It was the best opposition performance since the late 1970s

( Globalvoices.org ) – Turkey’s local elections which took place on March 31, will go down in history as one of its most surprising. Turkey’s demoralized opposition, namely the [secular] Republican People’s Party (CHP), dominated in what many pundits described as the ruling [center-right] Justice and Development Party’s worst defeat of its 22-year existence. For the first time since 1977, the CHP took more votes nationwide. In his televised address afterward, the CHP leader Özgür Özel called the elections “historic” as he teared up. Scores of supporters took to the streets to celebrate the results across Turkey.

Istanbul, where CHP secured victory in 2019, was one of the key cities in this year’s race. At the time, losing control over the municipality in Istanbul was described as a major blow to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development party (AKP), as it was where he started his political career when he was elected mayor in 1994. The results of yesterday’s election nationwide cemented this rejoinder on Erdoğan’s agenda.

In the capital, Ankara, the CHP’s incumbent mayor, Mansur Yavaş, outdid his rival by over 28 percent. In Turkey’s third-largest city, Izmir, opposition candidate Cemil Tugar finished 11 points ahead of the ruling party’s candidate.

Elsewhere across the country, as the results were trickling in, the map was slowly turning red as many of the provinces previously led by the AKP were showing victories for the opposition party candidates.

According to Gönül Tol, Director of the Middle East Institute’s Turkish Program, the change was “notable,” as “opposition CHP [was] not confined to coastal regions but expanding into Anatolia, the conservative/nationalist heartland of the country.”

In total, the opposition won in 35 out of 81 provinces. The rest of the provinces were split between AKP (24 provinces), the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM, 10 provinces), the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP, 8 provinces), the New Welfare Party (two provinces), and Iyi Party (Good Party, one province). With some six million eligible voters, the turnout at the time of writing this story was estimated at more than 78 percent across the country’s 81 provinces, with almost all ballots counted. In previous municipal elections, the turnout was 84.5 percent. In Turkey, the voter turnout has always been high ranging between 70 and 90 percent throughout the years.

This victory also reversed political tides ahead of the next general elections scheduled for 2028. There were hints the AKP would be making constitutional changes which could allow incumbent President Erdoğan to stay in power, despite earlier promises these elections would be his last.

While the president cannot legally run in the next presidential race in 2028, according to Turkey’s Constitution, there are two scenarios in which this can change. In the first scenario, Erdoğan and the AKP would need to secure 400 votes in the parliament to change the constitution. Turkey’s parliament, the Grand National Assembly, consists of 600 seats. At the moment, the AKP and its main ally, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), hold 313 seats. Thus, pushing for a constitutional amendment with a parliamentary vote would largely depend on whether the ruling party and President can secure the support of other political party representatives.

In the second scenario, the parliament can call for an early election. But even in this scenario, 360 parliamentary votes are needed.

With election results in, these plans will likely be put on hold.

While still low, the number of women mayors also increased, rising from four to 11. In Bilecik, a provincial capital of Turkey’s Bilecik Province, in northwestern Anatolia, Melek Mızrak Subaşı who was likened to Daenerys Targaryen, the fictional character in George R. R. Martin’s epic fantasy novel series A Song of Ice and Fire — which was later made into the HBO blockbuster Game of Thrones series, also secured victory.

The elections also saw instances of violence. At least one person was killed and 11 injured in the city of Diyarbakir, and at least sixteen were injured in the province of Sanliurfa, according to media reports.

Critiques against Erdoğan

As results started to trickle in, one of the widely discussed questions was what kind of election results Turkey would see had it been a different opposition candidate running against President Erdoğan.

The local election results also illustrated that the dynamics between the local and general elections were different. Turkey’s ongoing economic crisis, wherein the country’s currency lost 40 percent of its value since last year and over 80 percent in the last five years, did matter, and the voters placed the blame on the ruling government in the local elections. In an interview with Reuters, Hakan Akbaş, a senior adviser at the Albright Stonebridge Group, said, “The economy was the decisive factor. Turkish people demanded change and İmamoğlu is now the default nemesis to President Erdoğan.”

Another surprising result came from the Yeniden Refah (the New Welfare Party), a religious-conservative party which pundits speculated could divide the AKP’s votes among conservative and religious voters disillusioned by Erdoğan’s economic choices. It came third in the race after the ruling AKP secured over  six percent of votes.

In his balcony speech delivered past midnight, Erdoğan adopted a less divisive tone than usual, expressing his gratitude to all of his party candidates as well as the people. He also said the party would fix mistakes ahead of the 2028 general elections. Unlike in previous municipal elections in 2019, the ruling party also did not contest election results, with Erdoğan, saying he and his party accept the people’s decision. In 2019, after the CHP’s Ekrem İmamoğlu won against the AKP’s Binali Yıldırım, the latter objected to the results. In the re-run, İmamoğlu won with an even higher margin — some 860,000 votes versus 13,700 votes.

In securing his re-election, İmamoğlu now has a clear shot at becoming the next leader of the opposition CHP as well as a likely candidate in the next presidential race. According to Sinan Ülgen, director of the Istanbul-based Edam think tank, “This outcome has certainly been a watershed for İmamoğlu. He will emerge as the natural candidate of the opposition for the next round of presidential elections.” Whether İmamoğlu will succeed remains to be seen, especially as the popular Istanbul Mayor is still facing a charge over allegedly insulting public officials in a speech he made after he won Istanbul’s municipal election in 2019. The higher appeals court must uphold the verdict, but until then, İmamoğlu remains Istanbul’s mayor.

