Turkey: The man who could end Erdogan’s reign
Turkey’s “most powerful man” might have finally met his match, said Ece Goksedef in BBC News (U.K.). Recep Tayyip Erdogan has led the country for the past 20 years, first as prime minister and then as president, and it’s been years since he had a serious challenger. But Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the head of a Kemalist opposition party, currently has a narrow lead over the president in polls ahead of Turkey’s May 14 election. “A soft-spoken former civil servant,” Kilicdaroglu is “the very antithesis of Turkey’s grandstanding, powerful president.” He’s known as “the Turkish Gandhi” for his calm demeanor and peaceful response to violent attacks. Since taking over the Republican People’s Party in 2011, he has “led a quiet revolution” to broaden its appeal, loosening ties to a coup-prone military and making peace with Islamic hard-liners who were wary of the party’s support for secularism. A member of the Alevi religious minority, he has welcomed “religious figures, Kurdish activists, and women’s rights activists” into his tent. These changes have helped Kilicdaroglu unite six parties behind him, giving the fractious opposition the “biggest chance” it has ever had to unseat Erdogan.
The upcoming election will decide which way Turkey tips, said Nektaria Stamouli in Politico.eu (Belgium). Erdogan has already conducted a ruthless purge of Turkish society, jailing thousands of judges, politicians, journalists, teachers, and civil servants under the pretext that they sympathized with a failed 2016 coup attempt. If he wins, he will likely push Turkey even farther away from the West and toward political Islam, as he is running with the support of several Islamist parties. If Kilicdaroglu wins, though, Turkey will move back into the Western sphere. First, Kilicdaroglu will lift Turkey’s veto of Sweden’s NATO bid, and then he will introduce “liberalizing reforms in terms of rule of law, media freedoms, and depoliticization of the judiciary.” That should lead the European Union to “unfreeze” Turkey’s accession talks, which have been stalled since 2018 because of Erdogan’s democratic backsliding. Kilicdaroglu’s greatest promise lies in his ability to unite the Right and the Left, said Emre Kongar in Cumhuriyet (Turkey). Thanks to his “conciliatory, peaceful” attitude, he counts nationalists among his supporters in addition to leftists and secularists. Of course, it was Erdogan’s “belligerent, exclusionary, authoritarian, and oppressive” bullying that showed everyone the need to set aside their differences and unite for change.
The West is clearly rooting for Kilicdaroglu, said Selcuk Turkyilmaz in Yeni Safak (Turkey). Erdogan is a strong personality, unafraid to follow an independent path. The West would prefer “a NATO lapdog that stands against Russia in the Ukraine war and is obedient in the Middle East.” Replacing Erdogan would be disastrous for our country, said Burhanettin Duran in Daily Sabah (Turkey). A proven leader, he has stood up to both the U.S. and Russia. Kilicdaroglu, by contrast, is an untested novice with a nice-guy reputation. Voters should consider: Which man would you rather have in Turkey’s corner “when it’s time to talk with someone like Vladimir Putin?”