What took place in Turkey on May 28, 2023 was neither fair nor an election but an “election” farce. Recep Tayyip Erdogan (*1954), the gangster-in-chief who, in 2013 alone, was caught on the phone telling his son Bilal to hide millions of euro in cash, has managed to steal another election.
With 99.85% of the vote counted, the May 28, 2023 presidential “election” runoff ended with 52.16% for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of the People’s Alliance formed by his Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Nationalist Mouvement Party (MHP). The opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu (*1948) of the National Alliance formed by his Kemalist, social democratic Republican People’s Party (CHP), the Good Party (İYİ) and others ended up with 47.84%, a remarkable result given the fact that Erdogan and his cheerleaders control 90% of Turkey’s media, that there is no free press, and that you risk to end up in jail if you criticize President Erdogan. Voter turnout in the second round was 83.87%, after 87.04% in the first round.
In the first round of the presidential election, Erdoğan had received 49.5% of the vote, his potential, nationalist ally Sinan Oğan, a former MHP member, won 5.2%. The main opposition leader Kılıçdaroğlu ended up with only 44.9%, despite having led in a serious poll. As for Muharrem İnce, who withdrew from the race in the last days but whose name remained on the ballot, received 0.4%. In short, after the first round aready, it looked very promising for the incumbent autocrat.
It is very unlikely that President Erdogan would have “won” the 2023 reelection if it had been a fair one, in which he would not almost completely have dominated the air time on Erdogan controlled or allied TV channels, if there had been a free press reporting on the many scandals involving himself, his family, his AKP as well as other politicians, businessmen and media tycoons allied with RTE.
Furthermore, Erdogan made sure the promising Ekrem Imamoglu, who had won the 2019 mayoral election in Istanbul, would not be able to run for president in May 2023. At the end of last year, Imamoglu was banned from politics for “insulting the electoral commission”. In reality, Erdogan was insulting the intelligence of any critical observer of the Turkish political scene. In the past, Erdogan had already banned thousands of elected officials of the Kurdish party HDP, accusing them of being “terrorists” or being allied with “terrorists”. The one really terrorizing Turkey for years is Erdogan.
The “reelected” president has almost single-handedly ruiney Turkey. He has abadoned democracy a long time ago and already did not “win” the 2018 election.
How can an autocracy be part of NATO? Turkish NATO membership should be suspended until Erdogan restores democracy, the rule of law, free press, free speech and more in Turkey.
We are governed by weak, incompetent, short-sighted leaders who cannot play hard ball. One of the worst, most overrated politicians of the past decades was Angela Merkel. She had ignored Erdogan for years. Shortly before an important Turkish election, she went on a pilgrimage to meet him, just to make sure that refugees would no longer come to Germany. Obviously, she did nothing to tackle the fundamental problems.
There are a few reasons why Erdogan remains popular with roughly one third of the Turkish electorate. In his first years in power, the purchasing power increased fourfold in a decade.
As a regional player, Erdgan has put Turkey back on the map, be it in negociations with Russia and Ukraine (grain deal), blocking the NATO accession of Sweden or by making a refugee deal with Merkel and the European Union.
Turkey does not support the Western sanctions against Russia, a country which is building Turkey’s first nuclear power plant. On the contrary, Turkey is profiting by importing cheap energy from Russia.
In late 2017, Turkey and Russia signed a $2.5 billion deal for the delivery of the Russian S-400 air defense system to Turkey, which prompted the United States not to deliver F-35 fighter jets to Turkey over security concerns.
Many Turks are nationalists. In their opinion, Erdogan had made sure Turkey and Turks are respected again internationally. With the exception of important parts of Istanbul, Ankara and the coastal tourist hot spots, Turkey remains largely a rural, patriarchal, religious and nationalist society. Playing the islamo-nationalist card has helped Erdogan win several elections despite a background of very high inflation, corruption, high youth unemployment and more.
Furthermore, the opposition is divided and heteroclite. The opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu is dull and was not the best placed man in the polls to beat Erdogan. Younger candidates with charisma were available. A great chance to unseat Erdogan was wasted. The EU and the US are not doing enough to push Erdogan to restore democracy.
Especially the EU must wake up. Within the EU, there are the less and less democratic Poland (which, it is true, has helped Ukrainian refugees as no other country) and Orban’s illiberal Hungary. The EU is watching Turkey, Syria, Tunisia, Libya and other countries going the wrong way. The Mediterranean is the mare nostrum. It is in Europe’s interest to have countries embracing democracy and the free market economy on its shores. The EU has wasted one year watching what was going on in Ukraine, not doing enough to help the Ukrainians fight back Putin’s Russia. No clear strategy towards China has emerged yet amidst the begin of what could be the Asian century. Where are the strategic thinkers in the West? And were are the actions backing up a long-term strategy?
For now, Erdogan has “won” both the presidential election and the 2023 parliamentary election, where his AKP, together with his allies from the MHP and the YRP, have secured an absolute majority. The next Turkish elections must be free and fair.
In the long-term, this must be the case for all upcoming elections in Europe and around the Mediterranean, be it in Poland and Hungary, in Belarus, Russia or Ukraine, in Tunisia, Libya or in any other country.
Books about Erdogan at Amazon USA and at Amazon UK
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Added on May 29, 2023 at 18:15 German time: Kilicdaroglu’s move between the first and second round to announce that he would send all Syrian refugees back to Syria has not helped him win. It would have been inhumane. Many would have ended up in prisons and torture chambers.
As for the Turkish Lira, Erdogan’s win is not good news. The currency takes another hit because, over the past years, Erdogan has eroded confidence in Turkey’s monetary, fiscal and economic policies.
President Erdogan. Photo: Wikipedia / Wikimedia / public domain.
Article added on May 29, 2023 at 16:54 German time. Updated at 18:15. Correction on May 30, 2023 at 11:57 German time: the scandal about the cash stolen and hidden by Erdogan and his son Bilal broke at the end of 2013, not in 2014, as stated in an earlier version.
