Spirits low in Istanbul, but voters will turn out for second round

Voters in Turkey are united in disappointment that neither Recep Tayyip Erdogan nor rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu won a clear mandate for the presidency at the polls.

In a tea shop near Taksim Square in Istanbul, Mehmet Ancar, 54, said he was not impressed by the campaigners but will vote for People’s Republican Party (CHP) candidate Mr Kilicdaroglu in the May 28 run-off.

“The AKP campaigned on the economy, but an economy can’t keep a country alive without justice,” he said.

“Kilicdaroglu disappointed me. The CHP didn’t run a good campaign, they didn’t protect the ballot boxes. I hope he’ll win the second round, though.”

If Mr Erdogan is re-elected, he will not be in power for long, Mr Ancar said.

“There is no economic security, the banks are empty. People won’t accept this when they start dying from hunger,” he said.

Hassan Demir, 22, is Kurdish and works at the teahouse. He also voted for Mr Kilicdaroglu and said his spirits were low.

“I’m not hopeful. How can I hope for a beautiful future for Turkey? It’s been 20 years of the same thing and people are still voting for [Mr Erdogan],” he said.

“I have no morale, it’s zero. But I will go and vote again. I hope Kilicdaroglu will win to free our imprisoned [political leaders] and bring justice to the country to treat all citizens equally.”

Mr Demir said a big issue was the opposition’s pledge to free Kurdish leaders jailed under Mr Erdogan’s government, including Selahattin Demirtas, who was imprisoned for terrorism in 2016.

Mr Demirtas is the co-founder of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Turkey’s third-largest party, which was hit hardest by the government following public protests.

The ruling AKP dismissed elected HDP officials and charged thousands of party members with “insulting the president” on social media.

Hussein Petek, 63, voted for Mr Erdogan and said he was confident of an AKP victory later this month. “He’s a powerful leader, and that’s what we need in Turkey,” he said, echoing other supporters of Mr Erdogan who spoke to The National from Kasimpasa, the neighbourhood where the President spent his childhood.

“Erdogan builds monuments and large projects for Turkey,” Mr Petek said. Mr Kilicdaroglu would build “sculptures”, he added.

Emit Acka, 38, said he did not go to the polls.

“I didn’t vote because I don’t believe we are voting for a winner or a loser,” he said. “Someone else is deciding. You can’t do anything in this country, people always interfere.