Fear of a slide into violence lingers in major cities after a series of incidents in the final phase of an intensely polarized campaign forced his opponent to wear a flak jacket under his suit during his recent rallies.
On the eve of an election crucial for Turkey and its future, outgoing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is rallying his supporters across Istanbul all day long, which he concludes with prayers in the Hagia Sophia, the cathedral he has reconverted into a mosque.
In this pink Byzantine cathedral dating back to the fourth century, which he reopened for prayer in 2020, Erdogan concludes a campaign waged on the impact of insults and almost explicit threats, formulated by him and those around him, against his social democratic opponent Kemal Kilicdaroglu.
In front of a crowd of his supporters, the outgoing president boasted on Saturday of reconverting the Hagia Sophia into a mosque, saying, “The whole West went crazy, but I did it.”
On Friday, 69-year-old Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has won at the polls since 2003, promised to respect the outcome of the presidential and legislative elections in which 64 million voters were invited to participate, but not without describing any question on this point as “completely stupid.”
“There’s nothing else we can do.”
“We came to power by democratic means, with the support of our people: If our nation takes a different decision, we will do what democracy requires. There is nothing else to do,” Erdogan said, looking angry during a television interview broadcast in the evening on most state channels.
However, fear of a slide into violence lingers in major cities after a series of incidents in the final phase of an intensely polarized campaign forced his opponent to wear a flak jacket under his suit during his recent rallies.
The bus of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, a prominent figure in the Social-Democratic Republican People’s Party (CHP), led by Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a strong figure in his election campaign, was pelted with stones Sunday in Erzurum, in eastern Anatolia.
“Ready?”
Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who has returned to Ankara, concludes his campaign on Saturday with a symbolic visit to the tomb of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern and secular Turkey.
As for Ekrem Imamoglu, who is threatened with a prison sentence that he has appealed, he will meet the party’s supporters on Saturday during four general meetings in the economic capital, which he has run since 2019.
In contrast to the authoritarian power assumed by “one man” and denounced by the opposition, the 74-year-old Kilicidaroglu proposes, if he wins, collective leadership by appointing vice-presidents representing the six coalition parties he leads, from the nationalist right to the liberal left.
“Are you ready for democracy in this country? For peace in this country? I myself am ready, I promise you,” he said Friday, during his last major meeting between the flash of lightning and the roar of thunder in Ankara.
“I promise you” is the slogan of his election campaign and the refrain repeated by his supporters during the campaign chants, through which he promises to return to the state of law and parliamentary order, the separation of powers, and the release of tens of thousands of political detainees, judges, jurists, intellectuals, military personnel, and imprisoned employees on charges of “terrorism” or “insulting the president.” .
“…and nothing has changed.”
The authoritarian drift of the past decade that has intensified since the failed coup in 2016 and the faltering economy, with the Turkish lira devaluing by half in two years and inflation rising up to 40 percent in one year, according to unanimous official figures, have all hurt the credibility and popularity of the head of state. He promotes the great achievements and real development he has achieved during his rule since 2003.
But Erdogan acknowledged the difficulty of attracting young people, more than 5.2 million of whom will vote for the first time on Sunday.
In addition, the extent of the impact of the powerful earthquake that devastated the southern quarter of the country and resulted in at least 50,000 deaths and 3 million missing is not known. In ruined ancient Antioch, people sometimes traveled by bus for hours back to vote in destroyed schools or in containers converted into polling stations.
“Voting in the rubble is not comforting, but we want to change the ruling,” said Dilber Simsek, 48, who lives under the Shabbat tent. “Look, it’s been three months and nothing has changed,” she added.
