Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu face off in tight race for Turkish presidency

The united front of six parties can be seen as representing a major national consensus reflecting the much-needed diversity and consultation. This has been something which the opposition has regarded as absent in the Turkish political system lately.

The opposition is confident that Kılıçdaroğlu is approaching the target with a strong and steady momentum which will unseat Erdoğan.

Determining factors

The People's Democratic Party (HDP) — which is participating in the elections under the name of Green Left Party (GLP) to circumvent a ban — is a key player that can tip the scales with its vote which is estimated to be around 9-10 percent.

GLP is not part of the Nation Alliance but has not nominated a presidential candidate and has declared its support for Kılıçdaroğlu in the presidential election.

The opposition is happy about that but careful so as not to give even more cause to the government to claim that the opposition is cooperating with a party which is labelled as the political wing of the PKK terror organisation.

Kılıçdaroğlu is careful not to irritate the nationalists within his own alliance by appearing to be in touch with the GLP. Despite being extra careful not to cause any backlash with them, some nationalist voters of the Nation Alliance may be still hesitating to vote for Kılıçdaroğlu for the presidency.

One of the four presidential candidates, Muharrem İnce, was CHP's  presidential candidate in the 2018 elections. Later, he broke away from his party and founded his own. The polls indicate that he can get 6 percent of votes at the most and thus, does not stand a chance of winning.

But he could prevent Kılıçdaroğlu from getting the required 50 plus one in the first round and carry the election to the second round, perhaps causing Erdoğan to win. Many believe that İnce is encouraged by the government and is in the race to divide opposition votes.

Among the total number of eligible 64,113,941 voters, around five million are young first-time voters. They are the so-called Generation Z which have a different and more nuanced way of looking at things. Surveys suggest that around 70 percent of them favour the opposition.

What are the candidates' platforms?

Erdoğan insists that the new presidential system which has enabled efficient and speedy decision making must continue, perhaps with a few modifications.

Read more: With a lot to lose, Erdoğan canvases for votes with grand gestures

On the other hand, the opposition has pledged to go back to the parliamentary system, as the presidential one has led to authoritarianism and many mistakes.

Changing the system is not easy and has to follow a set procedure. In order to amend the constitution, either two-thirds of the deputies (400 out of 600) in the parliament will have to vote in favour or the issue will have to be taken to referendum with support of three-fifths of the deputies.

Economy, nationalism and industrial progress have been the favourite topics of discussion in this campaign.

Erdoğan continues to portray Kılıçdaroğlu as someone who is cosy with the PKK terror organisation and its political extensions, meaning the Green Left Party.

He also alleges that Kılıçdaroğlu is out to unravel all achievements in the last 20 or so years, in particular, his advancements in the defence industry.

On his part, Kılıçdaroğlu's election slogan is "Everything will be very fine". He holds Erdoğan and his government responsible for multiple failures as well as corruption and extravagance.

When Erdoğan was elected president, he did not move into the presidential palace which the founder and the first president of the republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and all other presidents had used. He had a huge new palace built in a compound of 750,000 square meters.

Kılıçdaroğlu promised to put an end to the extravagant and wasteful style of the Erdoğan administration. He pledged to move back to the original presidential palace and said that the present palace will be turned into something useful, such as a university.

Social media wars

Social media and videos broadcasted on twitter accounts have become an instrument of the political war.

A businessman with very close ties to Erdoğan shook the ground with allegations of corruption directed at Erdoğan and his AKP ministers. Another businessman has also come up with shocking revelations ranging from sex scandals to mafia-type business dealings.

Even though his name is at the centre of the allegations, Erdoğan has not addressed them, neither in television programmes nor rallies including the one he held in İstanbul on 7 May, just a couple of days after the videos appeared. Despite the very serious charges, the judiciary and prosecutors have also remained silent.

Kılıçdaroğlu is furious and has pledged to establish a commission to investigate corruption in the parliament if elected.

The Nation Alliance has a joint programme titled The Joint Policy Memorandum. The six parties proceed with their election campaign on the basis of this programme.

In addition, Kılıçdaroğlu is posting videos on his twitter account which have proved to be very popular.

In his three-minute video titled "Alevi'',  Kılıçdaroğlu emphasised that as someone from the Alevi sect, he is a sincere Muslim and believes in unity and not division. This video was viewed more than 28 million times in 7 hours.

100-day pledge

The opposition's presidential candidate also introduced a document which contains what will be delivered in the first hundred days of taking power. Under Kılıçdaroğlu's election slogan "I promise you that spring will come again, Mr. Kemal will not go back on his promise" the list of promises include:

• Resuscitating and restoring confidence in the economy
• Establishing new ministries of urban planning and disaster management; artisans; agriculture and food security
• Restoring state institutions, ending nepotism in the public sector, reopening military hospitals and enacting a law on political ethics
• Setting up an Office for the Recovery of Assets and returning to Turkey billions of dollar's worth of money which has been stashed abroad

Economy is key

The hottest topic is the economy. High inflation, trade deficit and depreciation of Turkish Lira, as well as rising poverty, are at the forefront. Life has become very expensive.

Inflation has skyrocketed even though inflation data differs according to the publishing institution. 

