Published: Just now
On Sunday, the future is at stake for President Erdogan:
– The Turkish people are damn ungrateful if they don’t vote for Erdogan, says Baren-Meral.
– They have a really bad candidate and a less really bad candidate to choose from, says Özz Nûjen.
Ahead of the presidential election in Turkey, Aftonbladet has interviewed three Swedes with a Turkish background. Their views differ, to say the least, on Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has ruled the country since 2002 but is now being challenged by the profit-seeking Kemal Kilicdaroglu.
– I am super Erdogan, right down to the tips of my fingers. He is a world leader, a president that many other presidents respect, says Meral Tasbas, known from TV3’s reality show Baren 2000-2002, and continues:
– I’m not very politically aware, but I like Erdogan. Because even if many people think that Turkey’s economy is in the shit, he has also done a lot for the country.
Last year, inflation in Turkey was at times above 80 percent. The government’s handling of the February 6 earthquake this year in which 50,000 died added to Erdogan’s problems.
But Meral Tasbas states that he has given the country’s elderly a higher pension and says:
– We need someone like Erdogan, who has weight. If we didn’t have him, I think we would be like Syria. We would be attacked from right and left.
“Clearly Erdogan accepts defeat”
She is sure that Erdogan would accept defeat:
– Of course he will do it. Then he will retire, says Meral Tasbas.
Comedian Özz Nûjen came to Sweden as a Kurdish child refugee:
– The Kurds don’t have much to choose from: a fascist and another fascist who is also an Islamist, he says.
Do you think Kemal Kilicdaroglu is a fascist?
– Well, of course, he is a Kemalist. It is a terrible ideology, which still does not recognize the genocide of the Christian Armenians in 1915.
“Better for Europe with Kilicdaroglu”
Özz Nûjen does not believe that the situation of the Kurds in Turkey will improve with Kilicdaroglu as president:
– But I think it will be better for Europe. He does not have the Islamist agenda of Erdogan’s AKP party.
Will Erdogan accept an election loss?
– I think it will be tough. He’s just like Putin, doesn’t give up in the first place even if he’s wrong, says Nûjen, who believes that Erdogan can deploy the military in that case.
The Swedish-Kurdish debater Kurdo Baksi agrees:
– One scenario is that in the event of a loss, he and his family fly to Russia and seek protection from Putin. Another is that he hires his private army Sadat and sends them out into the streets. But the people of Turkey will not accept that, says Baksi.
“Turkish election most important election in the world 2023”
He sees the presidential and parliamentary elections on Sunday as a referendum on democracy or non-democracy:
– If Erdogan wins, I am worried that he will continue to attack the Kurds also outside Turkey, in Iraqi and Syrian Kurdistan. The election affects the entire politics of the Middle East, but perhaps also the war in Ukraine. The election on Sunday is the most important in the whole world in 2023.
Is Kilicdaroglu better than Erdogan?
– There will be a little more frost with him, greater freedom of expression. The doors to hell close, but the doors to paradise don’t open if he wins, says Baksi.
If any of the three presidential candidates gets over 50 percent on Sunday, the election is decided. Otherwise, the two biggest candidates will meet in a second vote on May 28.
Footnote: The third candidate is Sinan Ogan.