Erdogan won honestly? What was the opposition? And what will change now?

We answer the main questions about the second round of the presidential election in Turkey

The second round of the presidential election ended in Turkey. The authorities were preserved by the current President Recep Erdogan: he gained 52.16% and defeated the Unified Candidate from the opposition Kemal Kylychdaroglu (47.84%). At the request of the Cold, the journalist and specialist in the region Kirill Krivosheev tells how the second round has passed and what will change now.

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Erdogan won honestly? Still, the gap with the opposition candidate is very small

If you evaluate exclusively the calculation of ballots in the urn, then yes. Both the authorities and the opposition had very strong teams of observers who would hardly have allowed a frank stuffing or other falsifications familiar to the Russians.

But as in Russia, in Turkey, most of the manipulations affecting the outcome of the elections are performed before the voting day. For example, it is just right to recall why Kemal Kylychdaroglu, and not a more promising candidate, became the mayor of Istanbul , Imamoglu , a candidate from the opposition. As I already told the last time, a sentence was sentenced to insult the representative of the authorities against Imamoglu.

There is no doubt that this is directly related to the presidential race. Imamoglu called the CEC members “idiots” back in 2019 , after he won in Istanbul despite the abolition of the initial results of voting and re -election. But the case reached the verdict only in December 2022, when the opposition came time to nominate someone to the president. Now there is an appeal, and Imamoglu could advance, but this is a big risk: with the submission of the authorities, the court could give the verdict legal force before the elections.

Of course, a dispute flared up in the opposition camp, who should be advanced, and he was very into Erdogan’s hand: instead of unity, his opponents weaved intrigues and fought with each other, which did not cause confidence from the voter.

In addition, there was a banal administrative resource: the opposition, unlike the authorities, could not offer voters free gas and raising the minimum salary for state employees, and Erdogan did this, and right before the elections - in April.

Finally, an important factor is control over the media. According to the organization “Reporters Without Borders” , 90% of the Turkish media are under state control, and in the rating of freedom of speech the country in 2023 took a position near Russia-165th place out of 180, although a year ago was in 149th place.

Caricatures have already appeared on Twitter, on which Erdogan and his opponent are depicted in the form of two runners, but one is forced to constantly overcome obstacles in the form of judicial delays or fakes in state media. Perhaps that is why the opposition Kemal Kylychdaroglu called the current election campaign "the most unfair in Turkish history." But he did not challenge the election results or even more so to call the population to rallies.

But there was another third candidate who called on his supporters to vote for Erdogan. Did this affect the outcome?

It is true that not even three, but four candidates participated in the first round, but the fourth - Mukharrem Indgea - announced that he was leaving the race. Sinan Ogan, in turn, continued the struggle, scored a little more than 5% of the vote and then put up the conditions under which he will be ready to support one of them.

These conditions did not affect the main differences between the candidates (for example, Ogan did not insist that Turkey retains strong presidential power or, conversely, return to the parliamentary republic) - there was a fundamental for Ogan, so that representatives of the Kurdish parties such as HDP and Hüda Par did not receive places in the government. But he did not miss the opportunity to ask for such places for his representatives.

Having met with both candidates, Sinan Ogan supported Erdogan. By the way, it is important to say that the Agan is an ethnic Azerbaijani who was born in the east of Turkey, but from 1992 to 2000 he worked in Baku. The opposition media wrote that the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, who is closely friends with the current president and fears the victory of the opposition, influenced his decision. Ogan himself denies this.

At the same time, the Ozdag, the leader of the Victory Party (Zafer Partısı), from which Sinan Ogan was nominated, did not make his decision and supported Klychdaroglu. Judging by the results, 5% of the rating, originally belonging to Ogan, were distributed between the leaders of the race approximately in half. And this was enough to ensure the victory of Erdogan.

What happened between two tours?

There were no debatov between the candidates: Erdogan simply ridiculed Kylychdaroglu's invitation to talk live. But politicians, of course, actively commented on each other's statements.

We can say that the main theme of the last two weeks was the fate of Syrian refugees. Anti -migrant rhetoric in Turkey has been popular for many years, and the authorities are also trying to play on it. But here the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Suleiman Soil, who often showed unconditional fidelity to Erdogan, made a humanistic position: “We will not send any of our brothers to where they will not guarantee security, otherwise Allah will burn us. Erdogan does not want him to be remembered after 100 years as a leader who sent the Syrians to death. ”

However, usually a calm and intelligent Kylychdaroglu took a very tough anti -migrant position and literally promised to deport four million people for two years. One of his posters promised: "The Syrians will leave." As many experts noted, in ultra -right, the role of Kemal Kylychdaroglu looked unnatural, because before he was compared with Mahatma Gandhi - both for external similarities, and for a calm, non -aggressive manner of speech.

In addition, Kylychdaroglu continued to talk about Russia, which on the eve of the first round accused of interference of the election. Now the opposition said that Erdogan makes Turkey dependent on the Kremlin due to the construction of a gas hub on its territory. The authorities successfully took the anti -Russian rhetoric of the opposition into service and scared voters that in the event of Kylychdaroglu, Russian tourists will stop coming to the country - and this will hit the economy a lot.

