly 35% of votes following the worst economic slump since the 1970s, promising to break with past mismanagement and recessions. Erdogan is legally barred from serving as prime minister or in parliament due to his earlier conviction – but that decision is overturned in December.

May 2003: Erdogan becomes prime minister, beginning a decade of economic boom and rising living standards driven by an infrastructure boom and foreign investment. In his early days, Erdogan tours Europe and the United States to promote his policies and advance Turkey’s bid to join the European Union.

October 2007: In a referendum, Turks approve constitutional changes to allow the president – then a largely symbolic role – to be publicly elected.

February 2008: Parliament passes an amendment drafted by the AKP and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) that lifts a ban on wearing head scarves on university campuses.

The following month, the Constitutional Court hears a case over the separation of religion and state, and narrowly rules against dismantling the AKP and banning Erdogan and dozens of other party members from political life for five years.

September 2010: In another referendum, Turks approve judicial and economic amendments championed by Erdogan that are meant to align the constitution with EU standards even as Turkey’s EU membership bid stalls over issues including the divided island of Cyprus, which Turkey invaded in 1974.

May 2013: Protests against Erdogan’s plans to redevelop Istanbul’s Gezi Park accelerate into unprecedented nationwide demonstrations over what critics see as his authoritarianism. Erdogan describes the protesters as thugs and vandals.

December 2013: Erdogan faces a sprawling corruption investigation involving senior officials, cabinet members and the head of a state-owned bank. He calls it a “judicial coup” organised by Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based Muslim cleric who was a former ally before a power struggle prompted a falling out.

August 2014: Barred by AKP regulations from running for a fourth consecutive term as prime minister, Erdogan in August wins Turkey’s first presidential elections and starts calling for a new constitution to enhance the head of state’s powers.

June 2015: In a first, the AKP falls short of a parliamentary majority in an election. But after parties fail to form a coalition, it regains a majority in November snap polls.

July 2016: Rogue soldiers commandeer tanks and helicopters, attack state buildings and parliament, and kill more than 250 people in a failed coup attempt. Erdogan survives and says it was orchestrated by Gulen’s network. It prompts a state of emergency including widespread arrests of alleged network members in the military, and in the private and public sectors. Rights groups and Western allies later raise concerns that Erdogan used the coup attempt as a pretext to quash dissent.

August 2016: Erdogan authorizes a major military offensive into Syria – Turkey’s first big incursion into another country in decades – marking the first of four cross-border operations.

April 2017: A referendum approves an executive presidential system, giving sweeping powers to the presidency. Erdogan had campaigned hard for the changes that would alleviate what he called hindrances in parliamentary democracies.

June 2018: Erdogan wins snap presidential elections. The AKP and their nationalist MHP allies secure a parliamentary majority.

August 2018: A series of economic crises and sharp lira depreciations begins with a currency crisis sparked by heightened tensions with the United States and other Western countries, as well as by concerns over Erdogan’s unorthodox economic views and influence on monetary policy.

March 2019: Nationwide municipal elections produce Erdogan’s first electoral defeat in nearly two decades. Candidates from the opposition alliance of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the IYI Party defeat AKP mayoral candidates in cities including Ankara and Istanbul.

November 2019: Amid turmoil in Libya, Turkey signs two accords with the Tripoli-based government on maritime boundaries, and on military cooperation. The Turkish role – sending military advisers, trainers, and Syrian fighters – stopped eastern forces capturing the capital.

February 2020: Turkey and Russia come to the brink of confrontation after dozens of Turkish soldiers are killed in airstrikes in Syria’s Idlib region.

Angered by what it sees as a lack of Western support and fearing another wave of Syrian refugees, Ankara says it would no longer stop them trying to reach Europe, despite a 2016 deal which committed Turkey to keeping migrants on its territory.

December 2020: The United States imposes sanctions on Turkey and its defence industry over Ankara’s purchase of Russian S-400 air defence systems, pushing ties to a new low.

2021: Turkey starts mending strained regional ties including with Armenia, Israel, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. It also ramps up sales of sophisticated drones to Ukraine, Poland and other countries.

