Istanbul: The overcast skies of election day in this most populous of Turkish cities had become clear by the next morning, as had the fact that the country will be facing a runoff at the end of the month.
The night before, after the polls had closed, anxious Turks had gathered around television screens in cheap lokantas as vote counts trickled in, broken down by province, drinking one hot tea after another in the chilly spring air.
Despite the triumphant tones of some Western analyses predicting a resounding defeat for incumbent Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the weeks preceding the vote, neither of the two top presidential candidates secured over 50%.
Erdogan did, however, receive more than his competitor, 74-year-old Kemal Kilicdaroglu from the Republican People’s Party (CHP).
It had also become clear that it was not the ‘pro-Kurdish’ party, the Green Left Party (YSP), likely to be the kingmaker in the runoff. The People’s Democratic Party (HDP), which said it feared being prevented from taking part in the elections under its own name, took part under the name of the YSP and alongside the CHP.
Instead, nationalists with hardline stances on a number of issues will likely shift the scales decisively.
Read more: Turkey heads for run-off election with Ogan the likely kingmaker
By Monday morning, amid sunny skies, doubts had dispersed about the vote counts but the near future of the country still hung in the balance. Many Turks and Syrians seemed relieved, while many Western pundits voiced shock.
Assumptions led to mistaken analyses, risks for local population
Turkey’s Supreme Election Council said Monday voter turnout was at 88.92%, with Erdogan raking in 49.51% and Kilicdarglu only 44.88%.
The default assumption voiced to this reporter repeatedly by both Western diplomats and Western journalists in recent months had been that Turks and the West both “want him [Erdogan] out”.
The dire state of the Turkish economy, high inflation and the aftermath of the devastating 6 February earthquake that left tens of thousands dead would, they assumed, deal the final blow to Erdogan’s over 20 years at the helm of the country.
Those outside of large cities and tourist-filled western beach resort towns along the Turkish coast for a considerable period know well, however, how popular Erdogan remains in much of the country.
And while much media attention has focused on arrests of journalists and others on terrorism charges during Erdogan’s time in power, his rival’s anti-immigrant stance was largely ignored.
Kilicdaroglu had pledged multiple times throughout his campaign to send “all Syrians back to their country.”
Multiple Western journalists and diplomatic officials brushed off the pledges when questioned by Al Majalla, claiming that these were empty pledges meant to pander to parts of the population that blame the country’s economic and social ills on an “invasion” of foreigners.
For the Syrians and others, however, the idea that they may soon have their lives and those of their loved ones upended - and possibly ended, as often happens in warzones and especially in ones that have become a virtual black hole for information as much of Syria has become – was not taken lightly.
Syria-born constituency ‘unable to plan for the future’
Since the conflict began across its southern border in Syria in 2011, Erdogan’s Turkey has served as a sanctuary for millions of Syrian refugees.
Erdogan has been praised for his principled stance on this matter by many Muslims throughout the world.
At least 200,000 Syrians have reportedly been granted Turkish citizenship in recent years and are thus eligible to vote in the elections, out of over 64 million eligible voters total in Turkey.
Al Majalla spoke to three Syrians living in Turkey about what the elections meant to them. All are concerned about what the future may bring if Erdogan is not re-elected.
“I got Turkish citizenship in 2017. It was not difficult to obtain it at that time” for “any university graduate”, a 34-year-old woman working with other Syrian women in the humanitarian aid field in southern Turkey told Al Majalla, noting that she has a law degree.
On Erdogan, the woman – who is from an eastern area of Syria - said that “I respect him as a leader who works for the benefit of his country and his people. As for Syrians, we all know what the Turkish opposition is saying about deporting Syrian refugees, [vowing to] expel them from the country.”
This, she said, leads to “us all suffering from constant anxiety and tension and a state of fear”, seriously affecting “our daily lives and future plans”.
“Many Syrians today are afraid of what will happen if the opposition succeeds” or “racist parties” manage to “implement their plans against the Syrians here.
Many of us, even those who have been naturalised, are postponing a lot of work until after the election results” are announced, she told Al Majalla.
She said that “no one else in my family has obtained citizenship” and this “makes me constantly worry about their fate if the opposition wins”.
“I am worried about the racist discourse directed against the Syrians, which contributes in one way or another to the increase in hatred against us as Syrians,” she said.
A former officer in the Syrian army who defected to the opposition forces during the uprising that started in 2011 and became a massive conflict that has left well over half a million Syrians dead told Al Majalla that he too had voted for Erdogan because he had “helped the Syrian people and revolution” when “Arab nations abandoned” them.
The man, from the Syrian region of Latakia and who has a university-educated wife and children to take care of but who is currently unemployed, regularly posts photos on social media of his young daughter, who he named after a male revolutionary fighter from another country, and radiates pride when talking about her but is now uncertain about what future prospects she will have.
Over Syrian coffee in an area of Istanbul where Arabic is heard in the streets as much as Turkish, Abdulnasser, 40, son of a man who owns coffeeshop in Istanbul, said three of his brothers had voted for Erdogan.
He noted to Al Majalla that “20 years ago [when Erdogan came to power], Turkey was a very poor country. My father used to come here, and he marvels at the difference that Erdogan’s government made to the country.”
“Erdogan has been like a very good father these years, he is loyal and has principles,” he claimed, and “has helped everyone in the country during the past few years of economic problems”, including through subsidizing gas bills.
“No one in our family was with the opposition or with the regime” in Syria, he said, but “foreign countries caused fitna and we didn’t want to be part of that and so we left 10 years ago”.
“People have a link to and feelings about their country. You go back to where you were born and you feel safe. You want to feel safe. Do you think we would want to be here if Syria was like Turkey? If Bashar al-Assad had been like Erdogan, I would never have left my country,” he said.
However, he noted that he was “not afraid” because “God will judge all of us. Whatever happens is His will and we are thankful for it”.
Coverage of ‘Kurdish issue’ skews perceptions
Western media and de facto lobby groups abroad often depict the Kurdish segment of the Turkish population as monolithic and assume their acquiescence of - if not support for - the outlawed Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), with which Turkey is at war and has been for decades.
The PKK is recognised as a terrorist group by the US, EU, and Turkey.
Many Turkish citizens of Kurdish ethnicity in the country instead claim that the PKK is the reason for their area’s continued lack of development and consider it akin to a “mafia”.
The PKK’s use of female fighters has often been glorified in Western media as a form of women’s empowerment. Turkish citizens are instead regularly reminded through local media of the outlawed group’s recruiting and “brainwashing” of underage youth.
The PKK has in past decades claimed responsibility for killing teachers and conducting attacks on schools in the southeastern part of the country, including a 1994 public square execution of six public school teachers in Tunceli.
This divide between how the “Kurdish issue” is covered abroad and within the country led many observers abroad to assume that the a “pro-Kurdish” group – secular, while the small Kurdish Islamist party Huda Par is part of the alliance under Erdogan – backing the opposition candidate would have had a greater effect on the elections than it did.
On the issue of equality for women, some Turks claim Turkey has long been ahead of not only much of the region but also many European countries in terms of landmarks in women’s rights.
And while recent years have seen multiple signs of increasing religiosity as a factor in political decisions, not all Turkish women see this as negative.
The runoff is slated for May 28.