Also important to note is that these elections were free but not fair. Ahead of the vote, Erdoğan relied heavily on his presidential powers as well as the government institutions and media. In a country where 90 percent of traditional media is controlled by the government, it was not surprising to see that much of the air time was devoted to the ruling party and its candidates. There was plenty of disinformation, as was the case during the general elections last year. In December 2023, the Information Technologies and Communications Authority (BTK), Turkey’s top telecommunications watchdog, imposed an access ban on 16 VPN providers. The country has also witnessed a backsliding on human rights, democracy, judicial independence, and the rule of law.

Featured image: Tons of CHP supporters took to the streets after their surprise victory in Turkey’s election. Collage by Arzu Geybullayeva.

Written byArzu Geybullayeva

Via Globalvoices.org

Election districts that do a terrible job identifying their voters expose their state to problems far beyond a few votes by individuals with impossible ages. Consider that in 2020 New York voters with no personally identifiable information (PII – Social Security or driver’s license numbers) in the voter database cast nearly as many ballots as Joe Biden’s margin of victory over Donald Trump—more than 1.8 million votes.

Before anyone claims this is the smoking gun that proves massive voter fraud, let me assure you that no one has brought forth legally admissible proof of voter fraud sufficient to change any state election result in 2020. And I should know. I was hired by the Trump campaign to look for voter fraud in the days after that election.

These impossibly old voters and voters who lack PII represent sloppy computer systems and reveal a lack of statewide standards for how New York’s counties operate their elections. With birthdates of 1800, 1850, and 1900, those overly-aged New York voters have placeholder dates of birth, put there because election workers didn’t know the actual date. New York election officials should have flagged these voters as problematic, researched them, and either fixed the data or removed them from the rolls. These issues impact the overall integrity (and perception of integrity) of New York’s election systems and interfere with election officials’ ability to maintain the voter rolls properly.

Ken Block, Disproven: My Unbiased Search for Voter Fraud for the Trump Campaign, the Data that Shows Why He Lost, and How We Can Improve Our Elections. Click here to buy.

This is a bipartisan issue in New York. Forty-nine percent of all registered voters in the state are Democrats, while about 22 percent are Republicans. When it comes to voters who lack PII, 49 percent are Democrats and 29 percent are Republicans.

The lack of PII carries serious consequences. Not being able to sort the dead from the living via PII and valid birth dates is a monumental problem that leads to bloated voter rolls. Bloated voter rolls artificially lower election turnout percentages, waste the time and money of campaigns trying to reach voters who may no longer exist, and open the door to mischief—or worse.

It also leads to 118-year-old voters. There are obvious problems with this extraordinary bit of longevity and civic duty beyond the fact that the oldest human being still alive is 116. And yet, New York has 3,595 registrants older than 118 years (based on their recorded date of birth). Votes were cast by 269 of these registrants in 2022, and 368 of them voted in 2020. As you might have guessed, 3,474 lack PII.

But the problem is deeper than voting by the immortal elderly. Almost 1.2 million registrants have no votes recorded in the data file and have been registered to vote in New York for at least 20 years. Of these, more than 800,000 do not have PII. Many of these registrants are most likely deceased and fell through the cracks. They should have been purged from the rolls long ago. If they had, New York’s 2020 voter turnout would have improved from roughly 70 to 78 percent. Sadly, this has gone on for so long that election officials cannot uniquely identify these voters without expensive data analytics.

It gets worse. More than 3 million registrants are currently on the rolls without PII, according to data from a 2022 Freedom of Information inquiry. Of those, more than 1.8 million voted in 2020, and 1.4 million voted in 2022. Many of these date from 1989, before the federal law requiring voters to present PII when being registered. Despite the passage of the law requiring PII, New York continues to enroll voters it can’t uniquely identify. The state should backfill the missing PII for as many voters as possible.

Part of the reason for this mess is the lack of having one central state elections hub. Instead, New York’s counties are responsible for administering elections, which leads to chaos when the counties do things differently. In the 2020 election, New York counties identified votes in ten different ways. Inconsistency is the enemy of integrity.

Why is there no statewide standard for recording votes the same way by every county? This is a seemingly simple thing to implement and enforce. One might wonder about other ways New York’s counties administer their elections differently.

To show I bear no ill will towards New York, New Jersey has nearly 25,000 impossibly old voters, almost 8,000 of whom cast votes in 2020.

Our election infrastructure is a mission-critical component of our governance. The data that underpins that infrastructure should be sound. An election system that cannot uniquely identify its registrants as severely as New York’s should be unacceptable to everyone.

( RFE/ RL ) – Iran’s parliamentary elections on March 1 witnessed a historically low turnout, in a blow to the legitimacy of the clerical establishment.

The official turnout of 41 percent was the lowest for legislative elections since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Critics claim the real turnout was likely even lower.

Hard-liners dominated the elections for the parliament and the Assembly of Experts, a body that picks the country’s supreme leader, consolidating their grip on power. Many reformists and moderates were barred from contesting the polls.

Experts said the declining turnout signifies the growing chasm between the ruling clerics and Iran’s young population, many of whom are demanding greater social and political freedoms in the Middle Eastern nation of some 88 million.

“These elections proved that the overriding imperative for the Islamic republic is strengthening ideological conformity at the top, even at the cost of losing even more of its legitimacy from below,” said Ali Vaez, the director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group.

‘Widening Divide’

Observers said disillusionment with the state has been building up for years and is reflected in the declining voter turnout in recent elections.

Turnout in presidential and parliamentary elections were consistently above 50 percent for decades. But the numbers have declined since 2020, when around 42 percent of voters cast ballots in the parliamentary elections that year. In the 2021 presidential vote, turnout was below 49 percent.

Ali Ansari, a history professor at the University of St. Andrews, puts that down to growing “despondency” in the country.

This is “the clearest indication of the widening divide between state and society, which has been growing over the years,” said Ansari.

“It is quite clear that the despondency is extending even to those who are generally sympathetic to the regime,” he added, referring to reformist former President Mohammad Khatami choosing not to vote in the March 1 elections.

