Recent picture of challenge between Turkey’s ruling & opposition blocs to win 2023 election

As the presidential and parliamentary elections to be held on 14 May 2023, one of the most important events in Turkey’s history, are approaching, the ruling bloc and the opposition bloc are making maximum efforts to play all the cards in their hands.

According to the results of the latest election polls, it seems that the opposition bloc formed by 6 parties with different worldviews, which came together under the name of the Nation Alliance, will enjoy the reward for their ongoing work for about 2 years.

CURRENT VOTE SHARES BASED ON RECENT SURVEY RESULTS

As a matter of fact, the 6-party alliance, whose vote share is around 40 – 44%, seems to be quite close to winning the presidential election, along with the votes from HDP that has expressed clear support for the bloc in presidential election. It seems that nation alliance candidate KILIÇDAROĞLU is likely to get 55% of the vote, while his most important opponent, current President Erdogan, may get around 44-45% of the vote.

In addition, the election for deputies presents a more or less similar picture, as of now. In other words, it looks as if the opposition will triumph both in presidential and as parliamentary elections.

IS ERDOGAN LIKELY TO WIN AGAIN?

For the first time, ERDOGAN most likely sees that he will enter an election in which he is not very likely to win, and there is no doubt that he is under great stress in this regard. We can also deduce this from such issues as the vast amount of monies he has recently distributed to increase his votes by benefiting the citizen, and the laws he has brought to the parliament in favor of the citizen, etc.

Will these be good enough to get ERDOGAN ahead in the race again and will they be enough to change the election results? The situation does not seem to be quite like that, because the citizens know well that these are only electoral moves and if there were no elections, such steps would not be taken in their favor. A fairly large part of the citizens, in fact, the majority of them, have lost faith in the president, and therefore there is now a very wide segment that have turned their faces to the opposition.

IMPACT TWO ISLAM FUNDAMENTALIST PARTIES COULD HAVE AS NEW PARTNERS IN RULING BLOC

On the other hand, ERDOGAN, whose hope of winning is getting less as the election approaches, continues to make major mistakes – as expressed by many opinion leaders. For example, the most fundamentalist 2 parties, which have an understanding that considers women to be second-class citizens compared to men, have finally joined the ruling alliance bloc. One of them is the New Welfare Party (Yeni Refah), and the other is HUDA-PAR, which is alleged to be the continuation of a very dangerous group called Hezbollah, referred to as a violent organization, in the past. Both parties are known to be radically Islamist and clearly and strongly oppose women’s rights (and basic ones, indeed). The AK Party is doing this despite the opposition of tens of thousands of women supporting AK Party, in order to get a considerably small number of votes from dark Islamists – which will not likely have a meaningful impact on election results.

BLACK AND FAKE PROPAGANDA TO WEAR DOWN OPPOSITION BLOC

On the other hand, the organization called the Directorate of Communications, which operates within the state, is doing its best to wear down and even silence the opposition, whereas it should be neutral, being a state institution. Meanwhile, lies, deceptions, fake news and even fake videos are being made as part of a black propaganda and shared to defame the opposition like untrue / fake claims that the CHP has a relationship with an outlawed Kurdish organization. In other words, the government is trying to wear down the opposition by using even state facilities to produce unfair and untrue news. We also need to mention thousands of trols used (employed actually) on the internet to spread lies and fake news to defame opposition and CHP mainly.

Despite all this however, the opposition has taken such a powerful wind behind, that it does not seem very likely such unfair efforts mentioned above will do the ruling power much good either. In other words, Turkey is hopefully running towards a bright tomorrow after May 14th.