12 May 2023
Turkey’s Ruling Alliance Ahead of the Upcoming Elections: Omnipotent or Frail?
Turkey 2023: the nation heads to the polls amid an uncertain future
Sinem Adar
Only a few days ahead of Turkey’s historically decisive dual elections, the country’s ruling alliance has arguably never been this fragile. The economy is shattering. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s stubborn insistence on keeping interest rates low has tightened credit and slowed down growth. Resources are drying up. Prices increase daily. Turkey’s ruling elites struggle to keep exchange rates stable. Unsure of what tomorrow holds Turkish citizens are hoarding gold. Those who run the election campaign of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) are aware that voters need to be convinced. This sentiment was highlighted in one of the campaign videos where the owner of a grocery store reasons with a young couple who look surprised that he would vote for the AKP again. Everything in the video, except for the prices which are hidden out of sight, looks jovial.
Is the king naked?
Another factor to consider during this pre-election season is the devastating earthquake that affected around 13 million people back in early February in a region which constitutes 7,5 per cent of the Turkish economy. Even though the earthquake does not seem to have led to a significant decrease in voter support, the government’s late, inadequate, and partisan response is not easy to forget, at least for those who lost their homes and loved ones. After all, they did see the king naked.
Still, it is uncertain whether the ruling elites who are caught by hubris syndrome are aware. Ahead of the elections, they boast about Turkey’s home-grown products. Citizens are constantly reminded of Erdoğan’s strong leadership, which represents and protects everything “authentic and national” (yerli ve milli). The campaign video on Hagia Sophia, the status of which was reverted in 2020 into a mosque, a long-lasting demand among Turkey’s Islamists and pious nationalists, is the perfect example of this.
A de facto referendum on Erdoğan rule
Relying on militaristic, cultural, and nationalistic tropes, such politics of emotions paint the image of an omnipotent president. Indeed, he is powerful with almost unchecked power over institutions. Without his approval, the system is paralyzed. After all, even ministers ask for his forgiveness when they must leave office. The system demands loyalty to the president.
Still, Erdoğan is frail. His space for political manoeuvre is, surprisingly, narrower than it was in the parliamentary system. Despite being the largest party in terms of vote shares, the AKP needs to rely on the support of the ultranationalist Devlet Bahçeli and his party (and now also other far-right parties) to have its founder and leader get elected as the president. Furthermore, he must also confront a united opposition that came together on the basis of their objection to the presidential system. The presidential election on May 14 is a de facto referendum on Erdoğan’s rule.
A ruling alliance that lacks unity
Arguably, none of these would have been a major problem if Turkey’s one-man rule was able to stabilize. The political regime is as fragmented as it is centralized. The presence of competing cliques within the regime creates an atmosphere of distrust. Despite the relative calm projected by campaign videos that showcase the regime’s power, there is an underlying contradiction with the increasingly aggressive behaviour of the elites which are trying hard to stigmatize and criminalize the opposition. These actions are symptomatic of the regime’s crisis-ridden state.
For Turkey’s ruling elites today, costs of leaving office are understandably high. In the case of defeat, they will lose status and prestige. Yet, political status is perhaps not even the most significant loss.
Access to public resources is also at stake. The municipal elections in 2019 were a bad omen in this sense. Shortly after he won the controversial rerun of Istanbul’s election, the mayor of Istanbul Ekrem İmamoğlu cut funds amounting to 357 million Turkish liras transferred to foundations affiliated with Erdoğan’s family. During the AKP’s uninterrupted tenure in the last two decades, the president has, thanks to the increasingly blurred boundaries between his party and the state, created a patronage network to sustain mass and elite support. The construction bids that were rapidly distributed to the associates in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake are the most recent examples of this.
Patronage comes with corruption. In a recent video, a member of Erdoğan’s inner circle accused him of accepting a generous bribe in the distribution of the 3 billion USD bid for building and operating Antalya’s airport for 15 years. Given the widespread misconduct and corruption also among bureaucratic cadres, the possibility of facing trial in the case of a defeat raises the stakes for the ruling alliance.
A societal cry-out for change
Yet, the demands for change from the people is equally strong, providing Erdoğan’s main challenger Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu with a significant momentum. In today’s Turkey, societal opposition seems to steer political opposition. Voters across the political spectrum humbly embrace Kılıçdaroğlu. Take the excited attention he receives at his rallies in the Kurdish cities, for instance. Or think of the support that the graduates of Turkey’s most-known religious high school (from which Erdoğan’s son graduated as well) gave to Kılıçdaroğlu in an open letter a couple of weeks ago. The opposition is not devoid of issues and is far from being coherent. Still, for the first time in years, it is no longer in the defensive.
Against this backdrop, it should not come as a surprise that Turkey’s ruling elites try to create a pretext to render an opposition victory illegitimate by tainting it as a “coup attempt” or an “invasion”. Given their pre-existing efforts to rig the elections, thanks to a system that disproportionately favours Erdoğan and his alliance, it should be taken for granted that on election day and the following couple of days there will be a struggle between an incoherent ruling alliance and an opposition that promises to put an end to personalized power.
A choice between authoritarianism and democratic potential, the outcome of the upcoming Turkish elections will be shaped by Turkish citizens’ determination to vote and defend their vote.
Sinem Adar
Associate Researcher for the German Institute for International and Security Affairs
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