Voter apathy was particularly evident in the capital, Tehran, which has the most representatives in the 290-seat parliament. In Tehran, only 1.8 million of the 7.7 million eligible voters — or some 24 percent — cast their votes on March 1, according to official figures.

Up to 400,000 invalid ballots — many believed to be blank — were cast in Tehran alone, a sign of voter discontent.

AP Archives Video: “Iran begins voting in first parliament election since 2022 protests amid questions over turnout”

Ahead of the elections, nearly 300 activists in Iran had called on the public to boycott the “engineered” elections.

Beyond Boycott

The March 1 elections were the first since the unprecedented anti-establishment protests that rocked the country in 2022.

The monthslong demonstrations, triggered by the death in custody of a young woman arrested for allegedly violating Iran’s hijab law, snowballed into one of the most sustained demonstrations against Iran’s theocracy. At least 500 protesters were killed and thousands were detained in the state’s brutal crackdown on the protests.

Iran has been the scene of several bursts of deadly anti-establishment protests since the disputed presidential election in 2009. Many of the demonstrations have been over state repression and economic mismanagement.

But experts said that the 2022 protests alone did not result in the record-low turnout in the recent elections.

“This is a reflection of a deeper malaise that extends back to 2009 and traverses through 2017, 2019, and 2022,” Ansari said. “It has been building for some time.”

Despite the historically low turnout, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei praised the “epic” participation of the public. State-run media, meanwhile, spun the elections as a victory over those who called for a boycott.

By claiming victory, the clerical establishment “overlooks the growing absence of support from 60 percent of its population,” said Vaez.

“Such self-approbation [mirrors] the regime’s previous dismissal of the 2022 protests as the result of foreign intrigue rather than reflection of deep discontent,” he said, adding that it represents the Islamic republic’s “continuation of ignoring simmering public discontent.”

Hard-Line Dominance

Around 40 moderates won seats in the new parliament. But the legislature will remain dominated by hard-liners.

The elections were largely seen as a contest between conservatives and ultraconservatives.

“We can say that a more hotheaded and previously marginal wing of the hard-liners scored a victory against more established conservatives,” said Arash Azizi, a senior lecturer in history and political science at Clemson University in South Carolina.

“This is because the former had a more fired-up base and in the absence of popular participation were able to shape the results,” he added.

A more hard-line parliament could have more bark but “certainly” not more bite than its predecessors, according to Vaez.

“The parliament is subservient to the supreme leader and rubber stamps the deep state’s strategic decisions, even if grudgingly,” he added.

Since the ultraconservative Ebrahim Raisi, a close ally of Khamenei, was elected as president in 2021, Iran’s hard-liners have dominated all three branches of the government, including the parliament and judiciary.

Other key institutions like the Assembly of Experts and the powerful Guardians Council, which vets all election candidates, are also dominated by hard-liners.

“There is not much left of the system’s republican features,” Vaez said. “The Islamic republic is now a minority-ruled unconstitutional theocracy.”

RFE/ RL

We can leave aside those presidents tried for crimes against humanity and massacres, such as Saddam Hussein of Iraq (executed in 2006) or Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia. Trump rode roughshod over people’s civil rights, including in Portland, Or. and Lafayette Park, but those are not among the charges against him. He stands accused of sedition and conspiracy to overturn an election. There also isn’t a good parallel to South Korea, which has routinely tried and imprisoned former presidents on embezzlement and corruption charges. Although there are questions about whether the Trumps illicitly used the White House to enrich themselves further, DJT is not being tried on those grounds.

The closes parallel is former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, who faces as many as 16 trials, one of which began in June. He is charged with spreading misinformation about the election in the months leading up to it. If found guilty he could be barred from politics for 8 years.

In 2019, former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf was convicted of treason because he had suspended the country’s constitution in 2007. Musharraf made a military coup against elected Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in 1999 and held a phony referendum, whereby he because president. This is not so hard since in a referendum you have no opponent and the only candidate people can vote for is you. Musharraf was not the first military dictator to make himself president of Pakistan, in fact he was the fourth, after Generals Ayyub Khan, Yahya Khan, and Zia ul-Haq.

Musharraf, however, went further than ruling according to provisions in the constitution for a national emergency. In 2007 he dismissed the Supreme Court and replaced it with one to his liking, and in November of that year he actually set aside the constitution, restoring it a month later, in December.

Pakistan was in so much turmoil that Musharraf couldn’t control the situation, so he agreed to the holding of new elections in 2008, won by Asaf Ali Zardari after his wife, Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated. Musharraf went into exile. The legal establishment, however, still minded his attempt to tinker with it and in 2013 they began proceedings against him for treason in connection with his suspension of the constitution. In 2019 the trial in absentia wrapped up with Musharraf being sentenced to death. The pawerful Pakistani officer corps had lobbied against one of their own being treated like this, but to no avail. Musharraf was sentenced to death in absentia, given that he lived in Dubai then. He died on Feb. 5, 2023.

Since US prosecutors have not considered Trump’s crimes to constitute a form of treason, he does not face the death penalty, though he is 77, so he could easily die in jail if he is convicted and imprisoned. In Georgia, he can’t get less than five years if he is convicted of the racketeering and other charges, because of mandatory sentencing guidelines. He also cannot be paroled or pardoned before spending 5 years in prison.

An Atlanta, Georgia, grand jury indicted former President Donald Trump on Aug. 14, 2023, charging him with racketeering and 12 other felonies related to his alleged attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat in the state.

Eighteen of Trump’s allies and associates, including former Trump attorney Rudolph Giuliani and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, were also indicted for racketeering and other felony charges for their alleged involvement in the scheme.

