Haaretz Analysis | With his Future in Doubt, Erdogan Doubles Down on Identity Politics

 Haaretz 

Analysis | With his Future in Doubt, Erdogan Doubles Down on Identity Politics

If the opposition wins the May 14 elections, Turkey could see the end of its presidential regime and a return to a parliamentary system. Erdogan is going low to prevent that

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his wife waving to supporters in Ankara last week.Credit: Adem Altan/AFP

A photo of Dr. Zvi Bar'el.

May 5, 2023

Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu set his sights on the political enemy: a commercial for a Turkish hair products company. In the spot, a woman is asked, “How natural is your hair care?” She replies, “As natural as concentrating on my career.”

A second woman, who's out with friends, says her hair care is as natural as female friends spending some time together in the evening. That was all Soylu needed to declare war on this alleged attempt to promote lesbian relationships.

“A commercial like this, which aims to violate the values of our society, can't be tolerated,” said Soylu, who added that he had spoken with the Turkish trade minister about banning the commercial.

Soylu is known for his anti-LGBTQ positions. About a year ago he called homosexuality “cultural terror,” and two years ago he accused foreign governments and organizations of supporting LGBTQ groups in Turkey.

Now, ahead of the country's parliamentary and presidential elections on May 14, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his interior minister are aiming their homophobic arrows at opposition leaders.

Supporters of Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the presidential candidate of Turkey's main opposition alliance, at a rally late last month in Tekirdag west of Istanbul.Credit: Murad Sezer/Reuters

“Don’t listen to these LGBT people,” Erdogan said in a speech late last month. “You shouldn’t stand against the family. The CHP is pro-LGBT, the [nationalist] Iyi Party is pro-LGBT and the HDP is pro-LGBT.” The CHP, the Republican People’s Party, is the largest opposition party, while the HDP is the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party.

Erdogan actually isn't known for homophobia, but in the current election campaign, too much hangs in the balance. The threat from the opposition is the greatest since Erdogan took office in 2003, and the opinion polls don't bode well for him.

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According to the latest polls for the presidential election, the head of the bloc of six opposition parties, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, is leading 47.4 percent to 44.4 percent, meaning Erdogan could face a runoff. So in such a close race, he's opting for identity politics.

Homophobia is just one component of Turkey's identity politics. In a video released last month, Kilicdaroglu revealed that he's an Alevi, setting off a storm because Sunni Muslims don't consider Turkey's Alevis true Muslims. The Alevis and Syria's Alawites have their roots in Shi’ite Islam, but their religious practices and beliefs are different.

There are between 10 million and 15 million Alevis in Turkey, a country of around 85 million people. So their electoral power is solid, even if they don't enjoy the status of a separate religion.

Open gallery view

Erdogan speaking to supporters in Izmir on the Aegean coast late last month.

Erdogan speaking to supporters in Izmir on the Aegean coast late last month.Credit: Presidential Press Office/Reuters

Erdogan, who has recognized Alevi houses of worship and has even considered granting the tradition official status, responded cautiously at first to Kilicdaroglu’s announcement. But this week he did what he could with it.

“Who asked you if you were an Alevi or not? We respect the Alevis, too. We have respect for every kind,” Erdogan said at a campaign rally Sunday, using a word that can also mean species. “You live your Alevism, but there’s no need to talk about it.”

Meral Aksener, the leader of the opposition Iyi Party, responded: “We're all human beings, Sunnis or Alevis. The president of the country calls us a species. Are we animals or plants? We're human beings, created by God.”

When identity politics plays into the hands of Erdogan’s opponents, his Justice and Development Party uses the term “enemies from abroad” – enemies out to destroy the country. This is akin to Erdogan's accusations against Western countries for allegedly aiding the coup attempt of July 15, 2016.

As Soylu, the interior minister, put it, “July 15 was a de facto coup attempt, and May 14 will be a political coup attempt. This coup attempt can be carried out by bringing together all the attempts to annihilate Turkey. … I’m not the one saying it: The person who is now the leader of the United States said it years ago. When all the methods they used failed, they said they could take over Turkey this way.”

As Erdogan added this week, “My nation will never hand over this country to someone who becomes president with the support of Qandil.” He was referring to the Qandil Mountains, the home turf of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the PKK. This is also where Turkey has been conducting a bloody war for around 40 years.

An easy target

To Erdogan, all opposition members – not just the pro-Kurdish party that decided not to run a candidate for president – are the allies of the PKK, which is designated as a terrorist organization in Turkey.

The leader of the HDP, the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, is in custody and Erdogan has no intention of releasing him before the elections. Some Kurdish lawmakers have been indicted for “supporting terrorism,” and only the Constitutional Court prevented Erdogan from revoking the funding the party is entitled to by law.

The HDP came in third place in the 2018 election with 12 percent of the vote, and this year the party might even do better. Plus the electoral threshold has been lowered to 7 percent from 10 percent.

One might have thought the HDP would join the opposition bloc, but this would be like the Arab Israeli parties officially joining Israel's opposition bloc. This could harm the opposition's patriotic image, especially when it needs to counter Erdogan's allegations that the opposition supports Kurdish terrorism.

But Erdogan's image war has run smack into reality. The election will see about 5 million first-time voters, young people many of whom are mired in unemployment; the number for the whole country is currently just under 10 percent, around 3.5 million people. Inflation may have sunk to half its peak in October, when it reached 85.5 percent, but even at its current level it's wildly eating away at the Turkish lira's purchasing power.

Erdogan’s monetary policy – he forced the central bank to cut interest rates despite the double-digit inflation – didn't deliver the goods; the promises of economic prosperity were merely words. The brain drain has turned into a torrent, and this year the government has also had to handle the February earthquake that killed more than 45,000 and left millions homeless.

Erdogan promised to build a million homes within a year for the homeless; overall damages after the quake are estimated at around $35 billion. But very little has been done to clear the ruins and put up temporary shelters.

The government may have launched an investigation to find out who's responsible for the enormous damage, but it's actually Erdogan and his government who for years neglected the regions that suffered in the earthquake. For one thing, they exempted certain contractors from the country's strict building standards.

Instead, the government has been good at repressing any sign of criticism. Journalists, lawyers and rights activists who reported on the poor performance after the earthquake faced indictments for “spreading fake news” and “causing panic.”

According to Bianet, an opposition news agency, 195 journalists were put on trial in the first three months of this year, and 187 websites and social media accounts were blocked. And these numbers don't include last week's doings: About 126 activists, journalists and lawyers who support the pro-Kurdish party were arrested.

Opposition leaders have warned that there could be cyberattacks during the election, or Erdogan could resort to tricks like sudden power outages or provocations at polling places. This could get the elections canceled in some or all regions if the results aren't going his way.

“This is a war of political life or death, and Erdogan has all the means to turn these elections into a farce,” a Turkish journalist who requested anonymity told Haaretz. “I’m not sure that Erdogan himself is aware of the extent of the rift between him and a large part of the public, especially the younger generation.”

The journalist mentioned the president's reaction after his side lost the 2019 municipal elections, in which opposition candidates won in Istanbul and Ankara. He appealed the results in Istanbul, which was won by Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, and forced a new vote that Imamoglu won too. At the end of last year, Imamoglu was convicted of “insulting electoral officials” and received two years, seven months and 15 days in prison, a sentence he's appealing.

But the elections for parliament and the presidency are different from the municipal elections. A major victory by the opposition could lead to the end of the presidential regime, a return to a parliamentary system and major changes to the constitution. Turkey’s foreign policy could also get a revisit.

The opposition just has to beat the man who has striven to position himself as an irreplaceable leader.

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