ANKARA — Polls opened across Turkey on Sunday morning in a watershed moment for the country as millions vote to determine whether President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will extend his hold on power or a Western-friendly coalition of opposition parties led by Kemal Kilicdaroglu will replace him.
The turnout has been expected to be high. Absentee voting has already made records with a turnout of 51% in 73 countries. Inflation, economic decline and refugees are top issues in this election, according to polls.
Nearly 61 million Turkish citizens, including more than 3.4 million expatriates, are eligible to vote in the elections.
The latest numbers released on the eve of the elections showed that Kilicdaroglu ahead and slightly short of securing the more than 50% of the vote needed to avoid a runoff. Preliminary results will become available in the late evening local time, where the polls close at 5 p.m.
The voting started amid a Twitter controversy after the platform announced on Friday night that it is blocking some content in Turkey ahead of Sunday’s vote. Twitter did not provide details which accounts it has blocked but justified the move as an effort to prevent the whole platform from being blocked in Turkey. The Erdogan government has previously blocked Twitter.
“We have informed the account holders of this action in line with our policy. This content will remain available in the rest of the world,” Twitter said.
International observers have been deployed across Turkey. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) deployed a full monitoring mission of 350 members. Hundreds of thousands of volunteers and party activists have mobilized against potential election fraud.
Calls by the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, ODIHR, on the Turkish government to secure a more fair environment for the campaign process have remained unaddressed.
Erdogan and his government officials have been widely accused of enjoying the benefits of public resources under their control as well as their grip over the mainstream media ahead of the elections.
In its interim report released during the campaigning, the ODIHR also raised concerns over the frequent blocking of websites, requests for content removal and the use of legal restrictions on freedom of expression. In a joint statement last week, watchdogs Human Rights Watch and Article 19 echoed similar sentiments, warning that the government would exert considerable control over the digital ecosystem to undermine the outcome of the election.
The six-party alliance and the government critics believe the election is Turkey’s last chance to reverse the democratic backsliding under Erdogan’s authoritarian rule.
The six-party bloc led by the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) pledges to undo Erdogan’s executive presidency, which its critics slam as one-man rule. It also promises to reinvigorate Turkey’s commitment to becoming a member of the European Union by carrying out necessary democratic reforms. Earlier this week, Kilicdaroglu pledged to restore Ankara’s frayed ties with NATO and Western capitals.
Erdogan, who has comfortably seen off almost every electoral challenge during his more than two decades in power, is facing his toughest reelection bid yet amid a cost-of-living crisis and breakneck inflation. The Feb. 6 earthquakes that killed more than 50,500 people in the country’s southeast have further exacerbated the country’s deepening woes.
Erdogan’s troubled tenure
Over the course of his more than 20-year tenure, Turkey has drifted from being a country that was rapidly progressing toward becoming a full EU member into one in economic decline and with strained relations with the West. Following the collapse of the peace talks between Erdogan’s government and armed Kurdish militants in 2015, Turkey has drifted steadily toward authoritarianism. The talks offered a chance to end nearly 40 years of bloody conflict with Kurdish groups that claimed tens of thousands of lives.
That drift sped up following the 2016 coup that saw more than 250 people killed in an attempt to oust Erdogan.
The failed coup, which Ankara blamed on Erdogan’s former ally the US-based Sunni cleric Fethullah Gulen, paved the way for the executive presidency system, which the country narrowly approved in 2018. The massive crackdown against the Gulenists was later extended to government critics and hundreds of Kurdish activists, civic group members and journalists remain behind bars.
Turkey’s ties with its Western allies including NATO members took a nosedive after the coup, worsening the country’s international isolation. Erdogan’s pro-Muslim Brotherhood stance also derailed Turkey’s ties with regional countries. Yet a fence-mending push driven by a worsening economy in late 2021 saw Turkey restore its ties with Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt. Ankara is also engaged in high-level talks with the Syrian government after more than a decade of hostilities.
At home, Erdogan’s time in power has also seen deep polarization along the country’s religious and ethnic fault lines. Ramping up his belligerent rhetoric over the past weeks, he has portrayed his rivals as collaborators of outlawed groups and dark and mysterious international power centers.
Kilicdaroglu’s reconciliatory approach
Soft-spoken Kilicdaroglu, a former bureaucrat in the country’s Finance Ministry, positioned himself as the antipode of Erdogan with a unifying message that embraces all identities. Kilicdaroglu is Turkey’s first Alevi presidential candidate, representing a distinct and often ostracized branch of Islam.
Kilicdaroglu’s bloc includes tiny Islamist Saadet (Felicity) Party leader Temel Karamollaoglu. The leaders of the other five opposition parties within the bloc are set to serve as vice presidents along with main opposition’s Istanbul and Ankara mayors under Kilicdaroglu. Former ruling party offshoots Deva and Gelecek (Future) parties as well as Saadet are running under the list of the CHP. The nationalist Iyi (Good) Party meanwhile is running under its own name within the alliance.
The election for Turkey’s 600-seat parliament is also being held on Sunday. The six-party alliance needs to secure 360 seats to bring about a referendum on ending the executive presidency. The country’s pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party, which is running in a leftist alliance, also supports such a transition.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