This marks Trump’s fourth indictment in five months – and the second to come from his efforts to undo the election results that awarded the presidency to Joe Biden. Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, started investigating Trump’s involvement in this alleged scheme, as well as that of Trump’s colleagues, in February 2021.

In January 2021, one month before the investigation started, Trump placed a phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and pressed him to “find” enough votes to overturn Biden’s win.

The Conversation U.S. spoke with Anthony Michael Kreis, a scholar of Georgia’s election laws, to understand the significance of the charges laid out in the 98-page indictment. Here are five key points to understand about the precise nature of the charges and why racketeering is at the center of them.

1. Racketeering is different from conspiracy charges

With a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, charge, Willis presents a narrative that there were a large number of people involved in this case, but that they didn’t necessarily sit down at some point and over cocktails and say, “We are going to engage in this criminal act,” which would be a traditional conspiracy case. She is painting this picture of people winking and nodding and working toward this end goal of overthrowing the election, but without some kind of expressed agreement.

The Georgia RICO law allows her to rope in a lot of people who allegedly were involved with this kind of approach.

To be able to bring conspiracy charges, she would have to have an expressed agreement and a concrete act in furtherance of that conspiracy. And here there really wasn’t quite a plan – it is essentially a loose organization of people who are all up to no good.

2. Georgia – and Willis – have used racketeering charges before

Traditionally in Georgia, RICO has been used to prosecute people engaged in very violent kinds of activity – for street gangs and the Mafia, in particular. It has also been used in other contexts.

Beirut (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Lebanon may be a small country of some four million citizens with a land area a little less than that of Connecticut, but it plays an outsized role in the geopolitics of the Middle East. Its upcoming presidential election on June 14^th therefore has wide domestic and regional implications. The presidency carries significant implications for Lebanon’s delicate electoral landscape and the distribution of power among its religious and political factions. It will be the twelfth attempt by the Parliament to elect a president. Previous attempts have failed to secure two-thirds of the total 128 parliamentary votes in the first round or a simple majority in subsequent rounds.

Host to as many as 1.5 million Syrian refugees, Lebanon’s government and its policies have implications for the future of its larger neighbor. The country is an economic basket case, with charges of peculation at its national bank, and it suffers from long-term infrastructural damage to its main port because of a massive ammonium nitrate fertilizer explosion in 2020. — the third biggest explosion in modern history after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A middle income country only a few years ago, Lebanon has fallen so low that now some 80 percent of its population lives below the poverty line.  

The government is often deadlocked by sectarian struggles. Many in Lebanon’s powerful Christian minority are tied to the west, though some factions are allied with the Shiite Hezbollah Party. About a third of its population is composed of Shiites, many tilting toward Iran or Iraq.  It also has a big block of Sunnis, who identify with the wider Sunni Arab world and are open to influences from Egypt and Saudi Arabia.  Social and political conventions dictate that the president always be Christian.  But some presidents have been closer to Damascus and some closer to Paris and Washington—Lebanese Christians are diverse.

Former Finance Minister Jihad Azour, who served as director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the International Monetary Fund, has emerged as the favorite of most Christian parties. He is, however, disliked by Hezbollah and Amal, the two parties representing Lebanon’s Shiites. It is possible that Azour will nevertheless gain a swell of support.

Suleiman Frangieh, 57, head of the Marada Movement and a favorite of Hezbollah, has also traditionally enjoyed strong support from the Syrian regime. However, signs of waning political relevance suggest the influence of Damascus may be diminishing. This change points to the shifting dynamics of power within Lebanon, emphasizing the challenges faced by long-standing factions.

On the other hand, Azour’s front has garnered substantial domestic support and relies on international backing. However, critics have charged that the media is being manipulated in his favor and have suggested that it is because of external interference.  This critique adds an extra layer of complexity to the electoral landscape. It remains to be seen how these external influences will impact the outcome and shape Lebanon’s political future.

One cannot ignore the role of established influential figures and factions in Lebanon’s presidential race. The long-serving Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, Nabih Berri, a leader of the moderate Shiite Amal Party, displays a knack for political maneuvering and safeguarding personal interests. He would try to put his thumb on the scale for Frangieh. However, his influence on shaping the election outcome must be weighed against other factions’ aspirations for a more inclusive governance model.

Considering the complexity and fluidity of Lebanon’s electoral landscape, it is always possible for a third “surprise” nominee to emerge and have an impact the presidential election. Lebanese politics often witness unexpected developments and the rise of new candidates who capture domestic and international attention and support. Therefore, while the analysis focuses on key players and established factions, it is critical to remain open to the possibility of a third candidate entering the race.

Lebanon’s delicate balance of power requires that the next president unite diverse communities and navigate intricate sectarian divisions. This task calls for a leader who can foster inclusive governance while addressing religious and political factions’ concerns and aspirations. Striking a balance between competing interests is essential to preventing further divisions and promoting national unity.

Lebanon has long been influenced by external actors, which adds another layer of complexity to its electoral landscape. The successful candidate must possess the diplomatic acumen to protect Lebanon’s national interests while fostering productive relationships with international partners. Balancing national sovereignty and international support will be crucial for the next president.

The presidential election outcome extends beyond politics. It has the potential to have an impact Lebanon’s economic recovery and structural reforms. A capable and determined president can play a pivotal role in advancing much-needed reforms and steering the country toward stability. Additionally, establishing an independent presidency can provide an opportunity to overcome political paralysis and create a more effective government that addresses Lebanon’s economic challenges.

Lebanon’s upcoming presidential election holds tremendous significance for the country’s political future. Balancing sectarian interests, navigating external influences, and preserving national unity are critical factors that will shape the election outcome. The chosen president will need strong leadership, diplomatic finesse, and a commitment to inclusive governance to guide Lebanon through its challenges. As Lebanon strives for stability and prosperity, transparent and a fair electoral process that reflects the people’s will is paramount. Sadly, the possibility has to be admitted that the deadlocked Lebanese political system will yet again fail to produce a president, leaving the hapless country rudderless yet again.