December 2021: The economy suffers an even deeper currency crisis following a series of unorthodox interest rate cuts. The lira hits all-time lows, inflation soars to its highest levels during Erdogan’s rule, and his approval ratings sink.

July 2022: Turkish mediation, alongside the United Nations, helps secure a deal allowing a resumption of Ukraine’s grain exports, five months after Russia’s invasion started. Erdogan’s role is seen as crucial thanks to his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

February 2023: Turkey suffers the deadliest earthquake in its modern history with more than 50,000 people killed in the southeast. People in the disaster zone complain of a slow response by the authorities, particularly in the first days, prompting criticism of the government. Erdogan acknowledges the response could have been faster and asked “people’s forgiveness for the shortcomings occurred in the first days of the quake”.

Source: Yahoo! Finance

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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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Turkish women have fought hard to protect their rights during two decades of socially conservative policies overseen by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamic-rooted party.

AFP looks back at some of their battles ahead of next Sunday’s election in the mostly Muslim but officially secular nation of 85 million people.

– Violence against women-

Erdogan’s decision in 2021 to withdraw Turkey from a European convention aimed at combating violence against women raised alarm due to rising femicide rates.

At least 397 women were killed in Turkey last year, according to the We Will Stop Femicide Platform, a women’s rights group that prosecutors want to shut down for “acting against the law and morality”.

“We have seen the number of femicides rise every year under (Erdogan’s) government,” group member Fidan Ataselim said.

Ultra-conservatives in Erdogan’s ruling coalition argued that the treaty damaged family unity and promoted LGBTQ rights.

Erdogan has repeatedly attacked the opposition during the campaign for standing up for the LGBTQ community.

“We are against the LGBT,” he said this week.

The withdrawal represents a policy reversal for Erdogan.

The treaty was signed and negotiated in Istanbul in 2011. Turkey was the first country to ratify it the following year.

“These were the early years of the (ruling party), when it positioned itself as moderate conservatives,” said Gokce Gokcen, the deputy head of the main secular opposition party.

– Headscarf –

Conservative women, on the other hand, have made big strides.

Erdogan’s government lifted a ban on wearing headscarves in state institutions in 2013, creating room for millions of religious women to go to university and enter the workforce.

Erdogan portrays himself as the guarantor of Muslims against secular elites that dominated Turkish politics for much of the 20th century.

They stripped religious symbols from state institutions as part of a modernisation drive that pushed post-Ottoman Turkey closer to Europe.

No major political movement currently wants to reintroduce a headscarf ban.

“There has been a significant progress on this issue,” said Berrin Sonmez, a member of the Esik feminist platform.

“Pious women and secular women are now working together in feminist organisations.”

– Reproductive health-

“Abortion is murder”, Erdogan declared in 2012, comments that triggered demonstrations that ultimately forced his government to back down from a proposed abortion ban.

“It had to take a step back after protests and fierce public opposition,” Ataselim said.

The problem now, according to Gokcen, is that few doctors are willing to perform abortions.

This is particularly true at public hospitals, which are under stronger government control.

Erdogan often says that every family should have “at least three children”.

In addition, “access to contraception and hygienic products has been made very difficult for women struggling with poverty,” which grew during an economic crisis that hit Turkey in late 2021, said Beril Hepgoncali of the Purple Solidarity women’s rights group.

– Sexist discourse-

Erdogan and senior officials in his ruling party have a history of making overtly sexist comments.

In 2014, the Turkish leader said equality between men and women was “against nature”. 

That same year, his deputy prime minister said women “should not laugh loudly” in public.

“Our right to exist as equal citizens and free individuals is being constantly threatened,” said Sonmez.

“They advocate policies that put the family first instead of women,” added Ataselim.

Source: Herald Sun

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A Turkish court has convicted a former Miss Turkey of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, giving her a 14-month suspended prison sentence.

Merve Buyuksarac, 27, was found guilty of insulting a public official for postings she made on social media. She denied insulting Mr Erdogan.

Her lawyer says he will file a formal objection to the verdict and take the case to a higher court.

