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Secular leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu gave the opposition's best performance of Erdogan's dominant era in May 14 parliament and presidential polls.

The retired bureaucrat of Kurdish Alevi descent broke ethnic barriers and Erdogan's stranglehold on the media and state institutions to win almost 45 percent of the vote.

But Erdogan still came within a fraction of a point of topping the 50-percent threshold needed to win in the first round.

The 69-year-old leader did it despite Turkey's worst economic crisis since the 1990s and opinion surveys showing him headed for his first national election defeat.

Kilicdaroglu will now need to rally his deflated troops and beat the odds yet again to wrest back power for the secular party that ruled Turkey for most of the 20th century.

The Eurasia Group consultancy put Erdogan's chances of winning next Sunday at 80 percent.

"It will be an uphill struggle for Kilicdaroglu in the second round," Hamish Kinnear of the Verisk Maplecroft consulting firm agreed.

Erdogan rode a nationalist wave that saw smaller right-wing parties pick up nearly 25 percent of the parallel parliamentary vote.

Kilicdaroglu is courting these voters in the second presidential round.

The 74-year-old revamped his campaign team and tore up his old playbook for the most fateful week of his political career.

He has replaced chatty clips that he used to record from his kitchen with desk-thumping speeches and pledges to immediately rid Turkey of millions of migrants.

"As soon as I come to power, I will send all the refugees home," he said in his first post-election address.

He has chased the endorsement of a little-known ultra-nationalist, whose tiny vote share pushed Turkey into its first presidential runoff.

And he has punched back against Erdogan's claims that he was associating with "terrorists" -- a code word for Kurdish groups fighting for broader autonomy in Turkey's southeast.

"We have millions of patriots to reach," Kilicdaroglu said.

But Kilicdaroglu's sharp right turn could prove costly with voters from Kurdish regions that overwhelmingly backed him in the first round.

Kurds embraced Erdogan during his first decade in power because he worked to lift many of their social restrictions.

They turned against him when Erdogan formed his own alliance with Turkey's nationalist forces and began to unleash purges after surviving a failed coup attempt in 2016.

Kilicdaroglu's new and more overtly nationalist tone echoes a secular era during which Kurds -- who make up nearly a fifth of Turkey's population -- were stripped of basic rights.

The political battles are being accompanied by market turmoil that set in once it became apparent that Erdogan was on course to keep his grip on power.

Turkey's recent years have been roiled by economic upheaval that erased many of the gains of Erdogan's more prosperous early rule.

Most of the problems stem from Erdogan's fervent fight against interest rates -- an approach some analysts link to his adherence to Islamic rules against usury.

"I have a thesis that interest rates and inflation are positively correlated," he told CNN this week.

"The lower the interest rates, the lower inflation will be."

The markets' trust in more conventional economics have put massive pressure on the lira.

Government data showed Turkey's foreign currency reserves -- topped up by aid from Arab allies -- dropping by $9 billion and reaching their lowest levels in 21 years in the week running up to the first-round vote.

Analysts think most of the money was spent on efforts to prop up the lira against sharp and politically sensitive falls.

"There is now a very real risk that an Erdogan victory could lead to macroeconomic instability in Turkey, including the threat of a severe currency crisis," Capital Economic warned.

- 'Special relationship with Putin' -

But Erdogan has exuded confidence since the first round.

He has ridiculed his rival's nationalist overtures and stuck by some of his more controversial policies -- including an increasingly strong relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Erdogan's turn towards Russia has helped secure billions of dollars of relief on Turkey's huge energy bill.

"Russia and Turkey need each other in every field possible," Erdogan told CNN.

He also argued that his more "balanced" stance towards Putin helped him negotiate a UN-backed deal with Russia under which Ukraine was allowed to resume exporting grain.

"This was possible because of our special relationship with President Putin," Erdogan said.

He also scoffed at remarks from 2019 by US President Joe Biden -- recalled by Erdogan's allies throughout the campaign -- calling Erdogan an "autocrat".

"Would a dictator ever enter a runoff election?" Erdogan asked.