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ANKARA, TURKIYE- JUNE 3: President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan first received his mandate from MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli, as the temporary chairman of the Parliament, and then took the oath at the General Assembly on June 3, 2023 in Ankara, Türkiye. Re-elected President once again in the 28 May election, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s duty, which he will continue until 2028, has officially started. The first ceremony was held in the Turkish Grand National Assembly.(Photo by Ugur Yildirim/ dia images via Getty Images).

Türkiye finds itself in a deep economic crisis, which most analysts agree has been worsened by Erdoğan’s unorthodox economic policies and his spending spree before the election. The months before the electoral contest were also marked by the earthquake that shook south-eastern Türkiye and northern Syria, leaving over 50,000 people dead on the Turkish side of the border alone. In the aftermath of the natural disaster, multiple reports showed that the low construction standards condoned by local authorities and the Turkish government resulted in avoidable deaths.

Erdoğan and his center-right AKP have worked over the years to create an institutional and media environment that facilitates their repeated electoral successes. According to an observation mission of the Turkish elections conducted by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), “biased media coverage and the lack of a level playing field gave an unjustified advantage to the incumbent.” However, the strategic mistakes of the opposition also need to be considered to understand why they failed to unseat Erdoğan at his moment of maximum weakness. It has been noted that Kılıçdaroğlu’s promises to assign vice presidential positions to the different party leaders of the opposition coalition sent a confusing message to the Turkish population regarding who would be in charge if the opposition won. The contrast with Erdoğan’s personalist platform was certainly stark. Even so, if skillfully communicated along the lines of “unity in diversity”, the collective leadership of the opposition platform could have proven a strength rather than a weakness.

In contrast, it was known long before the election campaign started that Kılıçdaroğlu was not the best presidential candidate for the opposition. Different polls from early 2022 to early 2023 showed that CHP politicians Ekrem Imamoğlu and Mansur Yavaş, the mayors of Istanbul and Ankara respectively, were far more popular than Kılıçdaroğlu. In December 2022, a judicial ruling banned Imamoğlu from politics (he has been able to stay in office while appealing the decision) for referring to members of the Turkish supreme election council as “fools.” Imamoğlu’s accusations came after the members of the council forced a repetition of the 2019 local elections in Istanbul, which Imamoğlu won by a wider margin than the initial elections that were declared void. Imamoğlu’s legal problems clearly affected his chances of running for president, but Yavaş did not have any obvious impediment.

If Erdoğan was the personification of victory, in discursive terms the triumph went for anti-immigration positions. In fact, the reason Erdoğan failed to win the election in the first round, as he had done in 2014 and 2018, was the strong showing of the ultra-nationalist Sinan Oğan, who received 5.2% of the votes. Oğan’s campaign largely revolved  around promises to send back Syrian refugees living in Türkiye – according to the Turkish government, 3.7 million Syrian refugees out of a total of 5.5 million foreigners live in the country. Oğan found fertile ground in a country that has seen the emergence of deadly assaults on refugees and immigrant neighborhoods during the last years. When recently polled on the subject of Syrian refugees, more than 88.5% of Turks demonstrated that they want them to return to their country.

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Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu attends a swearing-in ceremony at the Turkish parliament in Ankara, June 2, 2023. (Photo by Adem ALTAN / AFP) (Photo by ADEM ALTAN/AFP via Getty Images)

The runoff contest had almost become a formality after the first-round results: 49.5% of the vote went for Erdoğan and 44.9% for Kılıçdaroğlu, which put the AKP leader half a point away from victory. The impressively high turnout, at 87.4%, meant that the opposition’s options to mobilize citizens who had not participated in the first round were very limited. To complicate matters further, after the first round the opposition lost a few key days involved in recriminations, the restructuring of the election campaign team, and carving up a new strategy for the runoff. The despair within the opposition camp was closely related to the high expectations generated by the majority of pre-election polls, which suggested Kılıçdaroğlu would emerge on top after the first round.

Once the soul-searching came to an end, the next step was the pursuit of Oğan’s votes to have a slight chance in the runoff. There were rumors that the opposition offered Oğan to head a new migration ministry or even the vice presidency if he were to support Kılıçdaroğlu in the second round. At the end, he sided with Erdoğan although the Turkish President did not appear to make any concession to him. Oğan probably saw Erdoğan was going to win regardless of his decision and preferred to back the strongest force. The opposition had to content itself with the support of Umit Ozdag, the leader of the far-right Victory Party, which had been the main party in the alliance that backed Oğan’s candidacy in the first round.

Although both the government and the opposition coalition promised to send refugees back to Syria, the anti-refugee discourse has been “much more prominent” in the opposition camp, explains Chatham House Associate Fellow Galip Dalay. During the two weeks between the first round and the runoff election, Kılıçdaroğlu stepped up his anti-refugee messages. Six days before the second round, in a rally in the province of Hatay, which borders Syria, Kılıçdaroğlu exhorted his audience to “make up your mind before refugees take over the country.” Hatay would go on to become the only province in Türkiye where there was a shift of winner: Kılıçdaroğlu won the first round, Erdoğan the second.

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ISTANBUL, TURKEY – MAY 29: Members of the public are seen near the Hagia Sophia the day after Erdogan was re-elected to presidency on May 29, 2023 in Istanbul, Turkey. On Sunday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won another 5-year term after he was forced into a runoff election with the opposition politician Kemal Kilicdaroglu. Erdogan prevailed despite criticism of his management of the country’s economy and the government’s response to the devastating earthquakes earlier this year. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images).

