Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan casts his vote at a polling station during the second round of the presidential election in Istanbul, on Sunday.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan casts his vote at a polling station during the second round of the presidential election in Istanbul, on Sunday.
Murad Sezer/AP
ISTANBUL, Turkey — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has won a historic second round election, the toughest challenge of his political career.
The victory cements his third term in power and demonstrates the tenacity of his one-man executive regime, despite growing grievances against him in Turkey, including his unorthodox economic policies, his weak response to the devastating earthquake, and declining democratic freedoms.
Ahmet Yener, head of Turkey’s Supreme Electoral Council, announced that with 99.4% of the votes counted, 52.14% supported Erdogan and 47.86% supported Erdogan. His opponent is Kemal Kilicdaroglu.
The first round of voting two weeks ago was the first time in the history of the Republic of Türkiye that no clear winner could be found. But Erdogan led his main rival, Kilicdaroglu, by 4.5 percentage points, giving him an edge ahead of Sunday’s vote.
The two men offer radically different visions of Türkiye and its future. Erdogan, 69, led a divisive campaign in which he presented himself as the leader who would transform Turkey into a global power, promoting his signature religious nationalist rhetoric and accuses his opponents of having ties to terrorists and of being a pawn of Western nations.
Supporters of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gather outside the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Türkiye, on Sunday. Erdogan claimed victory in his country’s election sprint, extending his rule to a third decade.
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Supporters of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gather outside the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Türkiye, on Sunday. Erdogan claimed victory in his country’s election sprint, extending his rule to a third decade.
Ali Unal/AP
Erdogan’s supporters see him as a modernizer who has enhanced Turkey’s international presence and enhanced the country’s infrastructure and military capabilities, while giving rights for devout Turks that were persecuted when secular leaders were in power decades ago. His critics see him as an autocrat who has allowed government corruption to flourish, leading to shoddy, unchecked construction. The terrible earthquake in February is even more dangerous when hundreds of thousands of buildings collapsed, killing more than 50,000 people.
Kilicdaroglu, 74, is backed by a coalition of parties from secularists, Islamists and nationalists, and offers the strongest opposition yet Erdogan and his ruling party have witnessed for many years. He promised to restore Turkey’s governance system back to the original parliamentary democracy, instead of the executive presidency as it was after the 2017 constitutional referendum.
Kilicdaroglu also promised to end corruption, fix the economy and bring independence to the judiciary. But Kilicdaroglu is also nationalist and anti-immigrant. He emphasized Turkey’s plan to secure the border and bring back nearly 4 million Syrians who were refugees in Turkey after the civil war.
Revenue has fallen
Finally, voter turnout on Sunday was lower than in the high turnout first round of nearly 89%. The opposition, which had high hopes that it could defeat Erdogan in the first round, suffered huge moral losses and has not fully recovered in the two weeks since.
Despite the fact that nearly half of Turkey’s population is tired of Erdogan’s long term in power, and the economy is paralyzed with an unstable currency and rising cost of living, Kilicdaroglu still tries to convince convince voters that he will do better than Erdogan. according to Vahap Coskun, a political scientist and law professor at Dicle University in Diyarbakir, Türkiye.
Supporters of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan celebrate in Istanbul on Sunday.
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Supporters of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan celebrate in Istanbul on Sunday.
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“Kilicdaroglu’s party has some unresolved historical burdens with many constituencies, and he has struggled with presenting himself as an alternative to Erdogan, who is seen as a politician,” Coskun said. leadership is much more engaging.”
But the race was also considered unfair. Erdogan has almost total control over Turkish broadcast media. And while appearing frequently and protractedly on TV, Kilicdaroglu had to juggle social media and YouTube to get his message across. Erdogan also leveraged government resources to benefit millions of citizens and raised the minimum wage several times in the last year.
The results mean for the US
An Erdogan victory has implications beyond Turkey, a regional power, a NATO member and a strategic ally, but to the dismay of the United States. Turkey, under Mr. Erdogan, has maintained close ties with Russia and refused to join Western sanctions, while delaying NATO expansion by refusing to ratify membership. of Sweden to date. He also extended the reach of the Turkish military to northern Syria and brokered an agreement with the United Nations, between Ukraine and Russia, allowing Ukraine to export grain through Russia’s blockade. .
Experts told NPR that they expect to see more of the same behavior from Erdogan over the next five years of his term.
“There’s absolutely no reason to think [Erdogan] will reverse course or soften his approach,” said political analyst Selim Koru, both on domestic and international affairs.
