(C) Common Dreams This story was originally published by Common Dreams and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Erdoğan’s grip on power tested as Turkey votes in pivotal election [1] ['Ruth Michaelson', 'Deniz Barış Narlı'] Date: 2023-05-14 Turkey was heading to the polls on Sunday, with 64 million citizens casting their vote in an election that could end Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s two decades in power. Polls have increasingly shown Erdoğan’s competitor for the presidency Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu in the lead, with both candidates racing to get more than 50% of the vote in order to avoid a runoff vote in two weeks’ time. A weighted poll of all Turkish election polls, 600 Vekil, predicted a 63% chance of a Kılıçdaroğlu victory. The same polls have increasingly suggested that Erdoğan’s governing coalition, led by his Justice and Development party (AKP), could lose its majority in parliament. Turkey’s six-party opposition coalition is vying to win both a parliamentary majority and the presidency in order to enact sweeping reforms, overhauling two decades of Erdoğan policies and returning Turkey to parliamentary democracy. “We promise democracy. Democracy is a very beautiful, wonderful thing,” said Kılıçdaroğlu, who has campaigned as an answer to Turkey’s increasingly polarised political environment and what his supporters say is Erdoğan’s divisive rhetoric. This message resonated with some voters. “Turkey will get the democracy it deserves soon,” said 33-year-old Sevin, who was certain that the opposition were on the verge of victory. “We are going to have a country where people are not discriminated against, where there is rule of law, and justice.” Erdoğan has fallen behind in the polls as voters react to the results of 20 years of his rule, including a brutal economic crisis that caused the lira to devalue by half last year alone and soaring inflation. Criticism of his government increased after a slow and patchy state response to deadly twin earthquakes in the country’s south-east that killed more than 50,000 people and destroyed homes and infrastructure across 11 provinces. Many younger voters said they had turned their back on the AKP, expressing excitement that they could vote out the only political leader they had known in their adult lives. In the Istanbul district of Kasımpaşa, where Erdoğan grew up, three voters in their mid-20s said they were all voting for the opposition Republican People’s party (CHP). “No one in Gen Z votes for the AKP,” said 26-year-old Evin. “Erdoğan could absolutely lose, I don’t believe he can win, there isn’t even a 1% chance.” Her friend Fatima agreed. “The situation here changed after the earthquake,” she said. “It’s different this time. The earthquake was the breaking point for society.” Erdoğan has increasingly used his rallies to castigate his political opponents as enemies of the state. He has said each member of the six-party opposition coalition is LGBT, and broadcast an alleged deepfake video of banned Kurdish militants declaring their support for Kılıçdaroğlu at a rally just one week before the vote. Kurdish voters, courted by Kılıçdaroğlu in a rare move as part of his efforts to unite a broad base of opponents to defeat Erdoğan, appeared overjoyed at the prospect that he could be voted out. “Our only aim is to take him down,” said İlhan Pekgoz outside a polling station in Istanbul. “Because if he doesn’t go this time, he will never go. Kurdish voters will take him down!” “This time he’s going,” his friend agreed, before leaving to go and cast his ballot. Pekgoz said he decided to vote for Kılıçdaroğlu when jailed Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtaş threw his support behind the 74-year-old CHP political candidate. “I support Kılıçdaroğlu because I want Demirtaş released, and the release of all other political prisoners. The economy has already collapsed,” he said. Kılıçdaroğlu, a member of Turkey’s Alevi religious minority, says he intends to build a more inclusive society and step back from Erdoğan’s heavy-handed control of public institutions and the media. Kılıçdaroğlu has also promised to deport millions of Syrian and Afghan refugees who sought shelter in Turkey from conflicts at home. The prospect of either Kılıçdaroğlu or Erdoğan reaching the 50% threshold increased just days before the ballot, after one of the four candidates, Muharrem İnce, dropped out following the release of what he alleged was a false sex tape created with deepfake technology and footage from “an Israeli porn site”. Kılıçdaroğlu later accused Russia of election interference and creating deepfake videos, declaring: “If you want the continuation of our friendship after 15 May, get your hands off the Turkish state. We are still in favour of cooperation and friendship.” Turnout for the vote is expected to be high, while the CHP, the largest opposition party, is running a parallel vote count it hopes will ensure electoral integrity, posting observers to watch over every ballot box across the country. 