2 023 marks the 100^th year of the founding of the Republic of Turkey. In 2023, the leader of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) Recep Tayyip Erdogan ruling since 2002, sums up the twenty years of governance, who took over the post of the Prime Minister of Turkey for the first time on March 14, 2003. However, the main event of the year is the presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled on May 14. The elections of the 13^th president of Turkey and the 28^th convocation Parliament claim to be the most dramatic and important in the history of the republic after 1950. 

Why are the 2023 elections important?

A KP, the locomotive of the current ruling People’s Alliance in Turkey and its leader Erdogan have long been preparing for 2023, as the centenary of the founding of the republic and the important year of summing up their political activities over the years. Back in 2011, during the campaign for the parliamentary elections, Erdogan made many economic and political promises with the slogan “Turkey is ready, the goal is 2023”, which he had to fulfill by 2023, emphasizing it as an important starting point for the rise of “New Turkey”, that is “Erdogan’s Turkey”. Erdogan emphasized the upcoming elections of that year and still emphasizes them as “a real crossroads in terms of the fate of Turkey and Turkish nation, beyond the future of the AKP and the People’s Alliance. In other words, he attaches great importance to which leader, which political force and by what system and vision Turkey will move to the new centenary. The question, whether he will be able to fully achieve the remaining goals, to fix the achievements and pass on the political legacy of his years to his acceptable successor with many messages to implement it in the future, will be decided as a result of these elections.   

The 2023 elections are no less important and have been expected since 2022 for the opposition parties defeated by R. T. Erdogan in 1 presidential (2018), 5 parliamentary (2002, 2007, 2011, 2015, 2018), 4 local elections (2004, 2009, 2014, 2019) and 3 referendums (2007, 2010, 2017). In the fight against Erdogan, who is still the only leader in the history of Turkey who has been in power longer than the founder of the republic Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and has offered a viable alternative to his political ideas and heritage, the opposition parties recorded tangible results in the 2019 local elections. In particular, these elections will be quite decisive for the opposition Nation Alliance, that has achieved success in the cities of Istanbul and Ankara, which are of symbolic importance for the political history of Turkey. This opposition alliance, consisting of six parties, has managed to nominate a single candidate: Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, leading the Republican People’s Party (CHP) since 2010 founded by Atatürk, who will be Erdogan’s main rival. In the hands of the Nation Alliance, the elections will somehow be a referendum, since the victory of this alliance envisages return to the parliamentary system of government.

How is the government preparing for the elections?

S ince 2018, the People’s Alliance (Cumhur İttifakı) has been ruling in Turkey, which was formed before the presidential and parliamentary elections held in the same year by the merge of the AKP and the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the leader of which is Devlet Bahceli. Later Mustafa Destici’s Greater Unity Party (BBP) joined the Alliance, the ideas of which fit into the framework of Turkish-Islamic synthesis. The People’s Alliance has no problem of deciding on a single candidate for the 2023 elections. It was clear that the alliance will nominate the figure, around the name of which it was united. Still a year before the elections, in June 2022, Erdogan announced, that he will be the joint candidate of the alliance. The MHP leader Bahceli, who earlier talked about it, again targeting the six opposition parties in the discussion stage on September 18, 2022, said: “Their candidate is this or that, it doesn't matter, the ratification hasn't come yet. How will those who cannot agree on a name compromise for the future of the nation? Our candidate is certain, our decision is clear... Our Presidential candidate in 2023 is Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdogan.” 

On October 28, Turkish President and AKP leader Erdogan presented AKP’s vision of “Turkey’s Century”. In his speech lasting about 1 hour and 35 minutes, Erdogan talked about the history stages, difficulties and achievements of the Republic of Turkey. He again presented the mission undertaken by the AKP in 2002 as a continuation of an unfinished or suspended work started by former Prime Minister Adnan Menderes with the slogan “Enough! The word belongs to the nation” and Turgut Ozal with the slogan “The state is for the nation”. Speaking about the fact that during the past twenty years they have increased, developed, strengthened and enriched the country in various fields, Erdogan emphasized: “Let it not seem that these twenty years have passed like a thornless rose field only by working. The imperialists, colonialists, coup plotters inside and outside the country, as many systems as they had, all of them were sent against us…Even there was an attempt to close our party… We never complained, we always struggled.” He added, that in twenty years, they turned Turkey into a country that is already being followed, rather than following others. “This is the kind of heritage we stand before our nation today for the centenary of Turkey,” he stated. The AKP’s vision of the second centenary was actually more generalizing and ideological. With its presentation, perhaps it was only clarified that in case of victory, Erdogan will completely change the existing constitution, which was written after the military coup on September 12, 1980. “Save the country from the shame of the coup constitution,” was defined as a clear goal. He included many promises in this vision, such as to raise Turkey to the top 10 countries in the world in political, economic, technological, military, diplomatic, as well as other fields, the final approval of the politics of unity instead of identity politics, the politics of integration instead of polarization and so on.    

