The politician heads an alliance of six opposition parties.
(Photo: AP)
Istanbul Kemal Kilicdaroglu is making a lot of promises these days. The Turkish opposition leader from the republican CHP publishes a longer Twitter video every other day. Sometimes he talks about the religious minority of the Alevis, sometimes about pensioners who are suffering from high inflation.
Another video is about the minimum wage sector. In it, the opposition leader promises not to levy taxes on minimum wage recipients – even though minimum wages have been exempt from income tax for more than a year and a half.
The government jumped on the issue. “What’s next?” asked Ismail Cesur, adviser to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “A Turkish electric car? An aircraft carrier? Or do you want to announce a third bridge over the Bosphorus?” – rhetorical questions, because these are all realized projects of the current government.
After a remarkably quiet start during the fasting month of Ramadan and the illness of President Erdogan, the Turkish election campaign comes to a head almost two weeks before the polls. On May 14, the President and Parliament will be elected. If no presidential candidate achieves an absolute majority in the first ballot, a runoff will take place on May 28th. Polls point to a neck-and-neck race.
President Erdogan and the opposition’s joint candidate Kilicdaroglu held noisy political rallies in different parts of Turkey over the weekend. However, the really important issues are increasingly being pushed into the background during the election campaign. Instead, the two engage in a mud fight on Twitter and on campaign platforms that seems increasingly irrational.
Kilicdaroglu has to make concessions in the alliance against Erdogan
In a video, Kilicdaroglu warned that the government could use so-called deepfake videos to denounce the opposition shortly before the elections. These are realistic-looking videos that have been distorted by artificial intelligence. A few hours later, one of Kilicdaroglu’s party comrades announced that he could imagine using deepfake videos for his own election campaign.
>> Read here: The Turkish lira is under pressure ahead of the elections.
The opposition leader faces two major challenges in the election campaign. On the one hand, he has to bundle different interests within the opposition alliance, which consists of six parties. It follows that Kilicdaroglu is unable to address some issues that he would otherwise speak about.
So far, Kilicdaroglu has not once called for an end to the investigations into the Kurdish-leaning HDP, which itself has not put forward a candidate. This is because the national-secular Iyi party within its alliance does not want to make too many concessions to Kurds in the country during the election campaign. The 74-year-old has also not yet demanded the release of cultural patron Osman Kaval because the man who has been imprisoned since 2017 has hardly any support from the rest of the alliance.
The election campaign in Turkey is coming to a head.
(Photo: AP)
On the other hand, he finds it difficult to capitalize on the government’s weak economic policy. Kilicdaroglu often talks about the Turkish economy, which is suffering from high inflation and the collapse of the lira. On election posters he promises investments of 300 billion US dollars. But he does not explain where the money will come from.
Values for the opposition and government in Türkiye vary greatly in surveys
Survey researchers see great dynamics among voters. Challenger Kilicdaroglu leads in some polls, but others certify Erdogan a successful race to catch up.
“Until the middle of last year, Erdogan’s alliance regularly lost votes, while the opposition was able to gain,” says Ulas Tol from the institute team. Accordingly, the opposition reached its peak in the summer of last year, when inflation rose to 85 percent.
“Subsequently, the opposition’s figures fell back to 38 percent,” explains Tol. The opposition was not able to convert the difficult economic situation into its own support for long. In turn, the government camp entered a recovery phase. After the earthquake disaster in February and heavy criticism of the government’s crisis management, “the balance has turned in favor of the opposition”. But it is becoming apparent that this time, too, the opposition will not be able to benefit from the Erdogan government’s mistakes for long.
The Turkish President is now more moderate towards the West.
(Photo: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
Meanwhile, President Erdogan seems to be going through a change. During the election campaign, he used to regularly lash out against the West, speaking of hostile forces that wanted Turkey bad.
Nothing is heard of it now. On the contrary, Turkey recently gave Finland the green light to join NATO. Ankara is trying to reconcile even with old enemies like Egypt, Syria and Armenia.
Erdogan still wants to demonstrate his power. During the election campaign, he presented a type of aircraft carrier for combat drones, a frigate, a Turkish-made fighter jet, as well as other military aircraft and a battle tank.
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