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Erdogan eyes third decade of rule in historic runoff - FRANCE 24 English

Politicians who do not have vision, ideals and cleargoals cannot outline development horizons and become a source ofhope for the people, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said,Azernews reports citing Trend.

He made the remark in the publication in connectionwith the second round of voting in the presidential electionsscheduled for May 28.

Erdogan urged his fellow citizens, including theyounger generation of voters, not to believe in negative scenariosthat a number of politicians are trying to manipulate before thevoting day.

"We have ruled in Trkiye for 21 years. Most of us areyour peers. For all these years, the authorities have neverinterfered and did not allow interference in the lifestyle of youngpeople. We have always listened to the opinion of the youngergeneration and supported it," he said.

The Turkish president also drew attention to theopportunities open to the Trkiye's youth.

"The number of universities in Trkiye has reached208. There are 96 technoparks, 316 design and 1,249 researchcenters in the country. More than a million young citizens canexpress themselves at the TEKNOFEST festival venues. Modern Trkiyehas all the opportunities for international competition. Thanks tothe National Technological Initiative, our country has moved out ofthe category of consumers and has become one of the states thatcreate, develop and produce. All this is done for you. We willbuild Trkiye of the future together," Erdogan said.

He expressed confidence that the date of May 28 willbe the starting point for the implementation of the "Centenary ofTrkiye" concept, in which young people will become activeparticipants.

---

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Modern Trkiye has all opportunities for international competition ... - AzerNews.Az

Campaign posters of the 13th Presidential candidate and Republican People's Party (CHP) Chairman Kemal Kilidaroglu (L) and the President of the Republic of Turkey and Justice Development Party (AKP) President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (R) are seen displayed.

Tunahan Turhan | Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

The result of the first round of Turkey's presidential election was a blow to the opposition, who had high hopes of unseating President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after 20 years in power.

Contender Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a soft-spoken, bookish 74-year-old,is running as the candidate for change, vowing economic reform, a reversal of Erdogan's policies that many describe as autocratic, and closer ties with NATO and the West.

Turkish opinion polls released before Sunday's vote indicated a clear lead for Kilicdaroglu. But by Monday, after nearly all votes were counted, 69-year-old Erdogan finished solidly ahead with 49.5% of the vote; Kilicdaroglu had 44.9%. Since neither candidate won more than 50% of the vote, however, the election will go to a runoff on May 28.

Turkey is a country of around 85 million people, sitting at the geographical crossroads of East and West. It boasts NATO's second-largest military, is home to 4 million refugees and plays a pivotal role in geopolitics with its mediation in the Russia-Ukraine war.

The election results show that it's more divided than ever.

They also reveal that despite Turkey's current economic turmoil, tens of millions of Turks still see Erdogan as their only viable leader.

Supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan celebrate at the AK Party headquarters garden on May 15, 2023 in Ankara, Turkey. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan faced his biggest electoral test as the country voted in the general election.

Burak Kara | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Turkey is facing a cost-of-living crisis, with inflation around 50% and its national currency, the lira, down more than 75% against the dollar in the last five years in large part thanks to Erdogan's steady lowering of interest rates despite soaring inflation and shrinking foreign exchange reserves.

Erdogan served as Turkey's prime minister from 2003 to 2014 and president from 2014 onward, after coming to prominence as mayor of Istanbul in the 1990s. He was celebrated in the first decade of the new millennium for transforming Turkey into an emerging market economic powerhouse.

Presiding over numerous national accomplishments for the country, he has championed nationalist pride, security, respect for the Islamic faith, and frequently pushed back against the West, winning the loyal support of many Turks as well as non-Turkish people around the Muslim world.

Going head-to-head with Erdogan, Kilicdaroglu pledged a return to core democratic values and economic orthodoxy after his rival's heavy influence over the Turkish central bank sent foreign investors running.

He and his supporters accuse Erdogan of pulling the country toward authoritarianism, as Erdogan's reforms over the years concentrated his presidential power, and his government oversaw heavy crackdowns on protest movements and the forced closure of many independent media outlets.