Turkish political scientist Burhanettin Duran, who is currently the chief coordinator of one of the important Turkish state think tanks, characterized the mentioned vision as so: “At a time, when the opposition said “it is not possible to give a new hope anymore”, Erdogan presented a perspective aimed at reaching all segments of society with the vision of the “Century of Turkey.” Duran’s observation was especially interesting in the context of his assessments back in August, that the AKP will be subjected to a new test and has to find a way to tell the voters about the weariness, mistakes and failures in the government and gain new strong support: “It needs to show its success in foreign policy and security by producing inclusive policies and continuing to renew itself. It should be diligent in explaining this renewal effort to Kurds, center-right voters, resentful conservatives and young people," wrote Duran. He claimed that the opposition does not present itself as an alternative solution’s address, which is an opportunity for AKP, however the disorganized state of the opposition is still not enough to win. Thus, the vision of the “Century of Turkey” actually pretended to be that comprehensive, inclusive program considered necessary by Duran.        

Before and after the presentation of the vision, Erdogan made many visits to various regions of the country, talking about the achievements made in work, education, social security, economy, military industry, foreign policy and other fields. In parallel with that, already in mid-2022 the government conducted a pre-election economic policy,  raising the minimum wage and promising to increase it further, announcing the launch of the social housing construction program, support programs for needy families, students, etc. This is how Erdogan tried to form a pre-election agenda, while at the same time trying to turn and reformulate in his favor a number of issues and initiatives manipulated and put into circulation by the opposition. For instance, in December 2022, Erdogan even promised to solve the problem of “those hindered from retirement due to age” (EYT) brought to the agenda years ago by the opposition and particularly by the CHP leader K. Kılıçdaroğlu. And this in the case, when Erdogan openly opposed to any legislative changes related to this issue not far away in 2019, noting: “Even if we loose the elections, I am not in that business.” In the same way, Erdogan tried to transfer the new legislative initiative presented by CHP to his area of control and serve his interests.

Perhaps, the most discussed issue in the history of Turkey, the legislative draft regarding the wearing of a free headscarf, by which the CHP also tried to “atone for its sins” for the radicalism in that matter, provided a guarantee for women working in public institutions to wear any type of clothing. A day after the project was presented to the parliament on October 5, Erdogan made a proposal: “Let's provide the solution for the headscarf issue at the level of the Constitution, not the law.” On December 9, the AKP submitted a constitutional amendment proposal to the Presidency of the Turkish Grand National Assembly to give a constitutional guarantee for wearing a headscarf, as well as to protect the institution of the traditional family. If the parliamentary opposition did not approve it and the draft was not adopted, based on Erdogan’s initial statements, it would be put to a referendum, and it was not excluded that the referendum would be held on the same day as the upcoming elections.

The change in the internal political agenda due to the earthquakes that happened in the southwestern regions of Turkey on February 6, slowed down the process. Yet, on March 1, despite the behind-the-scenes information in the press, as if the draft was withdrawn, Erdogan announced, that works were being carried out and that it was their duty to finalize this matter as soon as possible. In this matter, the CHP’s ploy not only did not work, but also Erdogan put the oppositional parties in front of a new dilemma, who started heated discussions about whether to vote for the draft or go to a referendum, even they began to blame each other for this or that position on the issue. 

Referring to the earthquakes that also shook the country’s internal political agenda and to their consequences on the authority, it should be noted that the disaster was really big, shocking and there were predictions at the beginning that it could be an irreversible blow to the authority. The numerous problems registered in the disaster management in the first days, that were being emphasized even more because of the big emotional background, naturally would not escape the eyes of either opposition forces or ordinary people. However, the Turkish authorities quite professionally managed to mitigate the situation and avoid at least uncontrollable events. All state propaganda was developed on the principle of presenting earthquakes as “disaster of the century”, which, of course, had the purpose of explaining and somehow justifying the registered problems. While visiting the disaster zone, Erdogan did not hesitate to admit that there had been omissions, and asked for the people’s forgiveness in a religious rhetoric for the hardship they had gone through. He also asked for a year to eliminate the consequences of the earthquake, to build buildings, which was quite interesting, since it was a kind of hint about the confidence that he will continue to rule for another year.

