Eventually, it will be him. After three days of chaos within the Turkish opposition, Kemal Kiliçdaroglu has been chosen to lead the May 14 presidential battle against Recep Tayyip Erdogan. On Monday evening, the leader of the CHP, the main opposition party, ended up convincing the nationalists of the Good Party not to blow up the “Everything but Erdogan” alliance: for the first time in twenty years, the king will have all his opponents united against him.
Consensual, even frankly dull, the dean Kiliçdaroglu was ahead in the polls by the mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, and that of Ankara, Mansur Yavas. “But no matter the name of the candidate in reality, everyone can embody the opposition at this stage, believes Ardavan Amir-Aslani, author of Turkey, a new caliphate? (published by the Archipelago). Citizens hostile to Erdogan are so hostile that they would vote for anyone facing him.” In 2019, this alliance strategy enabled the opposition to win Turkey’s three largest cities: Ankara, Izmir and the Istanbul gems.
A serious project, but not very attractive
At 74, Kiliçdaroglu can take advantage of his reassuring profile, which could in particular rally the Kurds – around 20% of voters – to the cause of the opposition. A former senior civil servant from the Alevi minority, he embodies the “Table of Six” project, which brings together six major parties under the same candidacy, serious, worked but necessarily much smoother than the tempestuous Erdogan. The opposition had already unveiled its vast program in January, well before its candidate, with the key point being a change in the Constitution and a return to the parliamentary system. In short, the bet on nuance and debate, after twenty years of a single and charismatic leader.
Opposite, Erdogan is gradually finding a smile, after months at the lowest in the polls. The rifts of recent days within the opposition have reinforced his image as a decision-maker, able to make quick and radical choices. Above all, the Turkish president was able to see, in the latest polls, that he was not suffering from the political consequences of the February 6 earthquake and its more than 45,000 deaths. “The positions of each other have been decided for a number of years already, the earthquake should not be decisive in the vote, points out Ardavan Amir-Aslani. If the government has maintained the elections on this date, it is because he thinks he will emerge seasoned and stronger from these events.”
In the campaign, Erdogan no longer bothers with an electoral program, contenting himself with multiplying promises and subsidies: 50% increase in the minimum wage, construction of 490,000 housing units to seismic standards within a year, early retirement for 2 million of Turks… Sufficient to make him reach 40% of voting intentions, after having stagnated nearly 30% for the past two years, in the midst of an economic storm.
Faced with this avalanche of promises, Kiliçdaroglu will find it difficult to make Turkish voters dream. Even if, in the end, only one measure of his program really matters: that Turkey can turn the page on Erdogan.