The Turkish opposition has 10 weeks to overthrow Erdogan
“The Turkish opposition alliance announced on Monday its candidate for the presidential elections scheduled for May 14, with ten weeks ahead to defeat Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a goal that it has failed to achieve for two decades.”
The selection of Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the Republican People’s Party, almost caused the collapse of the opposition alliance. However, the leaders of the six parties in the alliance remained united on Monday evening when they announced their candidate’s name to the crowds in Ankara.
Kilicdar oglu, 74, said on Tuesday, “We are very close today to toppling the tyrants’ throne, believe me,” and pledged a complete change from Erdogan’s era.
Opinion polls expect that the upcoming elections will be the toughest for Erdogan since he took power in 2003.
But in the face of a president who promises to rebuild the areas destroyed by the February 6 earthquake that killed 46,000 people and displaced more than three million, the opposition will have to find the right path and remain united, as experts emphasize.
Seda Demiralp, a lecturer in political science at Istanbul Aydın University, told Agence France-Presse, “Currently, support for the [opposition and presidential] alliance is very close in most opinion polls.”
“Kilicdaroglu has become adept at building bridges between left and right-wing parties,” wrote Serin Selvin Korkmaz, director of the Istanbul research center, on Twitter, explaining that the Republican People’s Party was able to win Istanbul and Ankara in 2019 after they were previously held by the Justice and Development Party, thanks to the alliances formed by its leader with patience. This was a double bitter setback for Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
On Monday evening, one of the leaders of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party, Mithat Sancar, hinted that his party, which has so far stayed away from the opposition alliance due to the presence of the nationalist Good Party within its ranks, may call for support for Kemal Kilicdaroglu “to get rid of this government.”
The Peoples’ Democratic Party, the third party in the Turkish parliament, received approximately 12% of the votes in the 2018 legislative elections.
Johns Hopkins, director of the Turkey program at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said, “If the People’s Democratic Party follows this path, the opposition can win in the first round of elections.”
“Media Ban”
Note: This phrase could refer to a specific context or incident, as it is not clear from the given information.
It is also believed that winning can be achieved by gaining the support of the main mayors of Istanbul and Ankara, Ekrem Imamoglu and Mansur Yavas, who are from the Republican People’s Party, and some opposition supporters wanted them to run for the presidency, according to analysts.
A picture of Kemal Kilicdaroglu surrounded by the two men on Monday evening in front of large crowds gathered in front of their party headquarters in Ankara was published on the front page of the opposition newspaper “Cumhuriyet” on Tuesday.
As stipulated in the agreement signed by the leaders of the six parties in the opposition alliance, it is possible to appoint the mayors as deputy presidents in the event of Kilicdaroglu’s victory.
Joanna Paraszczuk said, “These three, with their progress as one team, will help mobilize large segments of the population in the country.”
President Erdogan will be able to rely on the media that declared their loyalty to him since he came to power. In the 2018 presidential elections, his main opponent, Muharrem Ince, denounced the “media ban” after all major Turkish TV channels refused to broadcast his first conference, while airing all of Erdogan’s speeches in full.
Seda Demiralp said, “But unlike what used to happen in the past, social media now plays an important role, especially among young people who rely on it primarily for information.”