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Recep Tayyip Erdogan positioned to extend rule in Turkey run-off election

  • The election on Sunday will decide not only who leads Turkey, a Nato-member country, but also how it is governed and the shape of its foreign policy
  • Erdogan came out comfortably ahead of his rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu on May 14. But he fell just short of the 50 per cent needed to avoid a run-off

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A supporter of Nation Alliance’s presidential candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu walks with a national flag after an election campaign rally in Ankara, Turkey on Saturday. Photo: AP
Reuters
Turks vote on Sunday in a presidential run-off that could see Recep Tayyip Erdogan extend his rule into a third decade and intensify Turkey’s increasingly authoritarian path, muscular foreign policy and unorthodox economic governance.
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Erdogan, 69, defied opinion polls and came out comfortably ahead with an almost five-point lead over his rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu in the first round on May 14. But he fell just short of the 50 per cent needed to avoid a run-off, in a race with profound consequences for Turkey itself and global geopolitics.

His unexpectedly strong showing amid a deep cost of living crisis, and a win in parliamentary elections for a coalition of his conservative Islamist-rooted AK Party (AKP), the nationalist MHP and others, buoyed the veteran campaigner who says a vote for him is a vote for stability.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, presidential candidate of Turkey’s main opposition alliance, in Ankara, Turkey on Saturday. Photo: AFP
Kemal Kilicdaroglu, presidential candidate of Turkey’s main opposition alliance, in Ankara, Turkey on Saturday. Photo: AFP

Kilicdaroglu, 74, is the candidate of a six-party opposition alliance, and leads the Republican People’s Party (CHP) created by Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. His camp has struggled to regain momentum after the shock of trailing Erdogan in the first round.

The election will decide not only who leads Turkey, a Nato-member country of 85 million, but also how it is governed, where its economy is headed after its currency plunged to one tenth of its value against the dollar in a decade, and the shape of its foreign policy, which has seen Turkey irk the West by cultivating ties with Russia and Gulf states.

The initial election showed larger-than-expected support for nationalism – a powerful force in Turkish politics which has been hardened by years of hostilities with Kurdish militants, an attempted coup in 2016 and the influx of millions of refugees from Syria since war began there in 2011.

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Turkey is the world’s largest host of refugees, with some 5 million migrants, of whom 3.3 million are Syrians, according to Interior Ministry data.

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