In the first ballot, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan prevailed with 49.5% of the votes, almost five points ahead of his main opponent Kemal Kiliçdaroglu. The third man, Sinan Ogan, supported the outgoing leader.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan confidently enters the second round of the presidential elections to be held in Turkey on Sunday, May 28th. The Islamic conservative president, who has been in power for 20 years, took first place in the first round ahead of his main opponent, the Social Democrat Kemal Kiliçdaroglu. The outgoing head of state also received support from the third candidate, ultra-nationalist Sinan Ogan, on Monday 22 May. Less than a week after the outcome of this important election, tension now appears to be low.
Because the results of the first round put Kiliçdaroglu in an awkward position
Recep Tayyip Erdogan took first place in the first ballot on Sunday, May 14, with 49.5% of the vote, ahead of Kemal Kiliçdaroglu with 44.9%. That 4.5 points represents a significant difference of 2.5 million votes between the two men. In detail, the outgoing president had plenty of votes in rural regions, middle-populated areas and “in industrialized provinces like Kayseri and Konya,” he analyzes on twitter Clément Plaisant, who studies international relations.
“If we look at the results in detail, we see that Erdogan did not suffer from the earthquakes [qui ont frappé le sud-est du pays début février]There is no major drop in the Erdogan vote in the affected regions. This restored confidence in the outgoing president’s camp, who was concerned about the results in these regions,” analyzes Max-Valentin Robert, political science researcher at the University of Nottingham (UK). Survivors of the earthquakes The people who had devastated entire cities had expressed their anger and accused the state of reacting too slowly. But President Erdogan promised to rebuild 650,000 houses for the survivors as soon as possible. “The message seemed credible to some of the voters,” admits AFP Berk Esen, a political scientist at Istanbul’s Sabanci University.
“Especially since, conversely, Kiliçdaroglu has not managed to mobilize its entire base. If we add up the cumulative results of opposition candidates in the strongholds of Kiliçdaroglu’s party in the last presidential election in 2018, we can see that it’s “slightly declining,” adds Max-Valentin Robert. Kemal Kiliçdaroglu’s victory, which seemed possible before 14 May, would now come as a big surprise. “Because there were only three candidates and the turnout in the first ballot was very high [près de 90%]”The pool of votes is minimal,” emphasizes Samim Akgönül, a political scientist at the University of Strasbourg. The only consolation for Kemal Kiliçdaroglu: The opposition managed for the first time to force the “Raïs” to vote.
Because the ultra-nationalist Ogan announced his support for Erdogan
With 5.2% of the votes collected in the first ballot, Sinan Ogan was courted by the two finalists in the election. Finally, less than a week before the second round, he announced his support for the outgoing president. “The Erdogan camp already had a very comfortable lead at the end of the first round, with already very good chances of winning. This upswing gives him new impetus and confirms Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s high probability of victory,” analyzes Max Valentin Robert.
This announcement gives the presidential camp all the more confidence that the rally was not a matter of course, “both in terms of Sinan Ogan’s personal career and programmatic issues,” adds the researcher. The ultra-nationalist candidate “lobbied for the no in the 2017 referendum in which Erdogan wanted to hyper-presidentialize the regime. He was expelled from the far-right MHP party, Erdogan’s ally, and on an ideological level he was expelled. “Comes from a current that is traditionally reserved towards political Islam,” the researcher enumerates. “Our negotiations were based on the following principles: terrorism will be fought, a timetable for the return of refugees will be drawn up and Turkey’s state institutions will be strengthened,” explains Sinan Ogan.
Kemal Kiliçdaroglu enjoys the support of the main pro-Kurdish HDP party, making it difficult to get in touch with Sinan Ogan, even though he denies being “anti-Kurdish”. It remains to be seen which candidate will get the majority of the 2.8 million votes won by the ultra-nationalist candidate, from whom part of the electorate wanted to turn their backs on Erdogan. “I have the impression that Sinan Ogan’s voters will not move. And will those who go to the polls follow their candidate’s choice?” asks the political scientist Samim Akgönül.
Because Kiliçdaroglu doesn’t have much leeway
Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, leader of the Republican People’s Party founded by the father of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, is running out of tricks to convince new voters. At the head of a six-party coalition, he has tried to sharpen his discourse on refugees, appealing to the grassroots nationalist electorate. “If [le camp d’Erdogan] stays in power, there will be 10 million more refugees (…) There will be looting. The cities are controlled by the mafia and drug dealers. “Femicide will increase,” he said.
He also promised to “send all refugees home immediately”. [son] Until then, he had said he wanted to expel the 3.7 million Syrians “within two years”. “There is a hardening on the tonal level, but not on the programmatic level,” analyzes Max-Valentin Robert. And I don’t know if that can have an impact.” Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, an ally of the pro-Kurdish HDP party who the government has accused of links to Kurdish terrorist organizations, also tried to calm down on the issue. “I never do.” I sit at the table with terrorist organizations and I will never do that,” he said.
Kemal Kiliçdaroglu therefore agrees to side with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has tried to focus the election campaign more on identity issues than economics. However, it is estimated that the opposition candidate “will lose Kurdish votes rather than gain nationalist votes if he goes too far with this rhetoric.” on twitter Emre Peker, Turkey Specialist at Eurasia Group. “By focusing his speech on the refugees, he can try to win back nationalist votes without losing Kurdish votes. But it is complicated because we must not frighten the Kurdish voices and left-wing voters too much,” concludes Max-Valentin Robert. Such a strategy requires a great deal of finesse.