Turkish Elections: Erdogan pips clueless opposition despite economic headwinds, preps for larger global role

Recep Tayyip Erdogan won the election for another five-year term as President.

Defying most predictions, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan managed to win another five-year term. It was expected that his opponents would unite against Erdogan in the second round run-off thus ending his 20-year rule. But Erdogan’s clever election strategy did not allow the opposition to unite and left it even more fragmented and clueless after the first round.

In the end, Erdogan managed to win 52.15 percent votes against 47.85 percent for Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the joint opposition candidate. The opposition had seemed reinvigorated and closer to power during the election campaign, only to fall apart.

Nationalism Before Economy

But there’s consensus that the unabashed support of Western governments and western media for Kilicdaroglu came in handy for Erdogan to inflame nationalist sentiments. This helped him distract attention from high inflation, a weakening economy, and steep increases in the prices of essential goods.

Even before the pandemic, the economy had shrunk by 10 percent. In recent months, foreign reserves have depleted faster. Besides runaway inflation, there is capital flight, rise in unemployment, and even fears over food security. Erdogan, however, managed to keep all this under wraps. He repeatedly warned enthusiastic crowds of the West's interference in Türkiye's domestic politics by reminding them of US President Biden's 2020 interview to the New York Times, where he said he would encourage the Turkish opposition to defeat Erdogan at the ballot box.

"Biden gave the instruction that we must overthrow Erdogan. I know this. All my people know this. The voters will give Biden the answer," was Erdogan’s constant refrain at campaign events. Historically, nationalism is a potent force for Türkiye, as the country has been attacked from its northern and southern borders by Russia and Western powers, respectively.

While doing my journalistic routine by enquiring from people about their voting mood at the city centre of the capital Ankara, many people told me on my face that they would not talk to a foreign journalist about the elections, which were their internal affairs. They could make out from my broken Turkish that I was a foreigner.

No Political Earthquake

Another opposition miscalculation was the impression that eleven earthquake-affected provinces in southeastern Türkiye will punish Erdogan for ineffectiveness and not initiating rescue operations in time. An earthquake of almost similar magnitude in 1999 which struck Türkiye's Kocaeli province had unseated then Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit.

Erdogan, then an opposition leader, had fuelled public resentment and come to power in 2002 by exploiting the mismanagement, clumsy and slow governmental response, and corruption charges against the army-backed Democratic Left Party.

On a parallel note, the 2001 earthquake in Bhuj, Gujarat, which killed 20,000 people forced then-Chief Minister Keshevbhai Patel to vacate his post for Narendra Modi within months while facing similar charges. Since then, Modi has also not looked back.

The Turkish opposition tried to use Erdogan’s 1999-2002 strategy against him. But what saved Erdogan was his shrewd move not to oblige his own ruling AK Party leaders to defer elections by a year. He, in fact, advanced elections by a month.

Impact On Geopolitics

The bigger question now is what these elections will mean for Türkiye and the world. Türkiye’s geostrategic position makes it an important player, not only for the region but for the entire world. These elections were touted as the most important event of 2023.

Erdogan's return, while signifying continuity in the policy of rapprochement in the neighbourhood and the Middle East, is bad news for the West, as the push for allowing Sweden to join NATO will have to wait. Erdogan's aggressive foreign policy had raised Türkiye’s profile abroad but also led to sharp differences with NATO and Western allies.

Erdogan's desire to lead the Muslim world had taken a back seat over the past year due to economic problems and his failure to create a sympathetic block within the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), where even Pakistan, its all-weather friend, backed out. This has led to a thaw with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, who were initially feeling threatened by Erdogan.

With the mediation of Russia and Saudi Arabia, the possibility of a similar thaw in relations with Syria looms. Defence ministers and intelligence officials from both countries have recently held several rounds of talks in Moscow, suggesting that an end to the conflict in Syria is on the horizon. A summit meeting between Erdogan and his Syrian counterpart Bashar al Assad is only a matter of time.

Rebuilding Bridges

In its bid to become the leader of the Muslim world, Türkiye under Erdogan had also created a stir in India. He is preparing to travel to India to attend the G20 summit in September. As a result, a process has already begun in Ankara to tone down the rhetoric on Kashmir and on other internal issues of India.

In recent months, several things have happened, such as the resumption of Foreign ministry consultations after many years and India's assistance following the earthquake. Türkiye also sent aid during the second wave of COVID-19 in India. All of these packages included a poem by Rumi: "There is hope after despair, there are many suns after darkness."

Even when relations between the two countries soured, the bilateral trade between the two countries saw a 100 percent increase crossing $10.70 billion in 2021-22 from just $5 billion in 2020-21. Indian companies have invested about $126 million in Türkiye, as per Central Bank of Türkiye data. Turkish investment in India accounted for about $210.47 million.

As the revival of the economy will be paramount, the next government in Türkiye will try to mend fences in the neighbourhood, maintain strategic autonomy in the Russian-Ukrainian war, and also reach out to Western allies to get investment. For the West, too, despite all the rhetoric so far, there is no other way but to work with Erdogan.

Iftikhar Gilani is a journalist currently based in Ankara, Turkiye. Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.