“Someone’s in the kitchen and we are on the balcony”. It’s the phrase Turkey’s acting president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan used at the start of his speech on election night at the end of the first presidential round. It was an ironic reference to his rival, Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu, who used to campaign posting videos from his modest kitchen. Kiliçdaroğlu had obtained nearly 5% less votes than the Turkish president, although pre-election polls had dubbed Kiliçdaroğlu as favorite to win the first round by a narrow margin. And indeed, the May 14 speech delivered from the balcony was very close to being a victory speech, since president Erdoğan needed just 0.5% to secure a new mandate as president from the first round. However, he must now face Kiliçdaroğlu in the presidential run-off scheduled for May 28. Pundits estimate the opposition representative has very low chances of succeeding in removing Turkey’s authoritarian leader from office and trading his kitchen for the 1000-bedroom presidential palace, built by Recep Erdoğan in the capital-city Ankara.
Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu – Turkey’s “Ghandi”
In the 20-year+ history of Recep Erdoğan’s political domination, no one has ever come as close to threatening his grip on power as Mr. Kiliçdaroğlu. A bred-in-the-bone politician, Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu built his political career and his program step by step, with patience and composure. He was born in 1948 into a family of seven siblings in Tunceli, eastern Turkey. His father was a public worker whose job entailed moving cities very often. And yet Kemal’s school record was stellar, regardless where he would end up. After furthering his economic studies in Ankara, he walked in his father’s footsteps, also working for the government. The young Kiliçdaroğlu made his way up through the ranks relatively fast, acquiring the reputation of a staunch critic of corruption of any kind. He first worked in a number of state financial institutions before taking up the position of director of Turkey’s Social Security Service, a huge state apparatus. Concurrently, Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu made sure not to neglect his propensity for political activism, his choice leaning towards the progressive and secular side of the spectrum. He enrolled in the Republican People’s Party (CHP), which was rooted in the movement of the founder of Modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. From this position, for instance, in 1980 Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu supported the ban on wearing headscarves in schools and public institutions – a decision that would have long-lasting effects, putting Kiliçdaroğlu on a head-on collision course with his present-day rival, Recep Erdoğan.
Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu saw a breakthrough in 2011, when a family scandal ended the political career of the then CHP leader. At first, Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu refused to take political advantage of the situation, yet upon pressure from party elites he accepted to lodge a bid for the party leadership. He won the internal election with little effort and started a reform of the Republican People’s Party, which he would eventually represent in the current presidential run-off against Recep Erdoğan. In the early days as party president, Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu promoted an open-doors policy towards the Kurdish minority and enabled women to take up decision-making positions. He also started working on a political program that would counter the powerful Erdoğan-AKP regime by co-opting another five parties from outside the CHP into the Nation Alliance, the most powerful electoral alliance of the Turkish opposition. Four years ago, when the Alliance was not yet fully-fledged, Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu refused to put his name up on the presidential ballot, particularly in order to have more time to build a stronger campaign against Recep Erdoğan. Therefore, Kiliçdaroğlu built a name for himself as a self-made politician who keeps a low profile, never raises his tone, never interrupts his conversation partners and never extends his hand from behind his desk, but rather walks up to greet his visitors. That’s how Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu fashioned himself the reputation of a pacifist politician, resembling Ghandi – hence the nickname his supporters use – Kemal Ghandi. Much like Ghandi himself, Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu for a long time was the target of attacks and assassination attempts from Turkish fundamentalists, which he managed to evade every time. “Politics is also about taking certain risks”, Kiliçdaroğlu famously once said. However, the Turkish opposition representative took precautions when attending election rallies this year, often wearing a bulletproof vest. In April, Kiliçdaroğlu revealed in a video message that he and his family belong to the Alevi Islamic sect. At first glance, the revelation is not a good omen in a Turkey dominated by Sunnis. But Kiliçdaroğlu’s decision to go public was apparently designed to preempt an attack along these lines from Erdoğan’s campaign staff. On the other hand, it was also an appeal to those voters who feel they belong to a minority for various reasons, in a country fragmented by deep-seated ethnic tensions, often exacerbated by the crisis of Syrian refugees.