Rights groups have criticised Turkey for backtracking on freedom of speech.

Almost 2,000 people, including celebrities and schoolchildren, have been prosecuted in Turkey for insulting the president since he came to office in 2014, under a previously little-used law.

Merve Buyuksarac, the 2006 Miss Turkey, was briefly detained last year for sharing a satirical poem on her Instagram account in 2014.

The posting, an adaptation of the Turkish national anthem, was shared thousands of times on social media, and it was considered by prosecutors to be insulting to Mr Erdogan, who was then prime minister.

Her sentence was suspended on condition that she does not reoffend within the next five years.

The model’s lawyer, Emre Telci, told the Associated Press news agency: “These insult trials are being initiated in series, they are being filed automatically.

“Merve was prosecuted for sharing a posting that did not belong to her. My client has been convicted for words that do not belong to her.”

Mr Erdogan’s lawyer, Hatice Ozay, said in court the post had gone beyond “the limits of criticism” and amounted to an “attack against my client’s personal rights”.

Human rights activists say Mr Erdogan is using the law to silence and intimidate critics, including journalists, academics and ordinary citizens.

The president caused uproar last month when he filed a criminal complaint against a German satirist in a case that prompted a debate over freedom of speech in Germany.

Source: BBC

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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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Republicans demand action from Biden over Turkey’s $500k bounty on Enes Kanter Freedom

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was forced to suspend his election campaign events on Wednesday after abruptly falling ill during a live television interview.

Erdogan tweeted after the appearance, “Today I will rest at home upon the advice of my doctors… with God’s permission, we will continue our campaign from tomorrow onwards.”

His sudden illness forced him to cancel a live appearance for the opening ceremony of a Russian-owned nuclear power plant in southern Turkey and comes amid a high-stakes Turkish election that is expected to come down to the wire.

An election triumph by a former civil servant dubbed the “Turkish Gandhi” on May 14 over Turkey’s strongman leader Erdogan – who has controlled the levers of power for 20 years in the strategically important country that straddles the Mideast and Europe – would have far-reaching implications for U.S. foreign policy interests.

Elections polls show a razor-close race between Erdogan and his social democratic Republican People’s Party competitor Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who recently declared that he is a member of the persecuted Alevi Muslim minority community within a country dominated by Sunni Islam.

Turkish opposition leaders have nominated Kemal Kilicdaroglu to challenge President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The 74-year-old Kilicdaroglu, who heads an opposition group of six parties, had recently been slightly ahead of Erdogan in recent polling. However, two polls last week showed Erdogan ahead.

Billboards display Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Istanbul, Wednesday, April 19, 2023, and proclaim, “For the Turkish century, the right time, the right man.” Presidential elections in Turkey are scheduled to take place on May 14.

Michael Rubin, a Middle East expert for the American Enterprise Institute, who has written extensively about Erdogan, said if Kilicdaroglu dislodges Erdogan, “It would absolutely be a good thing” for the security interests of the U.S. and American allies. 

Rubin said, “The sooner Erdogan is gone, the quicker Turkey can recover. The danger is that so many diplomats and security officials believe simplistically that the problem in Turkey is just Erdogan rather than a much broader ideology and twisted historical narrative. The United States must base its policy on Turkey’s behavior, not wishful thinking or the assurances of retired American diplomats who have a personal financial interest in Turkish businesses and close ties.”

The 69-year-old Erdogan has picked major fights with the U.S. over the decades, ranging from barring American troops from utilizing Turkish soil as an entry point to invade Iraq in 2003 to launching Turkish military strikes on the U.S.-allied Kurdish forces who helped America oust the Islamic State.

Turkey claims that the Kurdish forces in Syria are linked to the Turkey and U.S.-designated terrorist organization Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani meet on April 4, 2018, in Ankara.

In 2020, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Turkey for its purchases of Russian S-400 air defense systems. Turkey is a member of the U.S.-led North American Treaty Alliance (NATO) that was designed to blunt Russian expansionism and military power.

Erdogan has caused political headaches for the U.S. by initially blocking Finland and Sweden from joining NATO. Finland recently gained admission and Sweden is waiting on its bid to be approved. 