Despite all this, Kilicdaroglu, and the alliance of six parties he represents, fell short. People are pointing to a variety of reasons: his shortcomings as a candidate, the inaccuracy of pollsters, Erdogan's government blocking more viable opposition, and the enduring popularity of Erdogan himself.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the 74-year-old leader of the center-left, pro-secular Republican People's Party, or CHP, delivers a press conference in Ankara on May 15, 2023.

Bulent Kilic | Afp | Getty Images

Kilicdaroglu is a "subpar candidate," Mike Harris, founder of advisory firm Cribstone Strategic Macro, told CNBC on Monday, "but he still should have been able to win this thing, considering how big Erdogan's negatives are, and what a disaster things are for the economy."

Harris said that once Kilicdaroglu was selected as a candidate, and "that mistake was made, these are the cards we have to deal with. And it looks like the result is it's going to be a close one."

Kilicdaroglu's party, the CHP, strives for the fiercely secular model of leadership first established by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the modern Turkish state. It's known for being historically more hostile to practicing Muslims, who form an enormous part of the Turkish electorate, although the CHP under Kilicdaroglu has softened its stance and was even joined by former Islamist party members.

People who criticize the opposition's choice of candidate point to the fact that the CHP has repeatedly lost elections to Erdogan's powerful conservative and religious AK Party since Kilicdaroglu became its leader in 2010. The CHP's six-party platform is also an alliance of dramatically diverse parties, prompting concerns over its risk of fracturing once in power.

A representative for Kemal Kilicdaroglu's campaign wasn't immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.

There was hope in recent years that the popular mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, a CHP member and vocal critic of Erdogan, could be Turkey's next president. But in late 2022, Imamoglu was unexpectedly sentenced to nearly three years in prison and barred from politics for what a court described as insulting the judges of the country's Supreme Election Council.

Imamoglu and his supporters say the charges are political, directed by Erdogan and his party to sabotage Imamoglu's political ambitions, something the AK Party denies.

For many observers, the story is emblematic of Erdogan's apparently unshakeable grip on power.

In 2018, Selim Sazak, an advisor to one of Turkey's smaller opposition parties, wrote: "Taking on Erdogan was always an honorable but doomed effort. The opposition groups were up against insurmountable odds. Erdogan used every advantage of incumbency; he had all the state's resources at his disposal and the media was almost entirely under his control."

Many observers now see the opposition's chances as bleak.

"I don't think that the opposition is going to gain any ground on the 28th of May," Arda Tunca, a columnist at Turkish news site PolitikYol, told CNBC.

Erdogan's AK Party also won a majority in Turkey's parliamentary election Sunday, meaning "Erdogan has the advantage of convincing the electorate that if the opposition leader is the winner, he's going to be a lame-duck president because the parliament is formed by the incumbent government," Tunca said. "So the power is on the government side in the parliament."

Still, Kilicdaroglu's 44.9% of the vote is notable as the highest any opposition candidate ever received, said Orcun Selcuk, an assistant professor of political science at Luther College in Iowa, on Twitter. "The opposition clearly did not meet the expectations but it would be a misjudgment to say that opposition coordination failed. There are important gains but they are not sufficient."

Kilicdaroglu promised an overhaul of economic policies, something that many investors had hoped for.

That hope turned to worry after Sunday's result, however, with a 6% fall in the Borsa Istanbul's benchmark BIST index, a nearly 10% dip in banking stocks and the lira's biggest percentage drop against the dollar in six months.

"Unfortunately it looks like [what] up to 49% of Turks have voted for is an economic crisis. ... The next two weeks, we could see the currency collapse," Harris said.

The monetary tools Erdogan's administration has been using to give the economy a semblance of stability are unsustainable, economists warned, and after the election will have to stop likely leading to severe volatility.

"Erdogan's significant outperformance in round one represents one of the worst case scenarios for Turkish assets and the lira," said Brendan McKenna, an emerging markets economist at Wells Fargo.

He expects the lira, currently trading at 19.75 to the dollar, to have a "significant selloff" in the near future and forecasts it falling to 23 to the greenback by the end of June.

Beata Javorcik, chief economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, told CNBC that Erdogan had "prioritized growth over macroeconomic stability."

