2023 Elections in Turkey
According to Iran Gate, less than a month remains until the 2023 elections in Turkey, and polls indicate that the opposition coalition, consisting of six parties, is gaining strength against the current government. On May 14th, the Turkish people will cast their votes for a new president and members of parliament.
How are the votes in the presidential and parliamentary elections?
To enter the Turkish Parliament, which has 600 seats, a party must be able to obtain 7% of the votes or be part of a coalition that can reach this threshold. That is why the existence of coalitions has become very important in Turkish elections, a subject that the opposition, consisting of six parties, has highlighted as one of their proposed reforms.
In Turkey, the electoral system is proportional representation rather than simple majority. Therefore, the Turkish people vote for party lists instead of individual candidates. The number of seats is determined based on the votes each party receives, rather than the votes of the coalition.
In some constituencies, the opposition has agreed to compete under the banner of a single party. The candidates from the Green Left Party, who are running instead of the People’s Democratic Party, are part of the Workers and Freedom Coalition.
Following the reforms made by Erdogan in the political system, it is now the president who determines the government, so there is no prime minister. If the broad popular coalition formed by Erdogan with the National Movement Party fails to secure a majority in parliament, he may face difficulties in continuing his rule in the current manner. The pro-Erdogan People’s Coalition currently has 334 representatives in parliament.
Erdogan has served two terms as president so far, so it seems that his third term would be against the Turkish constitution.
However, the Supreme Election Council of Turkey has ruled that Erdogan’s first term is not counted from 2014 but from 2018, the year the new presidential system began, and after that, parliamentary and presidential elections are held on the same day.
Opposition politicians had previously requested the Supreme Election Council of Turkey to prevent Erdogan from running as a candidate.
Opinion polls on the Turkish elections results
According to surveys, more than 50% of voters support Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu in the leading competition, while Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has managed to obtain only 44% of the votes on average in the surveys.
A survey conducted by Axios Research shows that the National Coalition has obtained 44.1% of the support, while the People’s Coalition has obtained 38.2%. The same survey indicates that the Democratic Party of the Peoples has garnered 10.3% of the votes.
The Piar Research survey does not differ much from the other surveys, and according to the results published on March 10, the main opposition bloc has obtained 46.4% of the votes, while the Justice and Development Party and the National Movement Party have obtained 37.8% of the votes.
If no candidate gets more than half of the votes and both candidates go to the second round two weeks later, 43% of respondents said that Kılıçdaroğlu would win, while close to 50% said that he would not succeed in winning.
However, the increasing number of supporters of Kilicdaroglu expect his victory, but the results show that the gap has significantly decreased within three months. The same question about Erdogan indicates that about 48% expected him to secure his third term as president, while 45% said he would suffer defeat.
In response to the question of the possibility of voting for Kilicdaroglu, approximately 45% gave a positive answer, while over 49% said they would not vote. At the same time, nearly 44% said they would support Erdogan, and 52% refrained from supporting his candidacy.
Regarding Kilicdaroglu’s 26% lead, the data indicate that the fate of the election will be determined by undecided voters and those who abstain.
One of the most important demographic factors of young voters is that approximately six million voters in Turkey will participate in the elections for the first time next month. A group of about 13 million voters under the age of 25, who have not seen anything but Erdogan’s 20-year government in their lifetime, will participate in the elections. According to Ardalan Akaltun, the head of research and consulting at Bopar, eight out of every ten young Turks will vote for candidates outside the People’s Alliance led by the Justice and Development Party.
Referring to the recent survey results, Akaltun said that the possibility of a power shift in the current order excites the youth for the first time.
Edgar Sar, one of the founders of the Istan Pol Institute, points out that most young voters have been influenced by the increasing authoritarian approach of the government. Referring to the nationwide anti-government protests a decade ago, he says that Generation Z was 15 years old during the Gezi Park protests in 2013. From that age onwards, that generation witnessed the rise of the Justice and Development Party’s authoritarianism. They were unable to access the social opportunities that the previous generation had.
Turkish polls are famous for being unreliable, but it seems that any chance Chalichdar Oghlu had for winning the presidential election in the first round has been eliminated by the decision of his former colleague in the Republican People’s Party to join the presidential race.
