.kayagenc discusses how Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was able to win over voters affected by the earthquake and what the election results tell us about the state of Turkish society.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has led Turkey for two decades, first as Prime Minister, then as President, and who has steered the country in an increasingly authoritarian direction, came out ahead, again, in last Sunday’s election, but not by enough to avoid a runoff. Erdoğan, despite trailing in polls, captured 49.
Historically, it is the trauma of the C.H.P., the Republican People’s Party, whose leader, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, was defeated in the first round. According to Erdoğan and his followers, the C.H.P. caused them trauma, exactly a century ago, by establishing a republic and by stopping an Islamic way of life.
Then Kılıçdaroğlu, the opposition candidate, went to the same cities, and said, “This is unacceptable. The government was responsible for this. There were no checks on the regulations for two decades. You have to fight for your rights, and we will build those houses for you for free. You won’t pay because this will be our responsibility.”
Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the opposition’s leader, is an Alevi, which is an Orthodox Islamic sect that combines elements of Sunni and Shia Islam. It’s part of a religious minority in Turkey. He’s also a minority in the group of politicians in the sense that he’s mild-spoken, he is very civilized, he never raises his voice. He’s a good man and a good strategist.
When you say “Sunni nationalists,” can you be more specific? You have Erdoğan, whom I think a lot of people would describe as a Sunni nationalist, and who has become more right-wing during his twenty years in power. And then you also have a nationalist candidate who got five per cent of the vote on Sunday, who will not be in the runoff, and whose supporters are expected to go more to Erdoğan. And then there are Sunni nationalists in the opposition.
This third nationalism, which won more than 2.5 million votes on Sunday, argues that both Kılıçdaroğlu and Erdoğan are betraying Atatürk’s legacy. In one sense, the winners on Sunday were neither Erdoğan and the A.K.P. nor Kılıçdaroğlu and his opposition alliance but nationalism and the far right.Erdoğan got three per cent less than he did in the last Presidential election, five years ago. And his Party, the A.K.P., got less than it did in the last parliamentary elections. The C.
To the second point, Syrian refugees: As you know, Erdoğan has played the role of protector for millions of refugees in Turkey. Kılıçdaroğlu’s refugee policy has rattled me. He calls Turkey’s borders his “honor” and pledges to send back the “unruly flood of people flowing into our veins.” That is the ugly language of Turkish nationalism.
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