"There is a limit to how long you can pretend the basic laws of economics do not apply," she said. "So there will be some hard choices that the government in Turkey will have to make, regardless of who leads this government."

An unexpected kingmaker has also emerged in the form of Sinan Ogan, an ultra-nationalist third-party candidate who outperformed expectations with more than 5% of the vote. Who his voters support in the second round could determine the final result and they're unlikely to throw their support behind Kilicdaroglu.

Kilicdaroglu, meanwhile, has reshuffled his campaign team, reportedly firing some staff and stressing that the election's fate is not yet sealed. "I'm here till the end," he said in one video, slamming his hand on a table. But critics point out that he still has not spoken publicly to his supporters, and say he lacks a clear runoff strategy.

"Kilicdaroglu's non-appearance on Monday and the subdued mood from his camp have dealt a heavy blow to his base," Ragip Soylu, Turkey bureau chief for Middle East Eye, wrote on Tuesday.

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Erdogan's election lead leaves Turkey's opposition reeling and an economy on the brink - CNBC

Turkey's Supreme Election Board has announced the official results of Sunday's election, with Recep Tayyip Erdogan receiving 49.24% and his main challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu receiving 45.07%

May 19, 2023, 1:43 PM ET

2 min read

ISTANBUL -- Turkey's Supreme Election Board on Friday confirmed the results of the first round of Turkey's presidential election in which neither incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan nor his main challenger, opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, receiving the majority support needed for an outright victory.

The electoral board announced that Erdogan secured 49.24% of the vote, with Kilicdaroglu getting 45.07% and a third candidate, nationalist politician Sinan Ogan, receiving 5.28%, necessitating a runoff election on May 28 between the top two contenders.

Ogan, a former academic who was backed by an anti-migrant party, might hold the key to victory in the runoff now that hes out of the race.

Speaking to Turkish media earlier this week, Ogan listed the conditions to earn his support. Among them are taking a tough stance against the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, as well as creating a timeline for sending back millions of refugees, including nearly 3.7 million Syrians.

The PKK, which has waged a decades-long insurgency in southeast Turkey, is considered a terror organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

On Thursday, Kilicdaroglu shifted from his more inclusive, soft-toned rhetoric to appeal to nationalist voters, vowing to send back millions of refugees and rejecting any possibility of negotiating for peace with Kurdish militants.

Meanwhile, speaking to CNN International in an interview broadcast on Friday, Erdogan said he would not bend to Ogans demands: Im not a person who likes to negotiate in such a manner. It will be the people who are the kingmakers.

Yet on Friday a surprise meeting between Erdogan and Ogan took place at the formers Istanbul office. No statement was made following the nearly one-hour meeting.

Read more from the original source:
Turkey's electoral board confirms 1st round election results; Erdogan meets 3rd party candidate - ABC News

Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan is strong.

Despite most opinion polls predicting a win for main-opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a soft-spoken technocrat who leads the secularist Republican Peoples Party (CHP), President Erdogan received 49.5% of the votes in Sundays presidential election compared to Kilicdaroglus 44.9%. Erdogans Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its Peoples Alliance coalition, meanwhile, defied expectations to retain majority control of Turkeys 600-member parliament.

On paper, the election was the most serious challenge of Erdogans 20-year iron rule.

Turkeys economy is in shambles, plagued by soaring inflation, a plummeting lira, and a cost-of-living crisis at least partly caused by Erdogans kooky economic policies. The governments shambolic response to Februarys deadly earthquake in southeastern Turkey (which killed 50,000 and displaced 1.5 million), added to the AKPs many corruption and mismanagement scandals, created more headwinds for the president. And, for the first time in ages, Turkeys notoriously fractious opposition managed to unite behind a joint candidate able to broaden the blocs appeal, giving voters a credible alternative to Erdogan.

All this explains why almost every part of the country shifted against Erdogan relative to the most recent presidential election in 2018, forcing the president to a run-off for the first time in two decades.

