Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, leader of the CHP and main challenger of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for the presidency of Turkey – © BFA-Basin Photo Ajansi/Shutterstock
On May 14 we vote for political and presidential elections in Türkiye. A large part of the opposition managed to unite in the “Table of Six” with the aim of defeating the current president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and blocking the authoritarian drift in the country
Turkey is preparing to face what is probably the most important electoral event in its history. The presidential and parliamentary consultations called for May 14 by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, leader of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), could cement the Turkish head of state’s regime, making its authoritarian traits even tougher and more marked. But they could also lead to a return to a more liberal political system, as a sign of the rediscovery of democratic dialogue, if the fragmented opposition manages to maintain a united front until the end of these consultations, obtaining the majority of votes to form a new government led by by a new president.
Erdoğan’s main opponent is Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, leader of the CHP (Republican People’s Party) since 2010, candidate for president of the so-called “Table of Six” (Six Tables), also known as the “Alliance of the nation” (Nation Alliance), consisting of six parties of different ambitions and political orientations, united with the central goal of ending the 20-year rule of Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP). The historic opportunity is also the result of widespread citizen frustration after years of economic turmoil, deep social divisions and, more recently, the government’s delayed response to the devastating earthquakes in early February that killed more than 50,000 people and left millions homeless.
The Table of Six
In addition to the centre-left CHP, the coalition is formed by the nationalist Good Party (IYIP-Good Party), from the Islamist Happiness Party (Felicity Party), from the Democratic Party (Democratic Partycentre-right. A first alliance formed by these four parties had initially been formed in 2018, on the occasion of the 2019 local elections, and had represented a winning move, given the electoral result that led to two crucial cities such as Istanbul and Ankara switching from Erdoğan’s AKP to CHP mayors. For this reason, the alliance was reunited and enlarged in March 2022, with the arrival of the Party of the Future (Future Party) and the Party of Democracy and Progress (DEVA Party) – centre-right formations, founded respectively by two former top names of the AKP, the former prime minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and the former economy minister, Ali Babacan.
Such a union of disparate political positions led to several months of negotiations to create a joint agenda aimed primarily at establishing a new form of government, putting an end to the presidential system introduced in 2017. According to opposition parties, the current system, which sees the concentration of executive power in the hands of the president, has contributed to the authoritarian trend and polarization of the country. The suggested solution to restore the mechanisms of checks and balances and return to having a functioning parliament is to reintroduce the parliamentary system, which this time we would like to ‘strengthened’, i.e. based on the institution of constructive distrust, and to establish a figure of super partes and non-partisan president – therefore diametrically opposed to the figure of the current president.
Precisely on the choice of the common presidential candidate, at the beginning of March, the “Table of Six” was severely tested following the attempt by Meral Akşener, leader of IYIP – the second strongest party in the alliance – to impose the candidacy of other two popular figures of the CHP – Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu or Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavaş replaced Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, arguing that his party’s electoral base did not see Kılıçdaroğlu’s candidacy well. But the tactic of the IYIP leader, who has also temporarily left the alliance, has not had the desired effect. Facing the rest of the opposition and the CHP mayors united around the figure of Kılıçdaroğlu, Meral Akşener returned to the “Table”, however obtaining that the two mayors cover the position of vice presidents in case of victory of the opposition. If Kılıçdaroğlu wins, the leaders of the other five parties will also become vice presidents, while each party will occupy at least one ministry. The rest of the cabinet posts will be distributed according to each party’s share of the popular vote.
