Turkey Decides Future of Republic, Fate of Erdoğan in Tight Race

Turkey faces historic election, determining either the extension of President Erdoğan's 20-year rule or a shift towards a more secular path

[Istanbul] Turkey is heading to the polls on Sunday in a historic election that could extend President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s 20-year hold on power or put the mostly Muslim nation on a more secular track.

The presidential and parliamentary ballot has turned into a referendum on Turkey’s longest-serving leader and his Islamic-rooted party.

Incumbent president facing extraordinary challenges and fierce competition that could end his two-decade rule.

The vote comes 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 one of the most important in the republic’s history.

Journalists Esra Öztürk and Yasin Eken speak to The Media Line’s bureau chief, Mohammad Al-Kassim on the Turkish elections, in Istanbul, May 14, 2023.

Erdoğan has maintained a strong grip on power but that has been loosened in recent months with an economic downturn and a deadly earthquake that have hurt his chances for re-election.

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 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.

The 69-year-old has steered the nation of 85 million through one of its most transformative and divisive eras in the post-Ottoman state’s 100-year history.

Centrist Kılıçdaroğlu’s bloc includes six major opposition parties with mixed ideological positions ranging from the left to the religiously conservative right.

Polls suggest the 74-year-old secular opposition leader is within touching distance of breaking the 50% threshold needed to win in the first round.

In Turkey, elections for the post of president take place 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 closed 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. A party or alliance needs a minimum of 7% of the votes at the national level to win seats in the parliament.

The Media Line’s bureau chief, Mohammad Al-Kassim, interviews Mesut Hakkı Caşın, adviser to Turkey President Erdoğan on international relations and a member of the Security and Foreign Policies Council, in Istanbul, May 14, 2023.

Turkey has grown into a military and geopolitical heavyweight that plays roles in conflicts stretching from Syria to Ukraine.

The NATO member’s footprint in both Europe and the Middle East makes the election’s outcome as critical for Washington and Brussels as it is for Damascus and Moscow.

But Erdoğan’s first decade of economic revival and warming relations with Europe was followed by a second one filled with social and political turmoil.

Meanwhile, much before voting started in Turkey, expatriates already voted.

There are around 3.5 million expatriate voters across the globe, and according to some analysts, their vote may be decisive in the close race for the presidency.

TRT World’s editor at large Yusuf Erim speaks to The Media Line’s bureau chief Mohammad Al-Kassim about what to expect in the Turkish election, in Istanbul, May 14, 2023.

Runaway inflation has helped push voters towards 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 coup.

A runoff on May 28 could give Erdoğan time to regroup and reframe the debate.