But while his dominance has slipped, Erdogan remains the most popular leader in Turkey. He has outlived economic downturns, refugee crises, corruption scandals, protest movements, and even a coup attempt. He is a skilled populist with ample experience leveraging the bully pulpit, stoking nationalist sentiment, and exploiting identity politics and security concerns in his favor.

Having dismantled most independent checks on his power (including the military, the judiciary, and the media) and expanded presidential powers, Erdogans electoral strength is further underpinned by his incumbency advantages, which allow him to dominate the airwaves and use state levers to woo voters and weaken opponents. Yes, Turkey's election was free ... but it certainly wasnt fair.

This is why I expected him to clinch reelection, despite polling data showing as much as a five-percentage-point lead for Kilicdaroglu ahead of the first-round vote.

While Erdogan came half a point short of the 50% he needed to avoid a runoff, he is the overwhelming favorite to secure the presidency in the second round on May 28.

The math is simple. Erdogan was within just 275,000 votes of winning the presidency outright on Sunday, whereas Kilicdaroglus shortfall was 2.8 million. The president will carry that 2.5 million advantage into the runoff, where Kilicdaroglu would need to not only increase or at least maintain his turnout a huge hurdle given the demoralizing impact of his Sunday losses but also win virtually all the voters who backed the far-right nationalist Sinan Ogan (5.2%) and the populist Muharrem Ince (0.4%) in order to unseat Erdogan. Thats not going to happen.

Ince had surprisingly withdrawn from the race three days before the vote but remained on the ballot. Most of his supporters are protest or anti-establishment voters who wont head to the polls for the runoff. Even if they did, at less than 250,000 votes they wouldnt move the needle for Kilicdaroglu.

Ogan, on the other hand, drew his 2.8 million votes roughly evenly from both Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu. Among them, nationalist voters who typically vote for the Erdogan-allied Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) or the ruling AKP will be highly motivated to cast their ballots for the incumbent to prevent a Kilicdaroglu presidency. But backers of the opposition-aligned, Turkish nationalist Good Party (IYI) are less likely to turn out to support Kilicdaroglu.

Ogan himself has said hed only endorse the opposition leader if he distances himself from his Kurdish supporters, playing into Erdogans baseless accusations that Kilicdaroglu is backed by terrorists. But Kilicdaroglu cant risk alienating the Kurdish vote, which makes up around 10% of Turkeys electorate.

These numbers alone give Erdogan a nigh insurmountable edge. And thats before you even get to the campaign trail, where the president will use his incumbency powers and scare tactics to energize his base, depress opposition turnout, and tilt the balance further in his favor.

A victorious Erdogan will be emboldened to double down on the playbook that has hollowed out Turkeys democracy, turned its economy into a basket case, and distanced it from its traditional Western allies.

The presidents insistence on unorthodox economic policies will prove unsustainable sooner rather than later, pushing the country toward a full-blown economic crisis itll have a hard time recovering from.

Little by little, one-man rule will replace the rule of law as Erdogan makes himself sultan for life, pushing Turkey ever closer to autocracy and away from representative democracy.

Abroad, Erdogan will continue his delicate balancing act as he seeks to expand Turkeys global clout, deepening ties with Russia and China to the chagrin of its longstanding allies, the United States and Europe.

Despite growing mistrust and tension, Turkeys economic and security dependence on the West means relations will continue to be ruled by pragmatism. Erdogan will continue to both expand trade with Russia and support Ukraine and avoid Western sanctions. He will ratify Swedens membership in NATO but only once the US finally agrees to sell him F-16 fighter jets. He will keep Turkey in NATO but increasingly act as a spoiler.

This approach to foreign policy will help cement Turkeys role as a geopolitical swing state (see todays Moose treat), but it will also make Ankara a more unreliable ally and increase the risk of miscalculation. As weve seen in Russia and China, extreme consolidation of power, centralization of decision-making, and suppression of dissent are a recipe for bad policies. Unchallenged power means unchallenged ability to make mistakes.

A third Erdogan term will bring about a more unstable, authoritarian, and unpredictable Turkey. Short of a miracle on May 28, the future of Turkey looks bleak.

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Turkeys sultan Erdogan is not going anywhere - GZERO Media