Uzay Bulut, a Turkish analyst and research fellow for the Philos Project, sees an uphill battle to repair American-Turkish relations. Erdogan’s attacks on U.S. foreign policy have generated intense anti-Americanism in the nation of just over 85 million people. 

Supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan listen to his speech during a campaign rally in Istanbul, Friday, April 21, 2023.

Bulut told Fox News Digital, “More than 94% of the people who spoke to the Areda Survey in 2021, for instance, said they do not believe that the U.S. is a friend to Turkey. According to various polls, the United States leads the list of most hated countries among Turks.”

She added, “Expecting the opposition to implement a pro-U.S., pro-NATO or pro-EU foreign policy would not be very realistic. Just like Erdogan, they will do whatever they believe their national interests require them to do. And this includes supporting China or other authoritarian regimes”

Questions abound about a new Turkish policy to the Syrian dictatorship of President Bashar Assad and whether Erodgan’s autocratic-style of leadership will permit a free and fair election.

Bulut said, “There has been no major objection to Turkey’s military presence in Syria from the opposition alliance. The only party who seriously objects to Turkey’s criminal actions in Syria is the Kurdish political opposition in Turkey.”

She added, “I don’t think a free and fair election is really possible in Turkey. Erdogan seems capable of doing anything to stay in power, including stealing the elections or causing violence in society in the event of his defeat in elections.”

Rubin echoed Bulut’s view about a Kilicdaroglu government withdrawing Turkish troops from Syria, stating, “Wishful thinking about Turkey is a chronic disease among American diplomats, and epidemic among Turkish expatriate journalists.”

People walk past banners with the photograph of presidential candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu in Istanbul, Turkey, Tuesday, April 18, 2023.

Rubin said, “Erdogan is no democrat. Period. He will cheat. He will manipulate. He will deny. He will calculate that the European Union will eventually give in, whether because many countries fear a wave of refugees pouring across the Turkish frontier or because Germany knows Erdogan can activate terror cells among the Turkish diaspora in that country. As for the United States, Biden’s record at holding firm suggests a serious need for diplomatic Viagra his advisers are not willing to prescribe.”

In an April, 18 column in the pro-Erdogan newspaper The Daily Sabah, Burhanettin Duran, a professor at Social Sciences University of Ankara, tackled the “Difference Between Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu.” Duran wrote that “Under Erdogan’s leadership, Türkiye has been among the most active countries in this new global and regional chapter.” 

Duran, who is a member of the Turkish Presidency Security and Foreign Policies Council, continued, “By contrast, Kilicdaroglu remains unimpressive, mainly in foreign policy, national security and national defense. His party has not made any severe pledges except dialogue with Syria and launching a new regional organization in the Middle East.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the Turkish government about the election and its foreign policy. 

The soft-spoken Kilicdaroglu secured a reputation for rooting out corruption during his time running the country’s Social Security Institution. 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan shakes hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin during their meeting in Tehran, Iran, July 19, 2022. 

Kilicdaroglu’s striking resemblance to the Indian nationalist leader Mahatma Gandhi, along with his low-key demeanor, earned him the nickname “Turkish Gandhi” or “Gandhi Kermal.” When he was assaulted in the Turkish parliament in 2014 via punches to the face causing bruises, he told his fellow MPs to relax, declaring, “The path to democracy is full of obstacles.”

Erdogan’s handling of the horrific earthquakes in February that killed more than 50,000 Turkish residents has placed question marks over his role in construction safety in a region long vulnerable to earthquakes. The combination of alleged lax safety standards during Erdogan’s building boom and a reportedly defective relief effort after the earthquake are burning campaign topics.

Rubin, the Turkey expert who is a fierce critic of Erdogan, argues that “after 20 years of Erdoganism, the problem is no longer one man but the entire system. Erdogan has both reshaped the bureaucracy (in) his own image, and he has also demonstrated to the opposition what a potent tool unhinged Turkish nationalism can be. Erdogan has left an economy in tatters, one that won’t be easily fixed.”

