Turkey – elections: International analysts fear that in May Erdogan may cause a “hot” episode

The international community, including our country, is watching with obvious interest Turkey’s progress towards the May 14 elections, a date deliberately chosen by the president Recep Tayyip Erdogan in order to make a direct parallel with May 14, 1950 where the then Democratic Party had won the elections for the first time against the Kemalists who, from the establishment of the Turkish Republic until then, held power.

In about three and a half months from now, they will be set up in Turkey the polls which will even be double: presidential and parliamentary. The interest is obviously focused on the first ones, as they will pit Tayyip Erdoğan against the Justice and Development Party (AKP) he leads, with the support of the extreme Islamist Devlet Bakhceli who heads the Nationalist Action Party (MHP) and on the other hand are the six opposition formations that have not yet settled on a common candidate. The six-party opposition alliance is made up of Kemal Kilicdaroglu’s Kemal Republican People’s Party (CHP), Meral Aksener’s liberal Good Party (Y), Temel Karamolaoglu’s Islamist Bliss Party (Saadet), the Democratic Party (DP), the Party of Democracy and Progress (DEVA) of Ali Babacan and the Party of the Future (Gelecek) of Ahmet Davutoglu.

The Turkish president would like to face him Kemal Kilicdaroglu, head of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), which is also the largest political formation of the opposition. And this is because he appears as the least popular compared to the mayor of Ankara, Mansur Yavas, but also to the mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglou, who has been sentenced to deprivation of his political rights, but the appeal he has filed is pending. All three of them belong to the same party and apparently underground there is competition between them as to who will be the candidate.

As international analysts emphasize, Erdogan will do everything in order not to lose the elections, as not only his political future is at stake but also his fate in general. His opponents argue that if he loses, he and members of his family could face jail time for a range of criminal offences.

Everything indicates that there will be a second round

Another important thing to keep in mind should be highlighted. In the May 14 election we will know the parliamentary strength each party will have in the Turkish National Assembly, however the question of electing a president is not going to be clear on the same day, since neither Erdogan nor any of his opponents are going to reach the target of 50% +1 votes that required. Oper means there will be another poll a week later, on May 21, between the top two to find out the winner. This very interval between May 14 and 21 is judged to be particularly dangerous, even for Greece, since Erdogan has proven himself to be unpredictable and could trigger an artificial crisis (e.g. a “warm” episode in the Aegean). which would give him the right to invoke the Constitution and especially the articles that mandate that the electoral process may be postponed for reasons of national security. This he is very likely to do if he sees that he is headed for defeat.

He is losing in all the polls, no matter who he is running against

The bad thing for the Turkish president is that according to the opinion polls, he appears to lose the elections whoever he is as his opponent, he just loses to Kilicdaroglu by a smaller margin. In a poll conducted a few weeks ago, the mayor of Ankara, Mansur Yavas, appears as the dominant candidate of the opposition against Erdogan, who is reported to have 51.4% of the preferences against Erdogan’s 33.1%. This is also the only scenario that shows Erdogan losing in the first round.

However, if he has an opponent against Imamoglu, then according to the gallop there will be a second round, as Imamoglu gathers 43.2% of the preferences and Erdogan 36.9%. If, on the other hand, the current president’s opponent is Meral Aksener, then Erdogan receives 36.3% and she receives 42.4%. Only with Kemal Kilicdaroglu (s.s. who has argued that in the Aegean there are 156 islands that… belong to Turkey) the opinion polls show a derby, as the Turkish president receives 37.6% and the leader of the opposition 38.6%.