In the election campaign, Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu adopted pro-reform positions, which he sees as leaning “towards the West, not the Kremlin”. “The youth wants democracy”, the leader of the Turkish opposition claims, “not to find the police knocking on their doors because of some tweet they posted last night”. Right now, any Turk who “insults the president” can go to jail. “I’m telling you, and you can criticize me all you want. I will make sure you enjoy this right”, Kiliçdaroğlu said. He also promised to reform the judiciary, ensure real independence for the justice system and the Turkish media, so that the latter may be able to reflect on diverging opinions in the Turkish society. Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu also touched on a sensitive topic during the election campaign, namely inflation, which has seen rampant growth in Turkey of late. His answer is to draw back foreign investors, chased away by the Erdoğan administration’s tax policies. What remains unclear from all these promises, is how exactly Kiliçdaroğlu will be able to deliver, given that Parliament is dominated by Recep Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Erdoğan, the Islamist who imposed an increasingly conservative and authoritarian regime in the last 20 years
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s political career had the same upward trajectory as Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu, with one major twist: it unfolded in an entirely different context, which compared to Kiliçdaroğlu’s personal background, reflects the existing fault line in Turkish society between secularism and religion. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (69) comes from a modest family, where he was one of five siblings. When Recep turned 13, his family moved to Istanbul in search of a better life. His first school was a traditional, Islamic one. Yet he also got a degree in management from the University of Marmara. In the 70s and 80s, the young Erdoğan became active in Islamic circles associated with the Welfare Party, on behalf of which he won a mandate as Mayor of Istanbul, a much coveted political position. His term at the helm of Turkey’s largest city came to an abrupt end in 1998, when he publicly recited a poem, interpreted as “inciting religious and racial hatred”: “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets, and the believers our soldiers.”. He spent four years in prison before making a swift return to politics. And since the Welfare Party had in the meantime been banned, in 2001 Erdoğan and Abdullah Gull launched a new political movement, AKP. The following year he went on to win the general election, becoming Turkey’s Prime Minister.
At first, amidst a steady economic growth, Recep Erdoğan was perceived as a reformist. The key to his Cabinet’s economic achievements were large-scale infrastructure projects that created jobs and raised living standards for countless families. But in the span of a decade, tension started to build up. His propensity for authoritarianism was met with opposition from the budding civil society in Turkey, culminating in the 2013 Gezi Park protests in central Istanbul. Erdoğan also locked horns with his political partner, Fethullah Gülen, with whom he had managed to curb the army’s political influence. At the same time, the ideological positions of the Turkish leader radicalized. Erdoğan advocated the criminalization of adultery, condemned the women’s rights movement, claiming women cannot receive the same treatment as men. He sanctioned the reconversion of the Hagia Sophia cathedral from museum (it had operated as such since the times of Atatürk) into mosque, which had been its designated purpose during the Ottoman rule. But perhaps the strongest signal regarding the way Recep Erdoğan approaches the acquisition and exercise of power came in 2014, when the office of president was turned from a ceremonial position into one of significant decision-making impact on Turkish politics. The president was prevented from securing new terms as Prime Minister, which is why his party successfully endorsed a new Constitution. After the controversial coup of 2016, which was followed by unprecedented repressive measures targeted against fictional or factual supporters of the alleged mastermind behind the rebellion, Fethullah Gülen, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called and narrowly won a referendum whereby the president was granted further prerogatives: the right to call a state of emergency, the right to appoint the leaders of key institutions, as well as the right to intervene in the country’s judiciary. Since 2017, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has served as a president with exceptional attributes in the country’s political and administrative apparatus, which attracted numerous international warnings regarding Turkey’s democratic transgressions. We’re also talking about a president who treats his adversaries with disdain, including his current presidential opponent. “Kiliçdaroğlu? Well he’s not capable of herding a sheep, let alone lead the country”, Erdoğan ironically said during a campaign rally.
Last-minute promises
Despite every advantage an acting president enjoys and considering the result of the first round of the presidential election, the die has not been cast. Two major topics can still mobilize Turkish voters: the issue of refugees and the economy. These are two sensitive topics which make the two candidates overstep their boundaries, often stumbling into enemy territory. Embracing nationalist rhetoric, Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu promised to solve the issue of the three million Syrian refugees (“these are actually ten million refugees”, the Turkish opposition leader said) within three years. Such messages seem designed to appeal to the electoral base of Sinan Oğan, the politician who ranked 3rd the first round after obtaining 5.2% of the vote. Yet even in this respect Erdoğan could have the upper hand, after Oğan assured him of his support in the second round. Erdoğan is trying to draw public attention away from the disastrous state of the inflation (which has reached 44%, although it attained higher levels in previous months) by invoking threats to Turkey’s national security, which he alone is capable of foiling. Besides, the acting president reiterated his famous announcements meant to underline the greatness and vitality of Turkish economy: he will launch the biggest maritime vessel in the history of the country, he will build the first local-made electric car, he will build an electric power plant (with Russia’s help), whereas public sector employees will get a 45% salary raise. The thing about Erdoğan’s voter base, which now expands to rural areas, including the region that was most affected by the February quake, is that it doesn’t have the same potential for growth as Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu’s. The Turkish opposition leader relies on votes from the country’s dynamic, touristy and cosmopolitan regions, plus Ankara. But will that be enough? The answer to this question also holds the key to the May 28 presidential run-off in Turkey.
