Elections in Turkey: the opposition thinks about how to recover from a strengthened Erdogan in the second round

The unexpected electoral victory of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan this Sunday put a strain on demoralized opposition faced with the difficult challenge of overturning a result in which his ability to attract conservative voters without losing the support of the Kurdish left will weigh.

More than 2.5 million upvotesErdogan had already promised that on May 28, the day of the last second round of the presidential elections, he will obtain a triumph that will mark “the beginning of the century for Turkey”.

The president, who wears two decades in powerhe overturned polls that predicted his defeat on Sunday and won 49.5% of the vote, just short of the absolute majority that would have prevented that runoff.

Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, who heads an opposition bloc of social democrats, nationalists and Islamists, was left with 45%.

The opposition leader assured that the main message that came out of Sunday’s polls is that the country wants change.

First vote in 20 years

The truth is that Erdogan lost the absolute majority which he won in the 2014 presidential election and revalidated in 2018. For the first time, is forced to go to the second round.

Erdogan was prime minister from 2003 to 2014.

Also, his party the islamist akpand their allies, they lost 22 seats in parliamentary ones, celebrated on the same day, while retaining an absolute majority of deputies, although not of votes.

“There are more people who want change in this country than those who don’t want it,” Kiliçdaroglu said in a Twitter message on Tuesday, appealing to the vote of young people to save the country from the “despot government”.

In his message he recalled economic problems cross-country, with the devalued lira and inflation causing a decline in living standards, one of the main themes of the opposition campaign, together with the increasing loss of rights and freedoms suffered by the Turks since Erdogan came to power.

“You have no money for anything. Not even for coffee. They have stolen the joy of living,” he said.

But beyond these messages, Kiliçdaroglu’s party, the social democrat CHP, it is analyzing what went wrong for Erdogan to win when his defeat seemed close.

On the one hand, the party wants to attract the nearly 3 million votes that the third candidate won in Sunday’s election, the nationalist Sinan Ogan.

This politician, unknown until recently, has a strong anti-immigrant message and has stated that he will only support a candidate who guarantees the banning of HDP, the left-wing party that defends the rights of the Kurdish minority.

This requirement puts Kiliçdaroglu in difficulty, who needs the support of that formation to have options on 28 May.

That rapprochement with Ogan has already begun with Social Democrat leaders calling the nationalist politician a “patriot”.

However, CHP sources have indicated to EFE that they hope the pro-Kurdish party and its voters will they will understand as an election tactic if Kiliçdaroglu hardens his tone towards them.

The HDP is undergoing a ban process promoted by the Erdogan government, which considers it the political wing of the Kurdish PKK guerrilla, classified as a terrorist by the European Union.

A lawyer who defends imprisoned HDP politicians assured EFE, on condition of anonymity, that a defeat for Erdogan it is their clients’ only chance to be released.

The HDP’s explicit support for Kiliçdaroglu, by not presenting its own candidate, served Erdogan to insist that the opposition accept the support of “terrorists”, a message that has permeated a good part of the most conservative voters.

The CHP leadership held a meeting on Monday to define the electoral strategy in which the main issue was to prevent voters disappointed with Sunday’s result from staying home on the 28th, as well as further increasing participation, which was 89%, reports the Diken newspaper.

The CHP will also carry out information campaigns to avoid reducing the number of invalid votes, including 1 million in the first round.

ap​