The roadmap to gain Oğan’s vote was not a complete failure, but the opposition needed around 90% of Oğan’s votes to win the election if turnout had remained constant – a possibility that became even more distant as turnout fell by 3.1% in the second round. This meant Erdoğan needed a lesser number of votes to overcome the 50% mark in the runoff election. In fact, the 27.13 million votes Erdoğan received in the first round (as compared to 27.83 million votes in the second) would have been enough to win the second round with over 51% of the valid votes.

Three different provinces illustrate the limited success of the opposition in winning over Oğan voters. In both Kayseri and Bilecik, Oğan received more than 8% of the vote, far above the national average of 5.2%. In the second round, the share of the vote for Kılıçdaroğlu increased at the same rate as Erdoğan’s in Kayseri while Kılıçdaroğlu’s gains in Bilecik were only slightly bigger – 1.6% more than Erdoğan. Something similar happened in Bursa, a far more important province in electoral terms as it is Türkiye’s fourth in number of population. In this western region, Oğan received 7.4% of the vote in the first round. In the second round, Kılıçdaroğlu’s share of the vote increased by 4.5% and Erdoğan’s by 3%.

The opposition did a better job in Istanbul and Ankara, the two largest metropolitan areas, where its margin of victory doubled, but the differences remained too small to compensate for Erdoğan’s overwhelming wins in Central Anatolia and the Black Sea region. Furthermore, Ozdag’s Victory Party support for the opposition proved to have negative consequences in the Kurdish-majority areas of Türkiye. This is something several analysts had expected given the Victory party’s strong anti-Kurdish views. In Diyarbakır, Van, and Mardin, the most populated Kurdish provinces won by Kılıçdaroğlu in the first round, the opposition’s candidate lost between 0.3 and 1% of the vote in the runoff election. The number of votes for Erdoğan in these provinces hardly increased, but the fall in the turnout rate was higher than the national average of 3.1% – 6% in Diyarbakır and Van, 4% in Mardin – suggesting the opposition failed to re-mobilize some of the voters who had previously voted for Kılıçdaroğlu.

Part of the problem for Kılıçdaroğlu was that most of the support he received in the Kurdish areas in the first round consisted of tactical voting. The first round of the presidential election was held together with the parliamentary elections, which the opposition lost to the AKP and its ultra-nationalist ally, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). The pro-Kurdish and left-wing Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) called for HDP supporters to back Kılıçdaroğlu in the presidential election, forgoing putting up their own presidential candidate as they had done in the past. In the parliamentary elections, however, the HDP put forward its candidates under the umbrella of the Green Left Party (YSP), which gained close to 9% of the vote and was the strongest political force in 13 south-eastern provinces. It is reasonable to assume that a significant number of Kurdish voters who had split their vote for Kılıçdaroğlu and the YSP in the first round decided to stay at home for the second round, especially considering Kılıçdaroğlu’s reach-out to the anti-Kurdish Victory Party.

Erdoğan and his AKP had probably never been weaker than they were in the run-up to these recent parliamentary and presidential elections. Consequently, the opposition has strong reasons to believe it has missed an incomparable opportunity. Under the new presidential system, Erdoğan will not be allowed to run for president again in 2028 due to a two-term limit. Even so, the difficulties for the opposition arising from “the lack of a level playing field” in Turkish elections will likely only have increased by 2028. Considering the results of the second round of the presidential election, the CHP is in a good position to maintain the mayorships of Istanbul and Ankara in the 2024 local elections. But even if these good prospects for the opposition materialize, these wins will have a sour taste with four more years to go until the next presidential and parliamentary elections.

The unequal playing field gave the incumbent an unjustified advantage

Written byArzu Geybullayeva

( Globalvoices.org) -Showing up at a polling station, as one of the two presidential candidates, in a country-wide election with a pocket full of cash may not occur to leaders of democratic countries, but in Turkey, that is what the newly re-elected President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan did on May 28. The incumbent president was seen handing out TRY 200 banknotes (USD 10) to his supporters amid cheering and blessings.
In Turkey, campaigning on an election day is prohibited, but given the unequal playing field in the run-up to both elections on May 14 and May 28, it is unlikely that President Erdoğan will face any repercussions. The same applies to countless violations documented by the Turkey-based Human Rights Association (İHD). According to their report, there was violence and vote rigging observed across Turkey on May 28. In Hatay, observers documented mass voting, while in other provinces, representatives of the main opposition CHP faced violence. According to the association, there were also instances in provinces where men voted on behalf of women or pre-stamped ballots were brought from outside. The association said:

In the light of the initial data Human Rights Association (İHD) has received and those reported in the press, it has been determined that violations including mass and open voting, obstruction of observers and party representatives, and physical violence took place in the presidential election runoff. İHD calls on all public authorities, especially the Supreme Electoral Board, to fulfill their duties in accordance with human rights standards in order to ensure fair elections.

On June 1, the Supreme Electoral Board announced the official results of the second round of presidential elections. According to the results, President Erdoğan received 52.18 percent of the votes while his opponent, Kılıçdaroğlu received 47.82 percent.

Predictions for the next five years

Already, a day after the election on May 29, the country witnessed a price hike on gas and alcoholic beverages as well as reports of medical professionals looking to leave the country. According to the Turkish Medical Association (TBB), an independent medical and health professional association, data from March 2022, some 4,000 doctors have left the country in the last ten years. The new data shared by the association showed the number of medical professionals wanting to leave in the first five months of 2023 reached 1,025. But it won’t be just the doctors leaving. According to a survey by Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung conducted among Turkish youth to evaluate their social and political opinions, “a significant proportion, 63 percent of young people, expressed a desire to live in another country if given the opportunity,” citing worsening living conditions and declining freedom in Turkey as main reasons for this decision.

