D – 1 for the second round of the presidential election in Turkey. And the press is unanimous. It makes you wonder if the very one that filled the kiosks exactly two weeks ago, on the eve of the first round of the Turkish presidential election, never existed.
Written by the same specialists in the field, did it not predict, unlike today, the coming defeat of Erdogan? Doom! Fifteen days later, reading the French press on May 27, the election in Turkey on Sunday May 28 is a bit ” Move along, nothing to see “.
“ Erdogan, big favorite of the second round of the presidential election », launches « in One » Le Figaro. According to this daily, the outgoing Turkish president will be the ” almost certain winner of the second round of this Sunday “. And, without waiting, this newspaper announces the continuation of the program. “ Monday, May 29, while the official results will parade on the banners of all televisions, it is in Sainte-Sophie, recently converted into a mosque, that the strong man of the country, at the helm for twenty years, has already planned to go pray. Double symbol in his calendar, the date coinciding with the anniversary of the conquest of Constantinople (a certain May 29, 1453) by Mehmet II, followed, at the time, by the transformation of the Byzantine basilica into a mosque, before Atatürk turned it into a museum in 1934. It will be an opportunity to celebrate “her” revenge and especially that of the Turks of his pedigree, new city dwellers from modest and traditional rural backgrounds, to whom he believes he has given “pride” and “visibility”on the urban elites who inherited the secular Republic of 1923 “.
Erdogan, Turk’s Head
And even the press close to the left hardly writes anything else. Witness Release. ” Almost guaranteed to be re-elected this Sunday (…) Erdogan knows he can count on the deep bond that unites him to the greater half of Turkish voters “, confirms this colleague. Which admits on the basis of recent polls that, despite inflation, ” a majority of Turks continue to trust Erdogan more than his competitor to solve the economic crisis (…) his supporters were not put off by his growing authoritarianism, the anti-democratic measures he multiplied, his stranglehold on the media , the purges he carried out in the administrations or the arrest of tens of thousands of his opponents in all circles », therefore states Releaseemphasizing that this true sultan of the Sublime Porte assumes ” the reciprocal rejection of Westerners towards it and, more generally, towards Turkey “.
“Qatargate”, when justice clings
First indictment in the case of the World Cup last year, in Qatar, the famous “ Qatargate “. According to the newspaper’s website The world, after seven years of proceedings, the former Tahitian vice-president of FIFA, and former patron of the Oceania Football ConfederationReynald Temarii, was indicted for “passive private corruption” in the context of the judicial investigation opened by the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office into the controversial awarding of the 2022 World Cup to the emirate “.
reynald Temarii is suspected by the magistrates ” of having signed a pact with the Qatari billionaire Mohamed Ben Hammam at the end of 2010, says “MBH”, then vice-president of FIFA and patron of the Asian Football Confederation, “in return for supporting Qatar’s candidacy to organize the 2022 World Cup (…) A total of 305,440 euros were paid secretly” (to Reynald Temarii) by MBH through two Qatari and Lebanese companies “, details The world.
Une first indictment ” which could lead to other “, warns the newspaper. Because, he points out, on the main part of the “Qatargate” in connection with the sale, in 2011, of Paris Saint-Germain to the Qatar Sports Investments fund and the alleged role of the former Head of State Nicolas Sarkozy and the former President of the Union of European Football Associations, Michel Platini, no indictment has been pronounced at this stage “. At this stage ? That’s the word.