Istanbul Shortly before the run-off election for the presidency next Sunday, the Turkish opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu was assured of the support of a right-wing extremist group. Victory Party leader Ümit Özdag announced on Wednesday that he would support Kilicdaroglu, who is running against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
In a document from Özdag’s party and Kilicdaroglu’s CHP, the two agreed to send “migrants and illegal immigrants” back to their homeland within a year. Kilicdaroglu “explained very clearly that the refugees should return to their home country and that this is the policy that he will implement,” Özdag said after several rounds of talks with the 74-year-old. “Therefore, as the party of victory, we have decided to support Mr. Kilicdaroglu in the second round of the presidential election.”
Kilicdaroglu himself only briefly commented on the new partnership. “In terms of Turkey’s future, in terms of being a peaceful country and in terms of Turkey achieving a strengthened parliamentary system, each party has a responsibility,” he said during a joint press statement with Özdag.
Kilicdaroglu is the joint candidate of a six-party opposition alliance aiming to reverse Turkey’s authoritarian course under Erdogan and return the country to a parliamentary democracy with strengthened control mechanisms.
During the election campaign, for example in Twitter videos, he often presented himself as a moderate democrat who is concerned with respect, human rights and the separation of powers. Amid economic turmoil and high inflation, sentiment towards migrants is running hot. The issue of repatriation is one of the key campaign issues.
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The government camp had also received support from the right-wing camp this week. Özdag’s announcement came just days after Sinan Ogan, the third-placed candidate in the first round of elections on May 14, declared his support for Erdogan.
Although I still trust Kemal Kilicdaroglu on the principles of democracy and freedom, I do not see any of our principles at all in the protocol that has now been signed. Emirhan Yörük, founding leader of the youth wing within the opposition Deva party
In the first round of the presidential elections almost two weeks ago, Erdogan received 49.5 percent of the votes and just missed the required absolute majority. Kilicdaroglu received 44.9 percent, Ogan 5.2 percent. Ogan was the common candidate of an alliance of small conservative parties led by Özdag’s Victory Party, which, however, only got 2.2 percent of the vote in the parliamentary elections.
It is therefore controversial to what extent the cooperation should help the Erdogan challenger. A survey by the Konda Institute published on Thursday sees incumbent Erdogan at 52.7 percent, well ahead of Kilicdaroglu, who comes to 47.3 percent. Even if the 2.2 percent of Victory Party voters were to all vote for Kilicdaroglu, it would not be enough.
“Stop All Kinds of Fascist Ambitions”
Members of the six-party opposition alliance were negatively surprised. “We should stick to universal standards and stop all kinds of fascist ambitions at the beginning of their path,” Mustafa Yeneroglu, a founding member of the Deva party, which is part of Kilicdaroglu’s alliance, said in a tweet, although he didn’t directly refer to it the announced support from the far right.
Turkish opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu will face President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Sunday’s runoff election.
(Photo: IMAGO/ZUMA Wire)
The step was also not well received by first-time voters, initially one of the main target groups of the opposition. Emirhan Yörük, founding chairman of the youth wing within the opposition Deva party, sees the deal between Kilicdaroglu and Özdag in stark contrast to the previous election campaign of the anti-Erdogan alliance.
“Although I still trust Kemal Kilicdaroglu in terms of the principles of democracy and freedom, I cannot see any of our principles in the protocol that has now been signed,” he told Handelsblatt. “Our alliance, whose main principles are based on reconciliation and inclusivity, and the Victory Party, which is based on hatred and division – that doesn’t fit.”
A senior member of the youth branch of the Iyi Party, the second largest party in the opposition alliance, is more specific. “I will not vote for Kilicdaroglu in the runoff,” complains the young politician, who does not wish to be named.
The pro-Kurdish HDP, which previously supported the opposition candidate Kilicdaroglu, now wants to reconsider this cooperation, the party announced. “In the future, historians will refer to this day as the great mass suicide attempt in politics,” said Ufuk Aras, a former HDP official.
sanctuary
3.9
million refugees
houses Turkey according to the UN refugee agency UNHCR.
The HDP wants to make a final statement by the weekend on whether it will support Kilicdaroglu, but said the document Kilicdaroglu signed with Özdag contained articles that ran counter to universal democratic principles.
Eleven leading officials of the Gelecek party, also a member of the opposition alliance, announced their withdrawal from the party, including some founding members. “We do not support any language of hate used to harass refugees seeking refuge in our country,” the 11 men and women said in a joint statement.
“Any politician familiar with the issue knows that the return of Syrian refugees with temporary protection status depends on the achievement of political stability in Syria and that this can only happen within the framework of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254,” says Khaled Khoja , a Syrian-Turkish politician of the Gelecek party.
According to the UN refugee agency UNHCR, Turkey is home to the largest refugee community in the world with 3.9 million people seeking protection – 3.7 million Syrians live in the country alone. According to Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, 230,998 Syrians under temporary protection have received Turkish citizenship so far, and 130,914 are of voting age.
Politics by fistfight
Contrary to the expectations of many pollsters, Kilicdaroglu was well behind incumbent Erdogan in the first ballot. On the other hand, other national-conservative parties performed better than forecast. Although these parties had not openly railed against refugees, Kilicdaroglu had sharpened his tone last week in an apparent attempt to woo nationalist voters to the runoff, promising to turn refugees back if he was elected.
With his aggressive attitude, 62-year-old right winger Özdag embodies the opposite of Kilicdaroglu, who had already been dubbed the “Turkish Gandhi” because of his gentle nature.
In May last year, Özdag threatened the Turkish interior minister with a fist fight. When he and some supporters did appear in front of the ministry, the police prevented him from entering the building.
Özdag described refugees as an epidemic in a widely acclaimed video last year. After the earthquake, he claimed that a Syrian boy stole a Turkish worker’s phone, presenting a video from the rubble of a house.
The boy, who was clearly recognizable on the video, went to the police – and then to television himself: it turned out that he was Turkish and the cell phone he is said to have stolen is his own.
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