Protesters demonstrate against the detention of 110 people over alleged militant ties. The operation came less than three weeks before the biggest electoral challenge President Tayyip Erdogan has faced since he came to power in 2002.

Ragip Soylu, the Turkey bureau chief for Middle East Eye, who previously worked for the Daily Sabah, outlined why Erdogan remains a formidable candidate and his recent achievements in an April policy article for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. 

Soylu notes that Erdogan “has repaired damaged relations with Arab heavyweights over the past couple of years. One result was that, in 2021, the United Arab Emirates agreed to a $5 billion currency swap with Ankara and pledged to invest $10 billion in Turkey’s start-ups and high-tech industry.”

President Joe Biden meets with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during the NATO summit in Madrid, June 29, 2022. 

Erdogan is seeking to be somewhat more inclusive in a shift away from his brass-knuckle style of power politics. “Erdogan invited opposition representatives and his media critics to the event held to promote this concept, calling on them to acknowledge all his government has done in the service of Turkish society,” wrote Soylu.

The confluence of perhaps the most pivotal election in Turkey’s history, coupled with the100th anniversary of the founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923, has electrified commentators, Turks and observers of the Ankara’s complex politics. The stakes are high for the U.S., NATO, the volatile Middle East and Europe.

A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department told Fox News Digital, “Türkiye is a long-standing U.S. ally and partner. We will continue to work together with the government chosen by the Turkish people to deepen cooperation around shared priorities.”

Source: Fox News

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Turkey’s strongman, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is looking a little weaker this weekend after dramatically falling ill on live television during campaigning for 14 May presidential and parliamentary elections.

Erdoğan, 69, has ruthlessly wielded power, as prime minister and president, for 20 years. His carefully cultivated image is of a tough, indestructible leader. Yet suddenly he appears frail.

Ministers insist that his illness – he has previously had intestinal surgery – is nothing more serious than stomach flu. He rejoined the fray on Saturday.

Whatever the truth, the episode has added to a growing sense that an authoritarian figure who has come to dominate almost every aspect of Turkish life, personally dictating domestic, security and foreign policy, is due a reckoning – and that it’s time for a change.

The fact that Erdoğan, unusually, is trailing slightly in the polls behind his presidential rival, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, head of the People’s Republican party and leader of a six-party opposition alliance, is a sign that the political ground may be shifting. Analysts suggest that Erdoğan’s Justice and Development party and its ultra-nationalist allies may also lose control of parliament, following previous, significant local election defeats in Istanbul and Ankara.

Extraordinarily high inflation and a cost of living crisis are widely blamed on Erdoğan’s mismanagement

Another potentially election-deciding shift came on Friday when the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic party (HDP) – whose leader, Selahattin Demirtaş, was jailed seven years ago on spurious terrorism charges – threw its weight behind the opposition alliance. Kurds represent about one fifth of Turkey’s 85 million population. In past elections the HDP, which Erdoğan is trying to ban, has attracted about 10% of the national vote.

Key election issues include the economy. Extraordinarily high inflation and a cost of living crisis are widely blamed on Erdoğan’s mismanagement. Such problems, affecting everyone, could undermine the rural base on which the ruling party traditionally depends. The perceived inadequate government response to February’s earthquakes, which killed more than 50,000 people, and anger over corrupt building practices overlooked by the state, could also sway many voters.

Yet these elections are also about legacy and history, which seem to be catching up with the most powerful Turkish leader since Kemal Atatürk. Constitutional changes pushed through by Erdoğan, giving him sweeping executive powers, mean he is held primarily and personally responsible for the country’s problems. His aggressive efforts to silence independent critics and media have not prevented a rising public backlash.

Erdoğan’s insistence, stemming from his Islamic beliefs, that a woman’s principal role should be child-raising and home-making threatens to alienate younger voters, as well as older, more conservative women who previously welcomed his removal of a headscarf ban but resent his didactic behaviour. About 20,000 mosques have been built in Turkey since he took power – part of his drive to “Islamicise” society and overturn Atatürk’s secular legacy. This, too, may now be backfiring.