This 58-year-old candidate of the Republican People’s Party ran for the presidency in 2018, but two years later, he had a major disagreement with Kemal Chalichdar Oghlu and founded the Nationalist Secularist Party in 2021. He is now running for election with this party, a move that has put him under suspicion of reducing opposition votes and becoming a pawn in the hands of Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
However, he has a strong presence on social media, which is attractive to the younger generation, especially young voters who have been influenced by his dance moves on TikTok. Another candidate with little chance of significant success is Sinan Oghun, an extremist nationalist, but he also has the potential to change the playing field and the votes.
Women’s vote in Turkish elections
The vote of women in Turkish elections has received more attention from political analysts than ever before. Political analysts believe that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey is losing support among conservative women, who are considered to be a key constituency of the party.
Rasim Şişman, the head of the Social Democracy Foundation, told the news website Al-Monitor that the results of a survey conducted among 1,067 women indicate that only 68.7% of those who voted for the ruling party in the 2018 elections are likely to vote for the party again.
According to the survey results, 78% of participants will vote for the main opposition party in Turkey, known as the Republican People’s Party (CHP), which openly seeks the votes of conservative women. Two percent will vote for the Good Party, one of the two political parties with a female leader or deputy leader. Additionally, 14% of voters have not yet decided who they will vote for in the Turkish presidential elections.
Shishman and Ali Suslu, the directors of the ALF Research Institute, believe that conservative women in Turkey will mainly lean towards larger parties such as the Republican People’s Party and the Good Party. In a survey conducted by the same research institute in January, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) – which has traditionally been the preferred party among these women voters – came in second place with 26.5% of the votes, compared to the Republican People’s Party with 29.2% of the votes.
Over the past twenty years, many people considered the ruling party in Turkey as the only party that reflected the values and beliefs of these conservative women. However, nowadays, many pollsters and political analysts believe that since 2018, and more precisely from 2020 onwards, due to various issues including economic problems and gender pay gap, the behavior of the ruling party towards women’s rights, especially early marriage and domestic violence, has undergone a change.
These conservative women have played a significant role in the rise of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party in Turkey over the past two decades. However, due to the mentioned problems and issues, and based on recent polls, this group of women is looking for another alternative as it seems that the ruling party is overly focused on these conservative women.
Presidential candidate’s promises to avoid defeat in the elections
Kemal Kilicdaroglu recently promised in a television interview that he will solve the visa issue for Turkish citizens. He emphasized that if he wins the elections, Turkish citizens will be able to travel to Europe within three months without needing to obtain a visa.
He has also announced that if he wins the elections, he will declare a ban on selling properties to foreigners and will repatriate approximately 36 million Syrian migrants and hundreds of thousands of Afghan migrants to their countries.
All four Turkish election candidates have announced strict policies regarding the presence of immigrants and refugees in the country. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’s election campaign has focused on defending democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. Meanwhile, there has been a significant decrease in the value of the lira and an 80% inflation in Turkey, leading to a recent wave of migrants becoming a serious social, economic, and political issue in the country.
Granting citizenship to individuals who buy property in the country has resulted in a sharp increase in housing prices in major Turkish cities, including Istanbul. Syrian refugees have also contributed to higher unemployment rates in some provinces.
However, in a statement containing election promises by the Justice and Development Party, Erdogan has pledged to reduce Turkey’s soaring inflation to single digits and revive economic growth through encouraging investments. Erdogan’s opponents attribute the current runaway inflation in Turkey to his economic policies.
According to them, his economic approach, which emphasized keeping interest rates low for economic growth even during times of inflation and currency devaluation, has caused the most damage to the Turkish economy. However, the election statement of the Justice and Development Party contains no promises to return to more conventional economic policies.
How the opposition will change Turkey
The Nation Alliance, led by Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, intends to revive Turkey’s parliamentary system and reform the powers of the presidency. They aim to remove the president’s authority in legislation, sever ties with political parties, and make the presidential term seven years, so that the president is determined through another election.
These six parties also want to restart Turkey’s decades-long efforts to join the European Union and restore mutual trust with the United States after years of strained relations during Erdogan’s era.
They have committed to reducing inflation to below 10% within two years and planning for the voluntary return of Syrian refugees to their homes.
The presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkey are taking place on April 24th, while a devastating earthquake has left over 46,000 casualties and thousands of buildings destroyed in 11 provinces.
The government’s handling of the earthquake survivors has faced significant criticism, with some observers believing that the earthquakes in Turkey could seriously shake Erdogan’s power bases after 20 years.
However, it is still unclear what impact the earthquake will have on the elections. The government’s opponents also acknowledge that if they win, they will face major challenges in this regard.
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