Erdogan to hold controversial election rally in Bosnia
SARAJEVO: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will hold an election rally in Sarajevo yesterday for expatriate Turks, an event that has stirred controversy in Bosnia.
Sarajevo was chosen for the rally after several European Union countries, including Germany, banned such rallies in the campaign for last year’s referendum on a new system enhancing the powers of the Turkish presidency.
The decision sparked tension between Ankara and Brussels.
Turkey heads to presidential and parliamentary polls on June 24.
Erdogan has previously drawn controversy for electioneering in Europe, where there are some three million Turks eligible to vote in Turkish elections, including 1.4 million in Germany.
According to Bosnian media, around 20,000 people are expected for the rally in Sarajevo’s largest sports venue Zetra.
Two giant portraits of Erdogan and Turkey’s first president Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, were placed in the hall on Saturday.
In April, Austria and the Netherlands also said they would ban any campaigning by Turkish politicians on their soil for the June elections.
A similar ban was seen as unlikely in Sarajevo, however, given that Bosnian Muslim leader Bakir Izetbegovic attended the marriage of Erdogan’s daughter in 2016.
His SDA party is seen as close to Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) which, according to Bosnian media, is planning to open a representative office in Bosnia soon.
“We will show that he (Erdogan) has friends and that there are those who are proud of him,” Izetbegovic, the Muslim member of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency, told his supporters last week.
The Turkish leader “is not liked in the West and there are many frustrated Bosniak (Muslims) who do not like him in this country”, Izetbegovic said.
“What is the problem? The problem is that he is a powerful Muslim leader that we have not had for a long time.”
A Facebook group supporting Erdogan’s arrival voiced “welcome to the protector of Muslims in the world”. — AFP