Surveys
According to the average of 11 recent polls the percentage points of the ‘Table of 6′ would not be sufficient to obtain victory, since it would remain around 45%, while the candidate for president would have to receive at least 50%+1 of the votes to be elected in the first round. The essential contribution, in this case, will depend on the pro-Kurdish and left-wing Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), the third party in parliament since 2015 but demonized and accused by the government of having a direct link with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
An imminent ruling by the Constitutional Court is also hanging over the head of the HDP, which will decide whether or not the party will be banned. At the end of March, the co-leaders of the party, Pervin Buldan and Mithat Sancar, met Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, whose openness to dialogue contributed to the HDP’s decision not to present a presidential candidate in the elections, effectively endorsing the leader’s candidacy CHP, which could thus reach around 55% of the preferences, also with the contribution of the Workers’ Party of Turkey (TIP) and other small left-wing parties with which the HDP forms a third alliance, that of ‘Labour and freedom” (Labor and Freedom Alliance).
On the opposite side, the AKP alone continues to register 32.8% of the vote – although according to polling companies close to the party, the figure rises to over 40% – while the MHP (Nationalist Action Party), its main ally, continues to lose votes in favor of the nationalist formations of the opposition, reaching around 6.5%.
Erdoğan’s moves
Faced with this scenario, to strengthen the People’s Alliance (People’s Alliance) whose strings he pulls, Erdoğan has moved to deepen his alliances with the Islamist right. On the one hand, he has started courting the New Welfare Party (The Welfare Party Again), renewed version of the Islamist and nationalist Welfare of which the Turkish president was a member and among whose ranks he was elected mayor of Istanbul back in 1994 and then distanced himself from it and founded the AKP in 2001 – then defined as ‘democratic conservative’. The son of the founder of WelfareFatih Erbakan, leader of the new formation, first rejected the alliance offer – stating that his party “would not have committed a twenty-year sin” – before accepting.
Erdoğan then also obtained the external support of Hüda Par (The Party of the Free Cause), an Islamist Kurdish party formation, whose connections with the Hizbullah terrorist group – responsible for atrocious crimes which in the late 1990s saw among its victims the feminist writer Konca Guriş and the Diyarbakır Gaffar police chief Okkan – have been repeatedly highlighted by the local press. Party leader Zekeriya Yapıcıoğlu has so far asked and obtained that 47 articles in which such connections were mentioned were blocked by the court, based on the violation of “privacy” and “personal rights”.
The two new government allies have positions that openly question women’s rights, as well as the amendment of Law 6284 on the Protection of the Family and the Prevention of Violence against Women – stemming from the Istanbul Convention from which Turkey withdrew in 2021. This is a precondition imposed by the New Welfare Party and endorsed by Hüda Par which has also sparked protests among some AKP female deputies . According to some local media, behind the close alliance between the AKP and the Islamist parties – whose preferences are around 1.5% and 0.3% respectively – we note the importance given by the AKP even to the slightest support that can reach to the coalition led by Erdoğan, although some observers note that such an alliance can cause adverse reactions among female party supporters.
Both Kılıçdaroğlu’s coalition and Erdoğan’s coalition aim to win the election in the first round. But it is not excluded that we can go to the ballot. One factor that could compromise the success of the “Table of 6” is the country’s Party (Country Party), led by Muammer İnce, the third presidential candidate. İnce was already a candidate for president of the CHP in 2018, managing to catalyze 30% of the preferences, but he lost the graces of his supporters after he literally disappeared from circulation when it was clear that he had won Erdoğan. İnce was later ousted from the party due to internal strife and lost much of his popularity. Last month, however, some polls gave his party between 2 and 5.6% of the vote. Votes that would be stolen from the opposition front, eroding Kılıçdaroğlu’s chance of winning in the first round. It is no coincidence that the pro-government media continue to devote ample space to İnce.
The contest between the opposition and the executive is once again dominated by large imbalances in terms of access to resources and the media. Several jurists have also pointed out that according to the constitution, President Erdoğan – already elected in 2014 and 2018 – could not even run for a third time. The government – with the endorsement of the Higher Electoral Council – says the system ‘reset to zero’ after the transition to the presidential system in 2017 and the opposition had to cash in. The electoral campaign has just begun, the victory for the AKP this time is not at all obvious and in the next month and a half it is reasonable to expect other twists and turns.
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