The two rivals for the Turkish presidency now have seven days to convince the voters who failed them on May 14, with an advantage for the incumbent president after the breakthrough of the conservatives.
With 49.52% of the vote, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, 69, who was said to be tired and worn out by twenty years in power, leaves with 2.5 million votes ahead of the Social Democrat Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, 74, former senior civil servant and veteran politician.
He who promises the “return of spring”, the “appeased democracy” and the return to the rule of law did not seduce beyond 44.9% of the voters who moved, starting the credit of the vast coalition he intends to bring to power, from the national right to the left.
After the strong mobilization of May 14 and a participation rate of 89%, the Eurasia Group consultancy, one of the rare firms to have predicted Mr. Erdogan’s advance in the first round, gives him the winner in the second.
“Many nationalist voters disapproved of Kiliçdaroglu’s choice to represent the opposition and did not support him,” recalls political scientist Berk Elsen, from Istanbul’s Sabanci University.
Between the two contenders who are going to compete dearly for his 2.79 million votes, a third man, Sinan Ogan, anchored in the nationalist extreme right, wants above all to get rid of the approximately five million refugees and immigrants settled in the country.
Ogan, 54, relishes and will let it be known at 5:00 p.m. (2:00 p.m. GMT) on Monday who he will support of the two candidates, during a press conference at a major hotel in Ankara.
He was received Friday for an hour by Mr. Erdogan in Istanbul, but apart from the photo of his handshake with a tense “reis”, nothing has filtered through.
But for Berk Esen, he is not even sure that Erdogan even needs him. “He’s confident,” he said.
On the other hand, Kiliçdaroglu, who has not yet seen Sinan Ogan, was talking simultaneously with the leader of the nationalist Zafer party, Ümit Özda?.
Essential for the opposition as the conservative dynamics of the first round are reflected in the configuration of the new Parliament which emerged from the polls last Sunday: 322 deputies out of 600 belong to the Erdogan camp (against 213 to the opposition) with 268 elected for his party alone Islamo-conservative AKP, which remains by far the leading formation, supported by the nationalist MHP (50) and several small Islamist parties such as Hüda-Par (Kurdish Hezbollah, four elected) and Yeniden Refah (five).
While the fight looks tough, Kiliçdaroglu has deserted the stands: not a meeting since the first round nor one planned for the moment, just a walkabout on Friday at the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founding father of the Turkish Republic and of the CHP party, which he has chaired for ten years.
But his words have already preceded action with a statement that surprised Thursday with its virulence, in which he promised to “send all the refugees home as soon as (his) arrival in power”.
Mr. Kiliçdaroglu had already said he wanted to send the 3.7 million Syrians home “within two years”, in the event of victory.
And while he had received the frank support of the pro-Kurdish HDP formation, one of whose leaders, Selahattin Demirtas, has been imprisoned since 2016, the candidate also responded to the accusations of “terrorism” formulated by the Erdogan camp against this left.
“I have never sat at a table with terrorist organizations and I never will,” said the candidate.
“We gave the Kurds kingmakers and it is the nationalist far-right that plays this role”, noted this week the researcher Yohanan Benhaïm of the French Institute of Anatolian Studies, in Istanbul.
In a somewhat soft in-between rounds, the leader of the Good Party (Iyi) Meral Aksener, the Iron Lady of the opposition Alliance announced on Saturday her intention to meet “those who voted for Erdogan and those who are still undecided”.
Meanwhile, Mr. Erdogan continues to travel to the areas hit by the February 6 earthquake (at least 50,000 dead, three million displaced) who overwhelmingly voted for him.
Welcomed by seas of red flags, he promises, video in support, a reconstruction “within six months” and consistently repeats the same accusations which consist in linking the opposing camp to “terrorists” and “LGTB”.
21/05/2023 21:52:43 – Istanbul (AFP) © 2023 AFP
