Turkey’s Presidential, Parliamentary Elections To Be Held on May 14
Turkey’s crucial elections are too close to call
[Istanbul] Turkey’s presidential and parliamentary elections are less than 48 hours away, with incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan facing extraordinary challenges and fierce competition that could end his two-decade rule.
Voters will cast their ballots on May 14, deciding the future of Turkey’s democracy less than three months after a February 6 earthquake killed more than 50,000 people and displaced more than 5.9 million across southern Turkey and northern Syria.
Many are already calling the 2023 elections as one of the most important in the republic’s history. Incumbent President Erdoğan has maintained a strong grip on power for 20 years. But, in recent months, an economic downturn and a deadly earthquake in the country have hurt his electoral chances.
Polls predict a record voter turnout this year and a tight race between Erdoğan and the main opposition candidate, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and presidential nominee for the six-party Nation Alliance bloc.
According to the latest polling, Turkey’s united opposition poses an unprecedented challenge to Erdoğan’s rule.
Erdoğan and his Justice and Development (AK) party are facing a tough challenge in both elections.
This is a critical election for the country.
Centrist Kılıçdaroğlu of the CHP is the joint presidential candidate of the alliance of six major opposition parties with mixed ideological positions. Apart from the left, the other five parties in the alliance are the Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA), the Future Party (GP), the Democrat Party, the Islamist Felicity Party (SAADET), and the nationalist Good Party (İyi). He is also backed by several other smaller parties.
This united effort, helped by an anti-incumbency sentiment that has accumulated over the last two decades, may have a significant role in deciding the outcome of the elections.
In Turkey, presidential elections are based on a majority system where if no candidate gets at least 50%+1 vote in the first round, a second round is held between the two leading contenders.
Voters elect the parliament by selecting among party lists in 87 electoral districts. The parties are allocated seats according to a proportional representation system, which ensures that the distribution of seats reflects the proportion of votes each party receives. To enter the parliament, parties must pass a 7% national electoral threshold, which helps maintain political stability by preventing extreme fragmentation of the legislature.
These elections will see three major alliances fighting for a total of 600 seats in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey: the CHP-led Nation Alliance, the AK-led People’s Alliance, and the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP)-led Labor and Freedom Alliance.
Parties in these alliances won almost all the seats in the last parliamentary elections in 2018.
Meanwhile, much before voting starts in Turkey, expatriates have already begun voting.
There are around 3.5 million expatriate Turkish voters across the globe, and according to some analysts, their vote may be decisive in the close race for the presidency.
Runaway inflation has helped push voters toward the opposition and away from the president’s AK party.
Erdoğan’s campaign has been hampered by Turkey’s worst economic crisis since the 1990s and public frustration at the crackdown he unleashed after surviving a 2016 attempted coup.
