Erdogan’s 20-year rule over Turkey in balance
Turkey was on a knife-edge last night as strongman leader recep Tayyip erdogan found himself neck and neck in the presidential polls with a softly-spoken democrat likened by some to Gandhi.
Opposition leader kemal kilicdaroglu has vowed that ‘spring will come to this country’ after two decades seeing President erdogan’s administration become increasingly authoritarian.
Polls closed in the late afternoon after nine hours of voting in the national election that could grant Mr erdogan, 69, another five- year term or see him unseated by left-leaning Mr kilicdaroglu, who campaigned on a promise to return Turkey to a more democratic path.
Surveys indicated that Mr erdogan had entered his bid for re- election trailing behind a challenger for the first time.
And while early results gave him a double-digit lead, sources in both camps last night admitted they may not clear the 50 per cent threshold required to win outright, prompting a run-off on May 28.
Mr kilicdaroglu urged his poll watchers not to leave their positions and said his camp ‘will not sleep tonight’ in order to fight the ‘fiction’ of an erdogan victory.
Mr erdogan, too, seemed to be set for a long night, saying it would not be right to announce ‘hurried results’, amid claims that his supporters were repeatedly objecting to counts in opposition-supporting areas to delay the final result.
If Mr erdogan does lose, it is likely to be welcomed in western capitals. He has been repeatedly accused of playing a ‘double game’ by condemning the russian invasion of ukraine but holding up the admission of Sweden to Nato and maintaining a cordial relationship with Vladimir Putin.
However, while Mr kilicdaroglu has warned the kremlin he will ‘remind russia that Turkey is a member of Nato’, his overall foreign policy objectives are yet to be properly fleshed out, after an election campaign that focused on Turkey’s economic woes and the much-criticised response to February’s earthquake that killed more than 50,000 people in unsafe buildings in 11 southern provinces.
Mr erdogan’s government has been criticised for a delayed response to the disaster, and a lax implementation of building codes.
‘We have all missed democracy so much. We all missed being together’, Mr kilicdaroglu – who
‘We have missed democracy’
leads the centre-left, pro-secular republican People’s Party – said yesterday, after voting at a school in Ankara, where his supporters chanted ‘President kilicdaroglu’.
‘From now on, you will see that spring will come to this country,’ he added.
Voters also elected lawmakers to fill Turkey’s 600-seat parliament, which lost much of its legislative power under Mr erdogan’s executive presidency.
Pre- election polls gave a slight lead to Mr kilicdaroglu, 74, who was picked as a candidate from a six-party opposition alliance.