April inflation data:

• Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) 43.68%
• Istanbul Chamber of Trade (İTO) 62.46%
• Inflation Research Group (ENAG) 105.19%

The İstanbul Stock Exchange has lost 11.6% during last week and 10.25% last month. The index's decline in 2023 has reached 22.5%.

Investors are cautious and foreign investment is at very low levels. Kılıçdaroğlu has promised that when he is elected, he will bring into Turkey $300 billion in five years for investment.

Kılıçdaroğlu says foreign investors have lost confidence in Erdoğan and, when he takes office, this problem will be left behind, paving the way for a new investment flow era.

Kılıçdaroğlu has to overcome several challenges.

At this stage, he has to safely navigate through the obstacles placed by the government. If he wins in the elections, he will have to deal with the previous government's mostly problematic inheritance and move forward with alliance partners which have different policies on a number of issues.

If Kılıçdaroğlu is elected, the leaders of the five other political parties and the mayors of Ankara and İstanbul, İmamoğlu and Yavaş, the two new popular political figures, will serve as vice presidents.

They will all have a portfolio, but who gets which portfolio may be a sensitive issue to deal with.

The portfolios of the leaders have not yet been made public but Kılıçdaroğlu has announced the portfolios of the two mayors. İmamoğlu will be responsible for "increasing the resilience of cities by preparing Turkey for disasters'' while Yavaş would work to strengthen the household economy, agricultural and technological development.

Read more: Sifting through the rubble and political fallout of Turkey's quake

Foreign policy

The Nation Alliance has declared in its joint programme that its goal is full membership in the European Union. Kılıçdaroğlu announced that they would implement all legal reforms without waiting for the EU to open new chapters.

In return, Kılıçdaroğlu expects the EU to respond positively in every sense. One of his election promises is to close an agreement within three months with the EU on long-sought visa liberalisation, so that Turks can travel to the Schengen area without visa.

The question remains, even if Kılıçdaroğlu delivers, whether the EU would be able to deliver, considering the longstanding opposition of Greece and Cyprus and the negative attitudes of other EU members such as France.

The European Union (EU) is Turkey's number one economic partner, including in investment, but there are problems. The EU argues Turkey has serious deficiencies in the functioning of democratic institutions, which also means lack of confidence, "sine qua non" for foreign investment.

Kılıçdaroğlu has emphasised Turkey's strong ties with Nato and signalled that relations with Russia will be more disciplined.

He has promised to return Syrian refugees in Turkey (officially 3.7 million) to their homeland within two years. He says he will do this by coming to an agreement with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to ensure their safety.

On Middle East issues, Kılıçdaroğlu said that "Turkey will stand by Palestine and the Palestinian cause", not take sides in disputes between Arab countries or within an Arab country and work to establish the Organisation for Peace and Cooperation in the Middle East.

Competition ramps up

The political atmosphere is tense, and divisions are deep. There is no civil conversation and debate — not even a handshake between politicians when they stand next to each other at an official ceremony.  Each political party is sticking to its ideology and levelling accusations at its opponent.

The campaign is mentally and physically tough. All the candidates hold an average of two — or sometimes even more — rallies a day, with tens of thousands of people turning up, in addition to television interviews conducted into the late hours of the night.

Erdoğan gave a scare to his supporters when he fell sick during a live interview on television. After a couple of days of rest, he was back on the campaign trail.

Despite the tense climate, the campaign has remained non-violent with a few exceptions. The most serious incident was when one of the main opposition figures, Ekrem Imamoglu, was pelted with stones by AKP and MHP supporters at a rally in the city of Erzurum in eastern Anatolia.

The opposition is concerned that if Erdoğan loses — especially if by a narrow margin — he will not accept defeat and will contest the results. They claim that he could resort to mobilising his supporters to take to the streets.

Several statements by government politicians have fuelled concerns. For instance, the very outspoken Minister of Interior has likened the 14 May elections to the coup d'etat attempt of 15 July 2016. The minister alleged that in both cases the objective is to take power from Erdoğan.

He said, what foreign powers, opposition parties, terror organisations etc could not achieve by force in 2016, they intend to achieve by elections, which he characterised as a political coup d'etat attempt.

The 14 May elections are so critical that each side will do almost whatever it takes to win and — in some cases — not to lose.

In this context, there are two examples in recent election history with different results which people remember.

One is when, since coming to power in 2002, AKP lost its parliamentary majority for the first time in the 7 June 2015 elections.

Neither AKP nor the opposition were able to form a government. In parallel, PKK and the Islamic State (IS) started an intense terror campaign. Elections were held again on 1 November, and this time, AKP won by a comfortable margin.

The other example — when the government once again tried but that time failed — was the 2019 Istanbul mayoral election. The election in March resulted in the victory of CHP, but by a narrow margin of 0.2 % (13.700 votes).

AKP petitioned and the Supreme Electoral Council annulled the election. There was a repeat in June and the opposition candidate won by a margin of 806,000 votes, which dealt a huge blow to AKP.

The opposition is determined to fight off all deliberate disinformation and decisively resist if the government refuses to cede power when they are defeated. All parties have formed ballot oversight groups which will be present at their assigned locations to make sure that there is no foul play.

Recent polls — except the ones which are known to openly favour the government — put Kılıçdaroğlu in the lead, some of which indicate that he may even win in the first round.

While it appears to be a neck-and-neck race it is too difficult to predict at this moment. The possibility remains for either a win by narrow margin or even a landslide victory.