Already, there are signs that Turks, from all walks of life — especially those with little children — intend to seek opportunities abroad. Among those wanting to leave are those fearing persecution by the new leadership.

Supporters of the ruling party celebrate the victory on May 28. Image by Aziz Karimov. Used with permission.

There is also the economy and the slumping of the national currency, the Turkish Lira, against the dollar. According to Morgan Stanley analysts, lest President Erdoğan reverses his policy of low-interest rates, the lira could face a 29 percent slump by the end of 2023. On June 3, Erdoğan is set to announce the new cabinet. Among them, is former Minister of Finance, Mehmet Simsek, who is expected to take over all of Turkey’s economic policies, according to reporting by Bloomberg. Pundits say Simsek’s inclusion within the new cabinet is a move that could help prop up Turkey’s struggling economy:

The economy is not the only area where Turkey is likely to see further problems, according to Daron Acemoğlu, a faculty member at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In a detailed thread on Twitter, Acemoğlu noted judicial independence “was very bad and probably cannot get much worse.” There is also the media environment. According to Acemoğlu while he does not anticipate “a complete ban on all dissident voices,” the conditions may worsen if the state anticipates introducing further “controls on social media.” Acemoğlu also anticipates further erosion of “autonomy and impartiality of bureaucracy and security services,” as well as challenges imposed against civil society and freedoms more broadly.

Some of the restrictions on media were quick to follow. On May 30, The Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) also known as the chief censor in Turkey, launched an investigation against six opposition television channels over their coverage of the elections.

After securing another victory, President Erdoğan delivered a divisive election speech. Speaking to his supporters who gathered at the presidential palace in Ankara, he called the jailed leader of the Kurdish HDP party a terrorist and promised to keep Demirtaş behind bars. During the speech, his supporters began calling for Demirtaş’s execution. In December 2020, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Turkey must immediately release the Kurdish politician. The politician was placed behind bars in November 2016, and if convicted, could face 142 years in prison. The charges leveled against him are being a leader of a terrorist organization, an accusation Demirtaş has denied.

There is also the case of Can Atalay, the newly elected member of parliament, representing the Workers Party, who remains behind bars, despite Atalay’s lawyers’ attempts to free him. All newly elected parliament members are expected to attend the swearing-in ceremony on June 2.

Journalists Union of Turkey (TGS) President Gökhan Durmuş was closely watching the President’s victory speech and released a statement expressing his concern about the divisive nature of the next government and the implications on press freedom in the country.

However, in an atmosphere where the society is divided exactly in two, it will only be possible to continue to be in power by continuing the oppressive policies. And President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has already signaled to the whole society in his balcony speech that this will be their choice.

The future of the opposition alliance

While at first, it was unclear what will happen to the opposition alliance, also known as the Table of Six, the past few days indicate divisions within the group. Uğur Poyraz, the Secretary General of the IYI Party and one of the members of the Table of Six said on June 1, “The name of this alliance is the electoral alliance; when the election is over, the alliance will also disappear. As of May 28, the electoral alliance ended.” But not all members of the alliance share the same sentiments. In a video address shared via Twitter, the leader of Gelecek Party Ahmet Davutoğlu encouraged supporters of the alliance “not to fall into despair or possible provocations,” adding, that those who supported the ruling government and its alliance did so not because they accepted the status quo but due to an environment of fear.

Other members of the alliance, such as the leader of the Felicity party Temel Karamollaoğlu took it to Twitter, where he criticized the ruling government for the polarization, asking whether it was all worth it. “Was it really worth it, declaring half of our nation ‘terrorists, enemies of religion, traitors,’ in return for this result you have achieved? Was it worth all the lies, slander, and insults,” wrote Karamollaoğlu.

The latter was also reflected in a joint statement issued by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA), and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) observers:

The second round of Türkiye’s presidential election was characterized by increasingly inflammatory and discriminatory language during the campaign period. Media bias and ongoing restrictions to freedom of expression created an unlevel playing field, and contributed to an unjustified advantage of the incumbent.

The blame game

Many blamed the opposition alliance and its leader for failing to secure victory in these elections but according to Gönül Tol, the founding director of the Middle East Institute’s Turkey program and a senior fellow with the Black Sea Program it is not as simple as that and that fear factor played a significant role. In a Twitter thread, Tol alluded to a handful of complexities that determined the outcomes of these elections. From elections being unfree and unfair, to both pro-democracy and President Erdoğan’s alliance having “existential anxieties,” with both sides seeing the elections “as a war of survival.”  Tol explained:

In such polarized contexts, people do not change their voting behavior easily based on policy preferences, incumbent’s performance or opposition’s promises. Going for the other guy rather than sticking with the devil you know is too big of a risk to take, especially in the face of such dramatic uncertainty. That is why Erdoğan continues to polarize the country.

As for the fear factor, Tol noted that President Erdoğan’s victory speech, was “the most aggressive” to date, “because that is how autocrats cling to power against unfavorable odds. They stoke fear and frame elections as a war for survival. That is how they prevent defections. That is how they can still muster majorities even when they fail to deliver.”

Writing for T24, academic and journalist Haluk Şahin explained that the outcomes of these elections were “determined not by economics and sociology, but by social psychology. In other words, a choice driven by subconscious and subconscious fears, identities, denials, jealousies, desires for worship, and ambitions to dominate.”

Others like political scientist Umut Özkırımlı explained that in order to “to topple an authoritarian regime at the ballot box” two things are needed, “sizeable electoral majorities” and “populist and ethnonationalist strategies” referring to an essay by Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way’s The New Competitive Authoritarianism. In the essay, the authors argue:

Tilting the playing field in countries such as Hungary, the Philippines, Turkey, and Venezuela requires greater skill, more sophisticated strategies, and far more extensive popular mobilization … Prospective autocrats must first command sizeable electoral majorities, and then deploy plebiscitarian or hypermajoritarian strategies to change the constitutional and electoral rules of the game so as to weaken opponents. This is often achieved via polarizing populist or ethnonationalist strategies.

