The author accentuates Turks’ supernationalism, Western governments and their media’s brazen support to joint opposition candidate Kılıçdaroğlu, miscalculation by the opposition, Kılıçdaroğlu being a non-serious candidate, Erdoğan’s freebie, etc. as the factors that contributed to the victory of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for the third and last presidential term. He also dwells on Türkiye’s foreign relations and points out the country’s geostrategic position andtypical electoral milieu in which Turks cast their votes.
For over past many months even before the earthquake struck the south-eastern provinces of Türkiye, every pollster was predicting a dip in the popularity of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. After earthquake it had dipped further, hovering around 32%. But in the first round of elections held on May 14, he got 49.5% votes and in the final round he got 52.15% popular votes.
According to constitutional requirement, a candidate needs to get 50%+one vote to be declared victorious. Since none of the four candidates secured this number on May 14, there was a rematch between the first two candidates namely the People’s Alliance’s candidate, President Erdoğan, and the United Opposition’s National Alliance’s candidate, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.
A day after the elections on May 29 and hours after being declared elected Erdoğan walked into the historic city of Istanbul, coinciding the 570th anniversary of the conquest of the city by Ottoman Turkish Sultan Muhammad II.In 1453, the conquest of Istanbul or Constantinople, shook the West and also led to the fall of the Roman Empire.
This symbolism of choosing May 28 as run off date and arranging victory procession coinciding the conquest of Istanbul was clearly aiming to send a message to the West.
Despite spiralling inflation, a weakening economy and skyrocketing commodity prices, Turkish voters opted Erdoğan to ensure stability and continuity against the ideologically divergent six-party opposition, which had later ballooned to 17 parties. This motley coalition included Islamists, conservates, nationalists, liberals, communists, feminists and even those advocating for gay rights. Their only motives were to overthrow Erdoğan.
What actually led to Erdoğan to win these difficult elections of his political life is still being analysed or discussed. An office bearer of ruling Justice and Development Party, officially abbreviated in English as AK Party, told this writer, that except Erdoğan, nobody in the party was sure of the victory. This election in a way proved again that in modern days they are won with the combination of three Ms., they are Man, Machine and Message. The AK Party had Man in the form of Erdoğan and Machine in the form of huge machinery and resources, but were falling short of Message, as they were confronted with falling economy. But the West soon provided Erdoğanwith a message.
TURKS’ SUPERNATIONALISM
The Western governments and their media’s brazen support to joint opposition candidate Kılıçdaroğlu came handy for Erdoğanto create a message and euphoria that foreign powers were meddling in the affairs of the country. He invoked Turkish pride and self-righteousness and asked people to teach the West a lesson.
He repeatedly referred to 2020 interview of the current US President Joe Biden published in The New York Times. Biden had said he would encourage the Turkish opposition to defeat Erdoğan. “Biden has instructed that we have to overthrow Erdoğan. I know this. All my people know this. Turkish voters will answer to Biden,” he would say to people at every election rally.
The excessive interference of the Western media and their governments and their vigorous campaign against Erdoğan made a large part of the Turkish electorate suspicious of the opposition. The owner of a small shoe shop near my house, 55-year-old TughrilOktay, was waiting to vote against Erdoğan because of the deteriorating economy. But after returning from polling booth, he said that at the last moment he decided to vote for Erdoğan. He said that the way the Western governments and their media were opposing Erdoğan, he was very upset.
Turks are basically supernationalists. They are very sensitive to the borders of their country.Perhaps one of the reasons is that last 200 years, they have been attacked both from southern and northern borders by Russia and the West on different occasions. After World War I, they saved this piece of land with great difficulty as the West and Russia were bent to divide it among themselves. The insecurity gives rise to nationalism, which becomes a prime force to decide the ruler.
As per my usual journalistic routine, when I wanted to know mood of the ordinary people at the city centre of Ankara city, they bluntly told me on my face that they will not discuss their election with a foreign journalist. From my broken Turkish, they understood that I am non-Turk.
Citing armed resistance by Kurdish groups in the southern region of the country, Erdoğan used the notions of terrorism, insurgency, Western intervention and the division of the country, and accused Kılıçdaroğlu of having ties with terrorist groups.
MISCALCULATION BY THE OPPOSITION
The Kurdish political party HDP had declared support to the opposition candidate. Fearing that the 12 percent Kurdish vote might fall into Kılıçdaroğlu’s lap, Erdoğan managed to win over the Islamist Kurdish Free Cause Party, thus breaking this chunk.
Another miscalculation by the opposition was the impression that the 11 earthquake-hit provinces in south-eastern Türkiye would vote against Erdoğan for being ineffective in launching timely relief operations. In 1999, an earthquake of nearly the same magnitude struck Izmat province, on the outskirts of Istanbul. It led to a movement that ousted the government of then-prime minister Bülent Ecevit. And the movement at that time was led by then opposition leader Erdoğan.
But except Hatai province, all other provinces overwhelmingly voted for Erdoğan. One of the reasons for this was probably Erdoğan had promised to build around six lakh houses for free. The survivors said that they do not want a change of power at this time and have no idea if the new government will keep the promise of building their homes.
HAVING FEET IN TOO MANY BOATS
Kılıçdaroğlu tried to present a positive agenda that promised hope, freedom and democracy. It was certain that if he came to power, Türkiye’s hopes of joining the European Union may be renewed.
But after winning just 44.9 percent of the vote in the first round, he made a U-turn and portrayed himself as a hardline nationalist, which provoked Kurdish voters. He then joined hands with Amit Özdag, head of the racist Victory Party, which angered his moderate supporters. Having feet in too many boats made him a non-serious candidate, despite his initial appeal.