14:46 Turkey’s elections: the Kurdish vote that could decide Erdoğan’s fate – video Supporters of Erdoğan and the AKP rebuffed concerns about Turkey’s ongoing economic crisis and repeated their claim there was a need for the country to remain unified, alluding to the country’s deep political polarisation as well as concerns that Erdoğan’s reign might be nearing its end. “It’s a time for unity,” said 51-year-old Veysel Isinal, who had just left a polling station in Istanbul where he had cast his ballot for Erdoğan, as he has done in every election since 2002. “I believe the president will win re-election – if he doesn’t that would be bad for the country,” he said. In an echo of Erdoğan’s attacks on those he has often labelled enemies of the state, he said: “The opposition could release Demirtaş, and this affected my choice.” Asked whether he would be willing to take to the streets if asked by the AKP following a loss, he replied: “We will do what justice and fairness require.” A CHP official, Canan Kaftancıoğlu, said: “The most important moments will be when the polls close and when the vote counting begins. For this we have organised a digital system, so poll watchers take pictures [of each ballot] and send them to CHP headquarters in Ankara and Istanbul. “We are going to give the actual result to people and hoping it will be a good result for us.” Kaftancıoğlu organised similar efforts to protect the vote in Istanbul’s contested mayoral election in 2019 and was banned from politics last year for insulting Erdoğan. “There’s a hard and unsettling fact here in Turkey, ballot box security, and we have to make this happen,” she said. “As a Turkish citizen, I am bitter about this. There’s a power that wants to steal votes, and this power is the government.” Observers argue that Erdoğan’s near total control of the media environment, as well as influence on key institutions such as the supreme election council (YSK), provide him with an upper hand, but not total control of the vote. Nate Schenkkan of Freedom House, a Washington-based pro-democracy group, said: “This is where issues around whether this is a free and fair election come in. “Do functioning democratic institutions remain viable despite the enormous pressure they’ve been put under the past 10 years, including a number of significant electoral violations? “But at the same time, people argue credibly that the actual process of voting, balloting and political culture remain strong, so therefore an unpopular president running a ruinous economic policy can actually lose. That’s the question: can he, and will he let himself?” A day before the vote, Twitter announced that “in response to legal process and to ensure Twitter remains available to the people of Turkey, we have taken action to restrict access to some content in Turkey today”. The blocking appeared to affect at least one account of critics of the Turkish state based outside of the country, although no further clarification was provided. The government also resisted pressure from the opposition to allow those registered to vote within the 11 provinces destroyed by the earthquakes earlier this year to change their addresses, forcing thousands to return to their destroyed towns in order to be able to cast their ballots. The millions of potential votes cast across the affected area are expected to affect the outcome of the election. “For Turkish democracy as of this morning, according to information I gathered from the interior ministry, the process has been running smoothly. The most important aspect was voting in the earthquake zones, there’s no issue there as well. It’s important that people vote without hesitation,” said Erdoğan when casting his ballot in Istanbul. Despite the opposition offering some free transportation or even paying out of pocket for their family members to travel, many voters said the cost of the travel was simply too high for them to make it back in order to vote. “There was supposed to be a boat to take us, but out of almost 1,000 people [the CHP] picked only around 100 so I couldn’t get there,” said Barış Yapar from the town of Samandağ in Turkey’s southernmost province, Hatay. “I can’t afford at least 3,000 TL [£123] just to go and come back there, so now I’m hoping for the best.” Others who had remained in the earthquake zone said they felt the votes cast there could sway the overall result. “My district won’t support Erdoğan because we saw people die when the earthquake happened – people died but no rescue teams arrived on time. They left people to die, screaming and asking for help,” said one man in Hatay who asked to remain anonymous. He said that he had long voted for the opposition, but his district had previously supported Erdoğan and the AKP. “All the people I know want to get rid of Erdoğan,” he said. “My fear is that the government will manipulate the results if they see that they’re losing, or that people who support them will fight in the streets. People think it’s not going to be a normal night.” [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/14/erdogans-grip-on-power-tested-as-turkey-goes-to-the-polls Published and (C) by Common Dreams Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/commondreams/