The atmosphere of the elections on Sunday is exceptionally tense, and unrest has also been prepared for.
There is a tense atmosphere in Turkey during the presidential elections, said a foreign journalist reporting from the country’s capital, Ankara Tom Kankkonen Up in the morning.
– These elections are exceptionally tight. Erdoğan is now being challenged with a real deed, Kankkonen said.
The president who has been in charge of Turkey for about 20 years Recep Tayyip Erdoğan the challenger is an opposition candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. He has done well in opinion polls. The elections will be held on Sunday.
According to Kankkonen, Kılıçdaroğlu offers Turks above all that he is not Erdoğan. His electorate includes many people from different political orientations, who are united by fatigue with Erdoğan’s long reign.
– Kılıçdaroğlu’s style is more moderate and friendly and he emphasizes that freedoms must be returned to this country, Kankkonen said.
He went to Kılıçdaroğlu’s election meeting, where the candidate promised, especially to young people, that in the country he leads, they can freely criticize the president on social media without fear.
– In Turkey, you can now get into trouble for, say, a Twitter message. The police may come knocking on the door, saying that you are insulting the president’s honor, Kankkonen said.
There may be unrest ahead
There is an opportunity for a big change and the end of an era in the elections, said the chief analyst of Danske Bank, who was a guest at ‘s morning Minna Kuusisto.
The economy is a central theme in the elections, and the country’s inflation is soaring at more than 40 percent. According to Kuusisto, economic policy would see a significant change if the opposition wins. From the point of view of international investors and companies, Turkey has been a difficult partner in recent years.
– Foreign policy would also become more constructive, and in that way Turkey might become a slightly easier partner for the West in the future, Kuusisto said.
In the elections, Turkey’s direction will be decided for the long term, said a senior researcher at the Institute for Foreign Policy Toni Alaranta. He reminds that the country’s opposition is very fragmented.
– In practice, here we are voting on whether to continue with Erdoğan or not. After that, the situation would be open again as to what happens next, Alaranta said.
The journalist Tom Kankkonen, who described the atmosphere of the elections as exceptionally tight and tense, estimates that small-scale disturbances may arise around the elections in the coming days.