Nevertheless, he simply couldn’t make forget everything in such a short time. Based on the research published by the Optimar center on March 3, 64․7% of 2000 surveyed citizens in 26 provinces of the country expressed the expected opinion that post-earthquake response wasn’t carried out on time and correctly. According to Abdulkadir Selvi, who is known for his connections in the government, this indicator should have been sobering for the authority. According to the survey by İstanbul Ekonomi Araştırma, 45% of 2000 respondents described the disaster management by the government as unsuccessful or very unsuccessful. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, based on the Optimar research, 29․3% of the respondents, however, expressed a though that the problems caused by the disaster can be solved by the ruling AKP, whereas only 19․1% expressed confidence in CHP. This proves not only Erdogan’s determination and experience in overcoming problems and crises, in particular the confidence among AKP voters, but also confirms the above-mentioned claim that the opposition is unable to present itself as a solution address, even after such events, when the elections are just a few days away. Overall, the February polls showed that the earthquake may not be irreversible, but had a negative impact on the rating of AKP and the ruling alliance  (1,2,3).

It is worth noting, that Erdogan did not retreat even after such a disaster and decided that the elections will be held on May 14, the date previously announced by him. As it has been mentioned for several times, this day is again symbolic, and Erdogan, who carries and spreads Islamic conservative ideas, will try to succeed on the same day in 1950, when his ideological and political predecessor, Adnan Menderes won against the CHP established by Atatürk.  It should be noted that People’s Alliance will participate in these elections with the slogan “Enough! The word belongs to the nation” by Menderes, which in turn was risky and gave rise to discussions, since with that slogan Menderes was fighting from the positions of the opposition against the hardened government, however Erdogan’s decision, of course, remained firm.

It is already felt that besides promises to overcome the consequences of the earthquake, the electoral agenda or strategy of AKP will be built around Erdogan’s name and personality. This is also evidenced by Erdogan’s emotional appeals to the people to vote for the leader of the Turkish state for years, one last time. “In 2023, we ask for the support of our nation for the last time on our behalf. We will hand over the flag to the youth”, he announced it during the rally in Samsun. Abdulkadir Selvi made an observation about it worth quoting: “Erdogan is a leader, who won every election he entered for 20 years. Even those on the conservative side who criticize the AKP, put him in a different place when it comes to Erdogan. There is a serious audience, that even if they say that will not vote for the AKP, they say “my vote is for Reis” in the presidential elections. At least 75% of the electorate voted for Erdogan even once. Wouldn’t it be effective if Erdogan asks them for support for the last time?”

After the decision signed by the President of Turkey on March 10 to start the electoral process, the People’s Alliance is now taking steps to expand the ranks of supporters. The state’s president will be elected with 50%+1 votes, so the votes of the small parties are also important. The representatives of the alliance, hoping to get the votes of conservative Kurdish voters, already had meetings with the Free Cause Party (HÜDA PAR), led by Zeqeriya Yapicioglu. The party stated its support for Erdogan in the presidential elections and the discussions with the parliamentarians continue. The alliance also met with the New Welfare Party (YRP), an Islamist political party, led by Fatih Erbakan, Necmettin Erbakan's son, who however stated that he will not support any alliance and will participate in the elections with his own candidate.

How the opposition prepares for the elections?

A head of 2018 presidential and parliamentary elections, CHP, together with Good Party (İYİ Party) established by a right-wing nationalist figure Meral Aksener and withdrawn from MHP as a result of the inter-party split, Temel Karamollaoglu’s Felicity Party (Saadet) and Gultekin Uysal’s Democratic Party of another Islamist National Viewpoint movement formed the National Alliance (Millet İttifakı). It aimed at depriving Erdogan of the opportunity to form a majority in the parliament, which it couldn’t achieve. The alliance did not present a single presidential candidate and the most popular opposition candidate Muharrem Ince conceded defeat by Tayyip Erdogan, who won 52% of the votes. Erdogan managed to be elected president, since he cancelled the previous years of government by the constitutional referendum and got the opportunity to assume the position of the head of the country two more times. In 2019 local elections, CHP and İYİ again cooperated and managed to win in such big cities as Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Adana, Antalya. Following 2019, two new conservative forces, Ahmet Davutoglu’s Future Party (Gelecek) and Ali Babacan’s Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA) split from AKP joined this opposition coalition.

