Garvan Walshe is a former National and International Security Policy Adviser to the Conservative Party
Of all today’s crop of pseudo-democratic strongmen, Turkey’s Reccep Tayyip Erdogan stands tallest.
Twenty years in power, he faced down Turkey’s military and the Gulen movement. He occupies a swathe of Northern Syria. He basks in adulation for sending Ukraine Bayraktar drones while also welcoming Russian exiles. He rules under a bespoke constitution that even De Gaulle would have thought makes the president too powerful. He lives in an enormous palace built on his orders – reputedly adorned with a golden toilet.
He began, as such figures usually do, styling himself a man of the common people, standing up for them against the secular elite in Istanbul and Ankara. His rise coincided with that of a new conservative middle class, the first of their generation to move from the countryside, and their votes carried him first to Istanbul’s mayoralty and then to the presidency.
He almost came a cropper in 2015, when his AKP (Justice and Development Party) lost irs parliamentary majority. That time, the opposition squabbled, couldn’t form a government, and lost a second election that year.
Erdogan returned and strengthened his hold on the country after an attempted coup in July 2016. Exploiting the febrile atmosphere, he pushed through a referendum turning the country into a presidential republic by 51 per cent to 49 per cent of the vote. In Istanbul and Ankara, the proportions were reversed, and the opposition won mayoral elections in both cities in 2019 (Istanbul twice – the second time after Erdogan forced the Central Election Committee to order a re-vote after his man lost). Among his enemies can now be counted the financial markets (home to Liz Truss’s bête noire, the interest rate lobby), and his one-time finance minister, Ali Babacan.
This time, the opposition have united as the “Table of Six”, comprising six opposition parties, led by the CHP (Republican People’s Party) and IYI (Good Party) but also including the small party that Babacan founded after he split with Erdogan. The Kurdish HDP, whose leader, Selhattin Demritas, has been imprisoned by Erdogan for “insulting” him, has avoided joining the alliance but is expected to support it in parliament.
Parliamentary elections are scheduled for Sunday, alongside the first round of the Presidential elections. Opinion polls are recording a nine per cent swing against Erdogan’s AKP, which would still see the AK-led alliance as the largest party, with around 270 out of 600 seats. The opposition alliance would get around 245, and the HDP around 75 – enough for a confidence and supply deal.
A formal coalition has been ruled out, because the Table of Six doesn’t want to be accused of being in the pocket of Kurdish “terrorists”. As for the presidential vote, the opposition’s Kemal Kiricdaroglu is narrowly ahead in polls, but, if they are accurate, not by enough to win outright on the first round. The elections could well go to a second round – and dark rumours swirl about what desperate Erdogan might try in order to stay in power.
Equally desperate is the Turkish economic situation: a google search to check the latest rate is telling: “inflation falls to 50.5 per cent” – the result of Erdogan’s refusal to allow interest rates to rise and stabilise the currency. Turks’ hardship has been compounded by February’s devastating earthquake. Erdogan used to be celebrated for his building boom; now his cronies are accused of profiteering from death traps.
The race is tight, and Erdogan should never been written off, but this is Turks’ best chance to get rid of him since 2015. Domestically, the opposition wants to change the constitution, and return Turkey to being a parliamentary republic. Ironically, they’re much more likely to manage that if they win the presidency – because the president can stall constitutional amendments if they don’t have the support of a two thirds majority. Erdogan himself has been making contingency plans for a parliamentary defeat. Prominent ministers have been selected for parliamentary seats, so that they can play their part in opposition if needed.
Abroad, the opposition’s aim is to de-dramatise Turkish foreign policy: to improve the relationship with the EU, try to upgrade its customs union, eliminate pointless friction with the United States over the Russian S-400 air defence system, and normalise relations with Assad.
Assad is perhaps the biggest difficulty, because Turkey still occupies Syrian territory, and the opposition wants to send refugees, who are unlikely to be friendly to Assad – who has butchered their families and levelled their cities – back. The relationship with Russia will shift a little in a Western direction, but Turkey doesn’t think it can afford to alienate Russia. Expect a better relationship with Israel, however, but continued tensions with Greece and Egypt over gas reserves.
Above all, the opposition promises a return to normalcy. The rule of law at home, plus reasonable relationships with both the EU and the financial markets to stimulate growth – and an end to domestic infighting and polarisation. This is entirely in line with the reassurance strategy by which opposition-aligned mayors Ekrem Imamoglu and Mansur Yavas won office, and continued with Kilicardoglu.
They appear to understand the need to persuade disillusioned AKP voters that they can take a risk with change when all they’ve known in their political lives has been Erdogan. Sunday’s vote will tell whether Kiricdaroglu, the gentle-looking old man, hardly known for his fiery charisma, is the man to convey this message.