For opponents of President Erdogan, galvanized by polls showing an opinion at the top of voting intentions, even winning in the first round, May 14 took on the appearance of an icy shower. From 7 p.m., the Turkish president was given the winner in the first round by the official Anadolu news agency, according to the counts carried out in Anatolia, where he has several strongholds. A usual tactic of power, used recently during the 2019 municipal elections, where the media and official agencies gave the winning Islamo-nationalist candidate, before the opposition won once all the ballots were counted.
Enduring, opposition voters wanted to believe in the same scenario. In fact, over the hours, the score of the stay fell below 50% to 49.2%. Either, all the same, a large lead over the candidate of the opposition coalition, Kemal Kiliçdaroglu (45%). Until late at night, his supporters celebrated in scattered groups this victory which they considered already acquired. The announcement of a second round, on May 28, did not dampen their enthusiasm, as they crossed Istanbul in long convoys, sounding horns and political songs, sitting on the windows of their vehicles, arms raised to sketch, four fingers in the air and thumb bent, the rallying symbol of the Muslim brothers, or, joining the thumb, the index and the little finger, the sign of the wolf, symbol of the Turkish extreme right.
Solid electoral base
This Monday morning, in front of a polling station in the Istanbul district of Kasimpasa, where Erdogan is from, his voters nevertheless let point a certain concern: “These elections are going to be very disputed, historic, shouts a voter. If we manage take them away, then we will enter fully into what will be the century of Turkey” [un slogan du gouvernement, alors que le pays s’apprête à fêter ses 100 ans d’existence en octobre]. “If we don’t vote for him, God will punish us for our ingratitude, considers Adem, in his fifties. He developed the country, built bridges, tunnels, stadiums, hospitals and now drones and ships to defend our country. country against foreign powers.” Not far from there, on the Galata Bridge, Besbinaz Çakmaktas fishes small horse mackerel which she sells to passers-by: “If the opposition wins, they will close our mosques and forbid us to pray”, she believes, while the Turkish president has waged an incendiary campaign against the opposition, accused in turn of being “allied to terrorists”, to foreign powers and favorable to “LGBT marriage”.
For Selma, seller of Simit (round sesame buns) encountered further on, the situation is more complex: “I had to take this job in addition to my job as a waitress. At the moment life is hard because of the economic crisis”, says the young veiled woman, mother of three children, who nevertheless thanks the president for having put an end to the prohibitions which weighed on the wearing of the veil in the university and the public service. “On the other hand, there is still a lot to do against violence against women, the police never intervene when we need them and the rare convictions, derisory, are not dissuasive”, she regrets. , while the Turkish president pulled his country out of the Istanbul Convention against violence against women in 2021 and a small radical Islamist party, the Yeniden Refah Partisi, with which he concluded a pre-election agreement and who will, with 10 deputies, enter the Assembly, calls for the abolition of the law against domestic violence. However, she does not believe in the opposition: “a coalition of six parties, they will not be able to govern the country effectively, I prefer to vote for stability”, she considers.
third man
“I thought this time would be the right one, the return of freedom, the end of fear, of the crisis, of reconciliation between the different components of society, laments Murat, 45. It’s over, I try to believe in the second round, but this country will sink. Anyway, they are the ones who have the weapons. Even if they lose, they will not leave power.”
In a context of extreme polarization, the second round of May 28 already promises to be tense. The opposition will try to reconcile the votes of the voters of Sinan Ogan, the third candidate from the far right, but very critical of President Erdogan, who won 5.4% of the vote. But she will have a lot to do to convince voters that a future term for Erdogan risks further aggravating the economic crisis in the country and plunging it into an even more ferocious authoritarianism.