With the approach of the presidential election and the legislative elections in Turkey, the duel between Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Kemal Kiliçdaroglu is confirmed. The other candidates are trying to monetize their support in the best possible way.
Less than 50 days before the presidential and legislative elections in Turkey, we now know the candidates who aspire to the supreme office. They are a little more than ten men, aged 44 to 80, in this year when Turkey celebrates the centenary of the Republic founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Most will make up the numbers, since it is widely accepted that the duel will be between outgoing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Kemal Kiliçdaroglu the leader of the CHP, the Republican People’s Party, founded by Atatürk.
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So, alliances are forged and negotiations intensify, because the legislative elections are also looming. Everyone tries, therefore, to monetize their support as best they can. For his part, Recep Tayyip Erdogan suffered a snub: Mehmet Simsek, who was his finance minister and who is a recognized economist, snubbed his advances. The current president offered him a post and promised to return, after the election, to a more orthodox economic policy. A clever strategy to reassure the Turkish business community and foreign investors. But Mehmet Simsek said that while he was always ready to give good advice, he did not want to return to politics.
Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, Erdogan’s main rival
On the other hand, Erdogan managed to bring Fatih Erbakan, the son of former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, champion of political Islam, back into line. After announcing his candidacy at first, he finally chose to support the outgoing president. If he weighs between 1.5 and 3% of the vote, which is far from negligible, it remains to be seen what this very conservative Islamist obtained in exchange.
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However, Erdogan suffered a second political snub, this time to the benefit of his adversary. Kemal Kiliçdaroglu has indeed received the tacit support of the pro-Kurdish party, the HDP, the country’s third party. The HDP announced that it would not present a presidential candidate. The goal is to help beat Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The fact remains that the latter, too, has a Kurdish party in his pocket: the HüdaPar, an Islamist group close to Hezbollah. It only brings in a few votes, but the presidential camp hopes to divide the Kurdish vote and force a second round with this rallying. Because it is the obsession of the president: to lose ground from May 14. He will then do his utmost to nibble away every vote, in order to prevent his rival from winning more than 50% of the vote. A second round would indeed be perilous for the CHP candidate against a very skilful and excellent Erdogan in the campaign.