Turkey: 243 Sleepless Nights for Erdoğan
by Burak Bekdil • November 1, 2022 at 5:00 am
Yöneylem's poll also found that 63% of respondents say Turkey is being "badly governed," and 58.7% say that they "would never vote for Erdoğan." Only 33.3% of the respondents said they would vote for Erdoğan while 55.6% said they would vote for the opposition candidate.
The numbers predict an easy win for the opposition and a historical defeat for Erdoğan. Clearly, 2023 will be the first election since 2022 in which Erdoğan is not the clear favorite. But a smooth, democratic transfer of power is unlikely.
Six opposition parties, CHP, IYI and four small groupings with different ideologies, have come together to pick a joint presidential candidate against Erdoğan. The most likely candidate will be CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, a social democrat...
In this complex picture, Turkey's Kurdish minority, representing 11%-13% of the national electorate, will probably be the kingmaker. Erdoğan's ultra-nationalist (and anti-Kurdish) policies have distanced Kurdish voters from his AKP, although Islamist Kurds still have a tendency to vote for him.
A new spiral of terror attacks may make Turks feel they must unite behind their president. Billions of dollars flowing unofficially into the Turkish economy, from friendly countries like Qatar and Russia, may make starving Turks feel like they will soon be better off.
Alternatively, Erdoğan could be tempted to manipulate the election result.
What happens if Erdoğan loses the presidential election by a narrow margin, and the AKP and MHP lose their parliamentary majority -- a total end of the Erdoğan era, in other words? A near civil war.
Erdoğan's violent loyalists will blame the defeat on a foreign plot, accusing the CIA, the Mossad, you name it.
In every post-June 2023 scenario, Turkey just looks like a slow-sinking ship.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey's Islamist president, has been invincible since he burst on the political scene three decades ago. In 1994, he was elected mayor of Istanbul, Turkey's biggest city. In 2002, he was elected prime minister and, in 2014, president of Turkey. Since 2002, he has not lost a single parliamentary, municipal or presidential election. The dream story, however, may be over in June 2023 when Turks will vote in twin presidential and parliamentary elections.
Turks are suffering. According to the findings of the pollster Optimar, 76.6% of Turks think their top problems are inflation and unemployment.
The country's nominal gross domestic product (GDP) fell from its peak in 2013 of $958 billion, to $815 billion in 2021, bringing down per capita GDP from $12,615 to $9,587.