Both Kylychdaroglu himself and his associates in the opposition coalition periodically made reservations that relations with Moscow were important, but it looked more like throwing, and not a firmly formulated position.

The main performance of Kylychdaroglu in front of the second round was a four -hour open interview on Babala TV , where the audience asked questions. It can be seen that Kemal-Bay (as the opposition is called the supporters. “Bay” in Turkish means “master”; this is a respectful form of turning to any man.-approx. “Cold”) tried to clarify his position on a number of topics and respond to numerous accusations from the authorities. But, perhaps, this was his mistake: he put himself in the position of justifying, while in politics, especially before decisive elections, it is customary to go on the offensive.

What did the opposition not enough?

“A catastrophic earthquake could end the rule of Erdogan. And now he is on the verge of victory, ” the headline on the website of the American television channel CNN read three days before the second round.

In the first and second rounds, the injured areas voted for Erdogan. Apparently, a factor that is called a “union around the flag” worked here, when national grief makes people rely on power and trust it. The positions of the authorities in these regions have always been stable, but we must admit that the help of the victims was organized well, and this had an effect.

In the second round, Erdogan even strengthened the result in the earthquake zone: 75.8% versus 71.9% in the province of Kazakhmanmarash, 62.7% versus 59.8% in Gaziantep, 64.8% against 62% in Chantlyurf.

Perhaps if Kemal Kylychdaroglu drove through these cities over the past two weeks, the situation would be different. The opposition could convince the inhabitants that in such large -scale destruction there is the fault of Erdogan himself, who issued the so -called construction amnesties (exemption from fines for construction with violations. - approx. "Cold") .

But he did not go to Kamhramanmarash or Shanlyurf, but to Hatai - the only province in the defeat zone that is considered opposition. Local voters disappointed the opposition in the first round, casting 48.08% of Klychdaroglu votes and 48.03% - Erdogan. After that, angry comments even appeared on social networks allegedly from supporters of the opposition that they were in vain for helping Hatai. “No one has the right to tell the victims of the earthquake that they voted wrong,” Kylychdaroglu later justified. - Which one of the Chp (Kylychdaroglu party. - Approx. "Cold") did this? If we find, we will immediately exclude it! Someone is engaged in manipulations. "

One way or another, according to the results of the second round, even Hatay was painted over with a “pro -government” orange color: Erdogan scored 50.14%there.

The results of the voting of foreign voters are also unsuccessful for the opposition. In the first and second rounds, they on average gave a little less than 60% of the vote to Erdogan and a little less than 40% - Kylychdaroglu. True, if the turnout inside Turkey exceeded 85%, in foreign plots it was only 53–55%. This left hope for new votes of younger people who support the opposition , but did not come to the first round. But it did not materialize: there was no serious mobilization of the diaspora, although nothing prevented one of the opposition leaders from collecting a rally, for example, in Berlin - about a million potential voters live in Germany.

Is it possible to assume how Erdogan’s victory will affect the future of the country and relations with Russia?

You should not wait for special changes. Türkiye will still be a link between Putin Russia and the West: through it it will be possible to get into the Schengen zone or import sanctions, sometimes very important, such as spare parts for machines and medical equipment.

If you look for good news in what happened, then the victory of Erdogan means maintaining the usual site for negotiations between Moscow and Kiev - it was not for nothing that Putin and Zelensky have already been congratulated by the President of Turkey.

After all the statements of Kylychdarogl about Russian intervention, there could be no question of any trust in the Kremlin in case of his victory. So, inevitable negotiations at the end of the war would have to be held in Saudi Arabia, Israel, India or Brazil. All these options look overly exotic, and this may be prevented from concentrating on the main goal.

But there is a sad outcome. The most ambitious and successful project for the association of the opposition against Autocrat in the election failed. Nationalists, Islamists, left -wing and liberals spent a bunch of strength to temporarily reject all the differences and achieve a common goal, but even they did not succeed. What then to expect from similar attempts in post -Soviet countries, where there is even more administrative and media resource in power, and the judicial system is even weaker?

By the way, both Kemal Kylychdaroglu and his associates promised to continue opposition activities. It will be interesting to see if they can not quarrel, sharing responsibility for the defeat.

When oppositionists lose in the national elections, they usually relieve municipal. The next election of mayors is scheduled for 2024, and if Erdogan supporters take the posts of mayors of Istanbul and Ankara, the defeat of the opposition can be considered fatal.

And what about the Turkish economy?

So far, you can only evaluate the results of the first day of exchange trading after the election: the Turkish lyre continued to fall in relation to the dollar. Although Erdogan, speaking that night in front of the supporters, assured that everything would be exactly the opposite. “We are forming an economy imprisoned for investments and employment with a team of financial managers who have an international reputation,” he said, while voicing a very strange thesis, supposedly to reduce inflation should lead to a decrease in the basic interest rate (a reduction in the rate usually, on the contrary, accelerates inflation, as there is more money in the economy. Over the past two years, this figure in Turkey has been reduced from 19% to 8%, and inflation only grew.

It is logical that oppositionists predict a further deterioration in the economic situation and claim that the Erdogan team will not cope with growing problems.