Türkiye – Erdogan’s re-election chances are increasing

The official final result came only a few days ago. Accordingly, Turkish Head of State Recep Tayyip Erdogan won 49.52 percent of the vote in the presidential elections on May 14. It wasn’t even 0.5 percentage point lower than confirmation in the first round.

For the first time in his 20 years in power, Erdogan has to face a run-off on Sunday. And his chances of beating his rival, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, are good. At the beginning of the week they even got up a little. That’s when Sinan Oğan called on his supporters to vote for the incumbent.

The third-place candidate in the presidential election received about five percent of the vote as a candidate from an ultra-nationalist party alliance. Both Erdoğan and Kilicdaroğlu can now campaign for this because Oğan’s supporters are divided. But Kilicdaroglu found it more difficult to make the pledges Ogan wanted to support him. The opposition leader himself says that millions of refugees from Syria must be returned. But he could not stay away from the pro-Kurdish parties – they supported him.

campaign against refugees

So Kilicdaroglu is now trying to get the votes of the nationalists on the refugee issue. He has already honed his tone, declaring that he will “bring the people home” once he is in power. However, it is highly questionable whether this will be enough to make up a gap of nearly five percentage points to Erdogan in the first round.

In any case, now both camps are trying to mobilize as many voters as possible – not least Turks living abroad. Kilicdaroglu stressed that the elections are a “national commitment.” Erdogan appealed to his compatriots abroad to take advantage of their “democratic rights”. By the way, he can count on more approval than his rival.

But whoever wins on Sunday will lead a polarized country and a divided society. The hopes of those who put their faith in change after Erdogan’s long reign have been sorely disappointed. The turnout also shows how important this poll is. On May 14, that was nearly 90 percent. (Caesar)