{"id":10562,"date":"2023-07-07T00:16:53","date_gmt":"2023-07-07T04:16:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tempestmag.org\/v01_2020\/staging\/?p=10562"},"modified":"2023-07-15T00:57:20","modified_gmt":"2023-07-15T04:57:20","slug":"erdogan-again-but-for-a-slightly-different-reason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2023\/07\/erdogan-again-but-for-a-slightly-different-reason\/","title":{"rendered":"Erdo\u011fan again, but for a slightly different reason"},"content":{"rendered":"

O<\/span>n May 28, Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan once again declared victory as president of Turkey, this time in a run-off election against his longtime rival Kemal K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu, by a margin of 52 to 48 percent.<\/p>\n

Erdo\u011fan had been trailing in the polls for weeks<\/a> and the margin only seemed to be growing leading up to election day. Before the results of the initial round of voting, in which neither party cleared the threshold for immediate victory, the opposition was more optimistic than ever. Many commentators had predicted K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu would win without the run-off. Erdo\u011fan could not possibly survive the devastating impact of runaway inflation, COVID-19, and devastating earthquakes have had on the country in the last few years. The opposition held large rallies that included participants not only from K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu\u2019s Republican People\u2019s Party (CHP), but also from all the other parties of his Nation Alliance and the leftist People\u2019s Democratic Party (HDP).<\/p>\n

Erdo\u011fan\u2019s campaign seemed weaker than his previous runs, which further emboldened the opposition. Rather than major infrastructure projects, which proved very effective at mobilizing his base in previous elections, he focused his entire campaign on fear-mongering over the \u201cterrorism\u201d of K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu and the HDP. He spent quite a bit of time talking about the \u201cthreat\u201d LGBTQ people posed to Turkish families, mimicking his right-wing populist allies in other parts of the world. The campaign was a more aggressive version of his playbook during the 2019 municipal elections, which turned out to be Erdo\u011fan\u2019s biggest defeat to date.<\/p>\n

In the end, however, Erdo\u011fan once again emerged victorious. What could have gone so wrong to allow him this victory?<\/p>\n

\"A
2023 election results in Turkey. Graphic Credits: David Benbennick<\/a>, Template by Canva;<\/a> modified by Tempest.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Opposition as a Two-and-a-Half-Legged Stool<\/h4>\n

The main opposition party in Turkey is the centrist and nationalist CHP. Despite the party\u2019s self-proclaimed social democratic label, the party has rarely supported social democratic policies and its vision of social democracy is more akin to neo-corporatism. Before K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu became the leader of CHP, the party opposed Erdo\u011fan\u2019s Justice and Development Party (AKP), primarily on secularist grounds (supporting the continuation of bans on religious headscarves in public institutions) and nationalism (opposing AKP\u2019s concessions to the Kurds and peace talks with the Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party (PKK)).<\/p>\n

Prior to 2015, CHP was allied with Erdo\u011fan\u2019s current coalition partner, the fascist Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). MHP split<\/a> after party leaders allied with Erdo\u011fan to support him in moving toward a presidential-executive system in exchange for harsher policies on the Kurds and the Left. AKP needed new allies in 2015 after they lost their parliamentary majority. The alliance between the AKP and the movement of followers of Fethullah G\u00fclen<\/a> collapsed after 2013, as Erdo\u011fan began to compete against G\u00fclenists for the capital and connections abroad in the aftermath of the Gezi Park protests. This shift upset the G\u00fclenists, whose financial interests are more aligned with Western capital. G\u00fclenists, in turn, began attacking the AKP initially via a series of leaked tapes, and eventually through a coup attempt in 2016.<\/p>\n

The secular \u201cdissidents\u201d of the MHP founded the Good Party (\u0130Y\u0130P) and allied with CHP. While \u0130Y\u0130P often tried to move away from its fascist roots by presenting itself as center-right, on the Kurdish question their politics were identical to that of the MHP. On the question of Syrian refugees, \u0130Y\u0130P were even more fascistic, determined to \u201cSend them all back home!\u201d Leading up to the 2023 elections, CHP and \u0130Y\u0130P added some smaller Islamist parties and former AKP allies to their Nation Alliance.<\/p>\n

AKP-MHP and CHP-\u0130Y\u0130P have made up the two main poles in Turkish politics for the past five years. While the former was able to get roughly 50 percent of the votes by recruiting some smaller allies, the latter had not passed 35 percent in the past two general elections despite recruiting some of their own.<\/p>\n

To have a chance at winning the presidency, which matters more than the parliament in the current Turkish political system, the Nation Alliance needed the support of the leftist HDP, which holds around 10 percent of the votes. In the municipal elections of 2019, the HDP did not nominate their own candidates in western cities in Turkey, instead backing the Nation Alliance\u2019s candidates to defeat Erdo\u011fan. This uneasy alliance led to the biggest victory of the opposition in the past twenty years. While the Nation Alliance won, HDP hardly received any credit for the victory, despite the key role it played. This was due to the nationalist elements within the Nation Alliance downplaying the HDP\u2019s role to not alienate the AKP-MHP voters.<\/p>\n

Erdo\u011fan\u2019s administration accuses HDP of terrorism due to its connections to the armed PKK. HDP defends a negotiated settlement between the government and the PKK, addressing the demands of recognition of Kurdish identity, the increase of municipal governments\u2019 power and autonomy, and the right to an education in the Kurdish language. However, the Nation Alliance largely agrees with the charge of terrorism as they accept the argument that a Kurdish identity separate from Turkishness implies separatism and therefore terrorism. While some in the CHP often claim to support some of the demands of the HDP, CHP leaders maintained their distance from the HDP<\/a> as they fear that most Turks identify the HDP with violence.<\/p>\n

The HDP has been in an extremely difficult position due to the consistent presence of fascists in the government and the opposition. The AKP-MHP alliance was largely formed to stop the rise of the HDP after the 2015 elections. The Nation Alliance mostly parrots AKP-MHP\u2019s views on the Kurds and the PKK. The political repression in Turkey, which exists disproportionately in Kurdish-majority cities against the HDP, has forced HDP into a much more defensive posture in recent years. HDP was unable to maintain the immunity of its parliamentary representatives and failed to stop the arrests of most of its mayors, as Erdo\u011fan replaced them with his appointees. It is currently facing the risk of being shut down, which is why it participated in the elections under the Green\u00a0 Left Party. While the HDP helped the Nation Alliance mayors in major cities, when HDP mayors were removed from office, solidarity from the Nation Alliance was minimal. Struggling to organize in the workplaces and on the streets due to mass arrests, while being banned from mass media and surveilled on social media, HDP\u2019s capacity as an organization eroded. The party was reduced to symbolic rallies and statements.<\/p>\n