ERDOĞAN’S FREEBIE
Erdoğan’s machinery that made him to offer freebie also lured voters for him. Just six days before the polling, I noticed early in the morning that there was some festive atmosphere outside. People were reading a message on the phone. All the citizens had received an SMS that their gas bill for this month has been paid by the President. I looked at the gas company’s payment site and my flat’s gas bill for May was actually zero. The message said in order to celebrate the extraction of first lot of gas from Black Sea, residents will be provided free gas for the month of May.
Black Sea reserves will meet about 30 percent of Türkiye’s gas needs. It was also announced that households using less than 25 cubic meters of gas per month will not have to pay any bills for a year. Such schemes allowed Erdoğan to retain control over less privileged regions of the country, including the Black Sea (Karadeniz Bölgesi), Central Anatolia, and Eastern Anatolia.
One of Erdoğan’s major achievements has been to raise the living standards of deprived areas and put them side by side with the elite areas of Mediterranean and Istanbul.
TÜRKIYE’S ELECTION TRULY UNIQUE
Having entered journalism in the early nineties, there is hardly any parliamentary or provincial election in India that I have not covered till 2019. But Türkiye’s election experience was truly unique. The capital Ankara witnessed more than 90% of the polling, but there was no commotion or noise. Visiting many polling stations, it seemed as if people had come for a picnic. People had brought children and even pets to polling booths. It looked like a festival. In South Asia, there is a constant threat of fights breaking at polling stations. But here, there was no police or security personnel deployed anywhere. People themselves were queuing contentedly outside their polling booths, waiting for their turn. There were toys and female officials in a room to take care of the children while the parents were lined up awaiting their turn for voting.
Counting of votes takes place immediately after polling closes at the polling booths themselves in the presence of candidates’ agents. Ballot boxes are not transported anywhere. After the presiding officer completes the counting, he sends the result to the Election Council, the agents send the result to the Chief Election Agent of their parties. That is, the counting is registered at the same time at the party headquarters and the Election Council.
TÜRKIYE’S GEOSTRATEGIC POSITION
Now the big question is, what do these elections mean for Türkiye and the world? Türkiye’s geostrategic position makes it an important player not only in the region but also in the whole world. That is why these elections were being touted as the most important event of 2023. Erdoğan’s aggressive foreign policy has raised Türkiye’s profile abroad, but it has also led to serious differences with NATO and Western allies. On the other hand, the desire for leadership in Islamic countries had pitted him against Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt.
The positive change that has taken place over the past year is that Türkiye’s relations with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt are normalising. These countries have played a key role in supporting the Turkish economy in recent times. A similar improvement in relations with Syria is expected through the mediation of Russia and Saudi Arabia.
The defence ministers and intelligence officials of the two countries recently held several rounds of talks in Moscow. Perhaps soon, due to Russian mediation, Erdoğan will meet with his Syrian counterpart, Bashar al-Assad.
INDIA-TÜRKIYE RELATIONS
Erdoğan had criticised the Indian government in the past and had raised human rights violations against Indian Muslims. He had also brushed New Delhi, by repeatedly calling for the settlement of Kashmir issue as per the UN resolutions and bilateral agreements between India and Pakistan. This had angered South Block, to the extent that a message had gone not to deal with or invite Turkish Ambassador in New Delhi to any event. India even cancelled putting Mahatma Gandhi’s bust at a park in Ankara on October 2, 2021.
But off late the ice has melted between the two countries. Erdoğan is preparing to travel to New Delhi to attend the G20 summit in September. For this reason, his government has recently initiated a process to tone down rhetoric on Kashmir and other internal issues in India.
In recent months, consultative mechanism meetings were held between the foreign ministries of the two countries after many years. Bilateral trade between the two countries has seen a 100 per cent increase in just two years, crossing $10.70 billion in 2021-22. It was only $5 billion in 2020-21. Indian companies have invested around $126 million in Türkiye.
TÜRKIYE AND TURKIC STATES
According to Turkish journalist Fahim Taştekin, Erdoğan will speed up his pet Zangizur Corridor project during his third and last presidential term. This is actually a network project similar to China’s BRT Corridor. The transport route will directly connect Türkiyeto Azerbaijan and then to Caspian Sea. It is an important corridor to link Türkiye with Turkic states in Central Asia.
Türkiyedoes not have a direct transit facility to reach the Turkic states. WhileArab countries are connected with each other except for Palestine, most of the Turkic countries are not linked. And also, many of them like Dagestan, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan and others are under Russian occupation, while Xinjiang is under Chinese occupation.
It also has no access to the Central Asian Turkic states of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. If this corridor is built, the Turkic world will be connected with each other. But for this corridor, it is necessary that Türkiye’s relations with Russia and Iran remain cordial. Through this corridor, Erdoğan would try to go down in the history as the one who reconnected and united Turkic states and the world.
IMPORTANT LESSON FOR THE WEST
These elections are an important lesson for the West. Not only did their unwarranted intervention incited nationalist sentiments in Türkiye, but the voting pattern of Turks abroad also shows that Erdoğan was heavily favoured in countries like Belgium, France, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands, which report frequent Islamophobic incidents. On the contrary, in countries like the UK, USA, New Zealand, where Islamophobia is less prevalent, Kılıçdaroğlugot majority of votes.
Historians say that that the conquest of Istanbul or Constantinople by the Turks 570 years ago had encouraged the Renaissance movement in Europe. The big question now is that will Erdoğan’s 2023 victory once again force Europe and other Western powers to start a new renaissance movement, which will embrace the principles of equality and fraternity, reinterpret secularism, ending racial discrimination and address Islamophobia.