Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has declared that the local elections scheduled for March 31 will be his last, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported on Friday.
This is the end game for me, based on the mandate given by the law, this is my last choice
Erdogan said. “The result will be a legacy for my brothers who come after me,” Anadolu quoted him as saying.
According to an article by The Jerusalem Post, Erdogan is the most successful politician in modern Turkey, having led the country for more than two decades. He has won more than a dozen elections since 2002, and was re-elected for a five-year term in fierce elections in May 2023.
Cracks in the system
The 2023 elections were the first in the more than twenty years of Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian regime, when a second round had to be held, as none of the candidates achieved a 50 percent majority in the first. A six-party coalition was formed against the reigning president, which although it could not replace the system, it squeezed it much more With presidential candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu at the helm. The situation was otherwise very similar to what we saw in Hungary, when the six-party collaboration led by Péter Márki-Zay tried to defeat Viktor Orbán in the elections.
Before the elections, Erdogan was already struggling with serious external and internal crises, the Turkish economy was at its lowest point, inflation was skyrocketing, corruption was constantly standing in the way of development, and the country was also hit by natural disasters. Despite this, he already collected 52.16 percent of the votes in the second round, thereby maintaining his position at the top of the country.
It would have taken a miracle for the opposition to win anyway, especially since the voters of the far-right Sinan Ogan, who received the fewest votes in the first round, preferred Erdogan’s party in the second round, and this meant millions of extra votes for the reigning president. Also, the strong-handed leadership emphasized in his campaign was more sympathetic to the voters than the “chosen-chosen” opposition, which was drawn in several directions due to ideological differences.
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2024-03-09 16:39:51