With local elections months away (Turkey is to hold mayoral elections in March 2024) academic Orçun Selçuk said the opposition should stick to “playing the long game”:

Calls for solidarity

On the night of election, as Erdoğan supporters, roamed the streets of Turkey, celebrating into the early hours of the morning, the other half of the country, did not hesitate in shaking off the outcome and calling to keep on fighting.

 

Acclaimed musician, Fazil Say, tweeted on May 29, “No demoralizing, friends, let’s embrace life. Keep up the goodness. Life goes on, music goes on, the world goes on, endless continuation to create and produce beauty.”

 

Well-known entrepreneur Selçuk Gerger, posted on his Instagram, that despite all the struggle, things did not change. “As of today, I will continue to live as I was living in Istanbul in the previous months and years, without regrets or stepping aside. I will not give up even for a moment. We won’t hide. The majority of people born and who grew up in this country are on our side. And yes, today we are really just starting our fight. Let’s not get hide!”

Via Globalvoices.org

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been reelected as president, ensuring that his term as leader of Turkey will extend to a quarter century.

The electorate returned Erdoğan to power in a runoff vote on May 28, 2023, with 52% of votes. But with 48% of voters siding with opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, Erdoğan will have to govern a divided nation in its centennial year.

As a professor of political science, I have analyzed Turkish politics for many years. The election provided a stark choice for Turkey’s voters: To end or extend Erdogan’s two-decade-long creep toward authoritarian-style governance. The decision to opt for the latter will dictate the country’s future in key ways, both domestically and in terms of its relationships with Western countries.

What’s next for Turkey’s political system?

Turkey had its first democratic election in May 1950. Since then it has had a multiparty competitive system, albeit one that has been sporadically interrupted by several military coups.

In the last 10 years, Erdoğan has taken Turkey down a more autocratic, one-man-rule style of governance. This has included restrictions on freedom of speech, freedom of the press and free assembly.

There is a little reason to believe that Erdoğan, enboldened by a fresh mandate, will reverse this trajectory.

Erdoğan won the election without making any promises about restoring or expanding rights and freedoms. Rather, his campaign signaled an intention to continue Turkey’s path toward being a conservative, religious state – a far cry from the vision of a modern, secular nation of founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

In the run-up to the election, Erdoğan presented himself as the leader of religious conservatives – reciting the Quran in Hagia Sophia and addressing the people in another mosque following the Friday prayer. He also presented himself as a militarist leader, using battleships, drones and other weapons as campaign instruments and uploading a new Twitter profile photo with an air force pilot jacket. This posturing combined with his accusations that the opposition was collaborating with the PKK – a Kurdish separatist organization designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey – suggests that Erdoğan continues to promote Turkish nationalism and militarism.

The runoff victory for Erdoğan comes just two weeks after his Justice and Development Party and coalition partners won a parliamentary majority. It means that the opposition will have no executive or legislative power to restrict Erdoğan’s agenda.

Future relations with the U.S. and the West

Another important and consistent characteristic of Erdoğan’s presidential campaign was his criticism of the West in general and the United States in particular.

Erdoğan has accused the U.S. of a variety of perceived slights and Washington’s stance on issues affecting Turkey. In the past year, the Turkish leader has criticized over Washington’s support of the Syrian affiliate of the Kurdish PKK and protested the deployment of U.S. armored vehicles on two Greek Islands. Meanwhile, he has pointedly distanced himself from NATO allies on the issue of Russian sanctions, and instead talked up Turkey’s “special relationship” with Russia.

In mid-April, Erdoğan framed the election as a chance for voters to “send a message to the West” which, he claimed, was supporting the opposition candidate. “This country does not look at what the West says, neither when fighting terrorism nor in determining its economic policies,” he said.

Some of this was campaign rhetoric. And Erdoğan may make some attempts to heal rifts with Western countries, such as approving Sweden’s NATO membership bid – something he has to date refused to do over what Turkey sees as the Nordic country’s harboring of Kurdish terrorists.

But even such a concession would not amount to a transformation of Erdoğan’s deeply critical attitude to Western countries overall.

Indeed, the only factor that may force Erdoğan to return Turkey to a pro-Western position is Turkey’s ongoing economic crisis – which might necessitate the support of wealthy Western states and institutions.

What’s next for Turkey’s shaky economy?

Since 2018, the Turkish economy has shown symptoms of a crisis. Turkey’s currency, the lira, has fallen in value precipitously. In March, it fell to a new low of 19 to the dollar. Moreover, in 2022, the annual inflation rate surpassed 80%.

In order to win the elections, Erdoğan pursued several policies that appealed to voters but may further stress the economy and bleed national reserves. They include dropping the retirement age and giving a 45% pay raise to public workers.

Meanwhile, economic crisis and authoritarian policies have resulted in a “brain drain” with many educated young people moving to Western European countries.

If the election result leads to a further exodus of skilled, educated workers, then it will only weaken Turkey’s capability of confronting its economic crisis. Such thinking could nudge Erdoğan towards a rethink over policies that alienate younger, secular Turks.

It could also force Erdoğan to reevaluate his foreign policy. At present, the Turkish leader has looked to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Russia for financial support. If this appears to be insufficient, Erdoğan may be forced to seek stronger relations with the United States to facilitate financial aid from the International Monetary Fund and other international organizations.

Erdoğan won the election without making any promises of change regarding domestic or foreign policy. But if the economic crisis he faces fails to abate, change may be forced upon him.

Ahmet T. Kuru, Professor of Political Science, San Diego State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.