His insistence that a woman’s principal role should be child-raising and home-making threatens to alienate younger voters

Kurdish antipathies are fuelled by memories of a violent government crackdown begun in 2015, ostensibly aimed at supporters of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ party, proscribed as a terrorist organisation. Thousands of activists were jailed, elected Kurdish mayors deposed. Nor have civil society groups, judges, journalists and public servants forgotten the purges and mass arrests that followed a failed 2016 military coup.

On the international stage, Erdoğan has often angered Turkey’s friends and allies by his interventions in Syria and Iraq, his courting of a fellow authoritarian leader, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and, most recently, his de facto veto of Sweden’s bid to join Nato. Foreign governments don’t have a vote. But Turkey’s people do. It’s time for a change.

Source: The Guardian

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Turkey’s pro-Kurdish party and its leftist allies have asked their voters to back President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s main rival in the May 14 presidential election.

Friday’s announcement pushes one of Turkey’s largest voting blocs behind opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the head of the People’s Republican Party, and further complicates Erdogan’s path to achieving more than two decades in power.

The Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), the third-largest in Turkey’s parliament, decided last month not to field a presidential candidate and strongly hinted that it would back Kilicdaroglu without officially endorsing his candidacy.

However, both the party’s co-leader and its leftist electoral alliance issued statements on Friday calling on voters to rally around Erdogan’s main opponent.

“In this historic election, we call on the people of Turkey to vote for the Labour and Freedom Alliance in the parliamentary elections and for Kemal Kilicdaroglu in the presidential elections,” the HDP and its allies said in a statement.

HDP co-leader Mithat Sancar called the upcoming vote “the most crucial in Turkey’s history”.

“That’s why we’ve decided to support Kilicdaroglu,” he told the Sozcu news site.

The HDP has won more than 10 percent of the vote in past national elections and represents a community accounting for about a fifth of Turkey’s population.

‘Our goals coincide’

Kurds suffered repression under successive secular governments and helped Erdogan and his conservative party seize power 20 years ago.

Erdogan lifted linguistic and cultural restrictions on the community and tried to end a bloody Kurdish struggle for an independent state in Turkey’s southeast through talks.

But a breakdown of those negotiations in 2015 was followed by a new wave of violence and a government crackdown.

Since then, Turkey has jailed thousands of activists and replaced dozens of elected HDP mayors with state trustees after accusing them of having ties with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). It has fought a war against the Turkish state since 1984 and is a designated “terrorist” group in Turkey, the European Union and the United States.

Erdogan portrays the HDP as the political-wing of the PKK, and the party is now facing the threat of closure over alleged “terror” ties. The imminent threat of dissolution has forced the HDP to run its parliamentary candidates under the banner of a new party called the Party of Greens and the Left Future.

The party says it is being singled out for standing up to Erdogan’s rule.

“We have two strategic goals,” Sancar said. “The first is to end the one-man regime. And the second is to become the most influential force in the democratic transformation.”

“Our goals coincide with Kilicdaroglu’s on ending the one-man regime,” he said.

The HDP’s support significantly expands the reach of Kilicdaroglu’s six-party alliance, already an eclectic mix of liberals and nationalists and an ultraconservative party.

Source: Al Jazeera

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ANKARA – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan canceled his scheduled campaign rallies on Wednesday and Thursday for health reasons, weeks before May 14 presidential and parliamentary elections.

“Today, I will rest at home with the advice of my doctors,” Erdogan wrote on his Twitter account on Wednesday.

Later, AK Party deputy chair Erkan Kandemir said Erdogan would attend a ceremony at the Akkuyu nuclear power plant in the southern Mersin province via videolink on Thursday.

“Our Mersin rally is also planned to be held on a future date,” he posted on Twitter.

Late on Tuesday, Erdogan cut short a live TV interview during which he said he felt sick with an upset stomach.

The elections represent the biggest electoral challenge for modern Turkey’s longest-serving leader, after a cost-of-living crisis eroded Erdogan’s support. Opinion polls show Erdogan could lose after two decades in power.

Source: Reuters

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