Turkish President Erdogan has won a third term. But in elections that were anything but fair, and with a choice of candidates that can best be described with the proverb about the devil and the deep blue sea.
Almost half (48 percent) of the voters spoke out against Erdogan. Even though he controlled the media to such an extent that his opponent only got a total of half an hour of TV time, and he bribed voters with gifts like wage increases and free gas. Yet, nearly half of the voters did not let themselves be influenced by this.
There was little choice for people who want change and progress, especially the youth. It was Erdogan with his nationalistic and anti-Kurdish rhetoric, who has ruined the economy and abandoned victims of the recent earthquake, against a hardliner courting the Turkish underbelly with his anti-refugee rhetoric.
Still, the turnout was 85 percent – unprecedentedly high compared to elections in many other countries, including Western ones. In neighboring Iraq, for example, barely 50 percent still comes out to vote. Does this mean that the majority of Turkish society is anti-Kurdish, Islamist, and xenophobic? Or did many voters close their eyes and hold their noses and pragmatically cast a vote against?
Fake news
If you look at the campaign of the past few weeks, it essentially already tells you what awaits Turkey in the coming years, and especially its progressive, secular part. Erdogan used fake news in the media controlled by him and claimed that his opponent Kilicdaroglu ‘is supported by terrorists’. Naturally, without giving him a platform to defend himself. Anyone who could have been a real threat has been eliminated; put in jail on usually unfounded accusations, fled abroad or is in court fighting against trumped-up accusations like the popular mayor of Istanbul.
This has become a country where it’s better to keep your opinion to yourself, Erdogan made clear immediately after his victory. And better not to be gay, or trans, or Kurdish. He called his opponents supporters of LGBT+ people and terrorist organizations. He promised that the Kurdish politician Demirtas will remain imprisoned as long as he is in power, even though the European Court of Human Rights has ordered him to release him.
He had his supporters jeer Kilicdaroglu: there was no overture to the loser, to that other half of the country who voted against him. They better watch out, was the unspoken message.
Nor is there a prospect for all those like Demirtas who are unjustly imprisoned. Journalists, lawyers, doctors, activists. While many regimes in the region that were no less autocratic than Erdogan’s chose to frequently declare amnesties (even Saddam Hussein in Iraq), Erdogan’s henchmen only devise new charges to keep innocents locked up longer.
Travel
Journalists who had hoped they could finally work a bit more carefree again, or that they might finally be able to travel to Turkey again, have been disappointed. ‘I found myself quietly bookmarking some tweets this morning rather than rt-ing them,’ said one of them, ‘welcome to the third decade of RTE rule in Turkey.’ Satellite station France24 even published a report from Kurdish Diyarbakir without the journalist’s name. That says a lot.
Nevertheless, from all sides congratulations went Erdogan’s way. EU leaders and the American Secretary of State Blinken say they look forward to continuing the relationship. After all, the EU still needs Erdogan to keep the borders closed to refugees. And the Americans who are cooperating in Northern Syria (against ISIS) with the same Kurds that Erdogan labels as terrorists, need the Turkish president’s help to finally complete the planned NATO expansion.
The Kurdish leaders of the ruling KDP (both the prime minister and the president) in the Kurdish Region of Iraq were among the first to congratulate Erdogan. They have, after all, tied their fate to him. The Kurdish economy is partially dependent on Turkish investors and trade. They have been waiting for two months now for their oil to flow through Turkish pipelines again (following an agreement with Baghdad, the ball is now in Turkey’s court). Turkish reluctance has already cost them 1.5 billion dollars. At the same time, they allow Erdogan to carry out attacks on members of the Turkish-Kurdish PKK who operate on Iraqi-Kurdish soil. At least, that is what it seems like, given that they do nothing to put an end to it.
Who else is happy about Erdogan staying on? That is a fine bunch, led by Russian president Putin, but also including Hamas, the Turkish Hizbollah, Turkish construction entrepreneurs who have not been penalized for violating construction regulations, causing houses to collapse during the earthquake, and Islamic fundamentalists, to name but a few.
Four percent
For Erdogan himself, the fact that there was only a four percent difference between him and his challenger must be painful. As is the fact that all major Turkish cities have slipped out of his hands. He knows that giving away a few gifts is insufficient to quell the discontent among many Turks about inflation, rising prices, and increasing poverty. He will also have to fulfill his promises to do something about the reconstruction in earthquake areas. With an empty treasury and a local currency that keeps devaluing, he will have a tough task ahead.
If he fails, and the chances are high given his catastrophic policy over the past years, Erdogan will likely look beyond the borders again and gather Turks around him as a leader of a ‘strong Turkey.’ He will be looking at Turkish-occupied territory in Syria, where he is building thousands of housing units with Qatar for Syrian refugees who have yet to return. The same Syrian refugees that his opponent promised to send home. Erdogan has seen that the subject can be used to pass the buck for his failures elsewhere.
Partly for this reason, he will not withdraw from Syria – but also because he does not seem inclined to strike a conciliatory tone with his own Kurdish citizens. For him, the PKK remains a group of terrorists, as he indicated in his victory speech, and to him this actually applies to anyone who supports them or perhaps even advocates for them. And so, also for the Kurdish self-government in Syria.
The first indications are already there: the office of the president announced that for the time being, there is no reconciliation to be expected with the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, while during the campaign a meeting with him was repeatedly hinted at. That won’t happen, is the message now. No wonder, as Assad only wanted to talk after Turkey had left Syria.
The result of the elections is that Erdogan has concluded that he can get away with his failing rule. And that he can thus continue and if necessary expand his relentless policy for the next five years. Anyone who has voted against him has been warned.
