Turkish opposition leader ready to challenge Erdogan
2023.03.07 02:36
Turkish opposition leader ready to challenge Erdogan
By Ray Johnson
Budrigannews.com – Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the opposition in Turkey, has spent his entire career living in Tayyip Erdogan’s shadow. After repeatedly losing elections and being derided by the man who has ruled politics for two decades, Kilicdaroglu believes that his time may have come.
On Monday, the chairman of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), Kilicdaroglu, was chosen by an opposition alliance as its candidate to challenge President Erdogan in elections on May 14 that are thought to be among the most significant in modern Turkey’s history.
A last-minute agreement to reunite an opposition bloc that had split on Friday over whether he should be the candidate may have improved his chances.
After a political drama that lasted for 72 hours, the six parties came to an agreement that, if he defeated Erdogan, the popular mayors of Istanbul and Ankara would be his vice presidents.
Kilicdaroglu would also be taking advantage of the opposition’s victory in local elections in 2019 when the CHP defeated Erdogan’s AK Party (AKP) in Istanbul and other major cities with support from other opposition parties.
Kilicdaroglu has an advantage because Erdogan’s support has waned as a result of the cost-of-living crisis, which has occurred amid years of widespread inflation and economic turmoil.
“We will rule Turkey with consultations and compromise,” Kilicdaroglu told the cheering crowd outside the headquarters of the opposition bloc’s Felicity Party, one of six parties.
“We will lay out the standard of ethical quality and equity together,” he said.
Kilicdaroglu’s critics claim that he lacks Erdogan’s ability to unite and captivate audiences and that he lacks a clear or convincing vision for the future.
According to Gonul Tol, head of the Turkey program at the Washington-based think tank Middle East Institute, his backers underscore his reputation as an ethical bureaucrat.
He is not a dishonest person. She stated, “He doesn’t steal.”
“He is the right man because he wants to end his political career as the one who has revived Turkish democracy,”
According to polls, the presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkey will decide not only who will lead the country but also how it is run, where its economy is headed, and what role it may play in easing tensions in Ukraine and the Middle East.
However, many people are concerned about whether the sincere and occasionally obstinate former civil servant will be able to defeat Erdogan, the country’s longest-serving leader whose campaigning charisma has contributed to more than a dozen victories in elections over the past two decades.
His nomination comes a month after two massive earthquakes destroyed the southeast of Turkey and sparked outrage against the government for its inadequate response to the disaster and years of poor building standards.
Since the earthquakes, the first polls had shown that Erdogan was able to keep most of his support despite the disaster. Analysts, on the other hand, believe that the strongman will face a greater obstacle if a united opposition emerges, even if it takes longer than expected to select its candidate.
Since 2018, Erdogan’s unconventional economic policies, such as cutting interest rates when inflation reached 85 percent last year, have put pressure on households and sparked a string of currency crashes.
The difficulty provides Kilicdaroglu, a former economist, with a historic opportunity to end Erdogan’s reign, which began when the AKP first came to power in 2002.
He ran for parliament in that election for the center-left CHP, a party founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk that has struggled to reach out beyond its secularist grassroots to more conservative Turks.
In recent years, he has stated that he wants to mend old wounds with Kurds and devoted Muslims, including groups in Diyarbakir that he met and admitted that the CHP had upset in the past.
However, Kilicdaroglu has had difficulty maintaining momentum. Recent polls showed that, since the summer, measures like raising the minimum wage had helped Erdogan gain support.
According to Nezih Onur Kuru, a researcher, Kilicdaroglu took on a more combative tone following the earthquake, which helped him establish his own base. However, it prevented him from influencing undecided voters.
“In times of crisis, center and right-wing voters, who make up over 60% of the electorate, look to politicians for messages that are unified and focused on results. Kuru, of the research company Toplumsal Etki Arastirmalari Merkezi (TEAM), stated, “Klicdaroglu did not do this.”
“That did not help the opposition as a whole.”
As the CHP’s anti-graft campaigner, Kilicdaroglu became well-known for presenting dossiers against officials on television, prompting notable resignations. He ran unsuccessfully for the CHP’s Istanbul mayoral nomination in 2009.
He was elected unopposed as CHP leader the following year after his predecessor resigned amid scandal.
A campaign song describing him as “a clean and honest” man was played to a packed hall at that party convention.
Kilicdaroglu, clad in a black blazer and a striped shirt, addressed the cheering crowd, ” We will soon be in charge. We are coming to defend the rights of workers, laborers, the oppressed, and the poor.
His election fueled party hopes for a fresh start, but CHP support has not exceeded 25% since.
Still, it is thought that Kilicdaroglu quietly reformed the party, promoting members who were thought to be more in line with European social democratic values and excluding hardcore “Kemalists” who held to a rigid version of Ataturk’s ideas.
A “static political culture” has prevented Kilicdaroglu from fully transforming the CHP, according to political commentator Murat Yetkin.
Kilicdaroglu, 74, previously held positions in the finance ministry and chaired Turkey’s Social Insurance Institution for the majority of the 1990s. Erdogan frequently criticizes his performance in that role in speeches.
He is a civil servant’s son and an Alevi, a group that makes up 15-20% of Turkey’s 85 million people and practices a faith based on Shi’ite Muslim, Sufi, and Anatolian folk traditions. He was born in the eastern province of Tunceli.
Kilicdaroglu has acknowledged that he is Alevi, but he generally stays away from the topic. Alevis disagree with the majority Sunni Muslims in the country because of their beliefs.
He was dubbed “Gandhi Kemal” by the Turkish media because of his diminutive, bespectacled appearance. In 2017, he started his 450-kilometer “March for Justice” from Ankara to Istanbul to protest the arrest of a CHP deputy.
In the general elections of 2018, Kilcdaroglu orchestrated the CHP alliance with IYI and the Felicity Party, paving the way for success in the local elections the following year.
In Erdogan’s most memorable significant blow as AKP pioneer, the CHP won mayoralties in Istanbul, Ankara and different urban communities because of the collusion and backing of citizens from a major supportive of Kurdish party.
However, Emre Peker, Europe Director at Eurasia Group, stated that Kilicdaroglu may struggle to replicate the victory in 2019 on the national stage, where the CHP’s previous election defeats loom large.
He stated, “Erdogan will portray Kilicdaroglu as a loser.”