This political alliance made up of six opposition parties held its first meeting on February 12, 2022.          In the statement published on the results of the 11^th meeting held on January 26, 2023, the parties presented themselves as the Nation Alliance for the first time. Throughout a year, the “Table of Six” published a few documents and agreements, which present their political plans. The “Common Policies Consensus Text” (Ortak Politikalar Mutabakat Metni), published on January 30, sums up 2300 goals, related to political, judicial, economic, educational and the issues of other fields, in which the government is constantly criticized and will create the backbone of the government program the alliance will implement in case of victory. Thus, according to the text, in case of the victory of the Nation Alliance:

• From the current presidential system, which they criticize as a “one-man regime”, a transition will be made to strengthened parliamentary system, the president will be elected once for a 7-year term, and should be dismissed from his party after being elected, the electoral threshold will be reduced from 7% to 3%, the Mejlis will be given an authority to withdraw from international treaties, it will be possible to declare a state of emergency in the country for only 2 months instead of the current 6 months.
• Freedom of thought and speech, as well as freedom of press will be strengthened and for that purpose, the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) and Anadolu Agency will be restructured in the principle of independence and impartiality, arbitrary restrictions on the right to organize assemblies and demonstrations will be put to an end, the permission of the Mejlis for the opening of court cases related to the closure of political parties will be mandatory.
• A commission to investigate corruption will be established in the parliament, as well as other methods will be used to fight against corruption.
• Within two years, inflation will be reduced to single digits, then the lira will go up in value and will be stabilized, it will be ensured that the rate of economic growth is higher than 5%, per capita income will double in dollars, at least 5 million new jobs will be created, the unemployment rate will be reduced to single digits, extreme poverty will be eliminated.
• The famous Kemalist principle “Peace in the homeland, peace in the world” will again be put at the basis of foreign policy, the main role of developing and implementing foreign policy will be returned to MFA, full EU membership will be set as a goal, they will continue to contribute to NATO, the alliance relationship with the United States will be pushed forward, the relations with the Russian Federation will be strengthened, the Organization of Turkic States will be strengthened, as well as fraternal ties with Azerbaijan. 

The alliance, however, despite holding meetings for more than a year, did not announce the name of its candidate. The leaders of the six parties unanimously insisted that they do not discuss the issue, emphasizing not the selection of a candidate, but to the development of a roadmap their candidate should follow. Meantime, the ruling power was constantly playing on that string and claimed that they were unable to make a joint decision, and challenged them to announce the name of their candidate at once. The “Table of Six”, as later events also showed, did not take that step first having a problem to make a decision and then avoiding to give the government much time to concentrate resources against their candidate.

Extending the process for another month because of the earthquake, the “Table of Six” convened a meeting on March 2 to decide on a common candidate. The next day of the meeting, İYİ leader Meral Aksener made a statement and officially announced about leaving the bloc. “The Good Party is in trouble, we will not bow our heads. We will neither be at the gambling table nor at the notary table,” she said claiming that at the meeting the five parties proposed the CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu’s candidacy, while their party proposed to consider the candidacy of Mansur Yavas, the Mayor of Ankara or Ekrem Imamoglu, the Mayor of Istanbul, whereas their proposal wasn’t taken into account. She added: “We understood that personal ambitions were preferred to Turkey. We did not establish the İYİ Party for this reason. At the point we have reached with regret, the Table of Six has lost its ability to reflect the nation’s will.”  With this step, Aksener mixed up everyone’s playing cards “throwing down” their months of work and seriously doubting the possibility of opposition’s victory.

Journalist and political commentator Rusen Cakir used an interesting sentence on this regard: “The defeat of the opposition is a miracle, and the opposition is doing its best so that the miracle comes true.”  After 72 hours of intense political events, on March 6, when the other 5 parties should have already announced the name of a single candidate, the Mayors of Ankara and Istanbul visited Meral Aksener at the party’s headquarters. Finally, they managed to convince Aksener and return her to the ranks of the alliance, provided that Yavas and Imamoglu will be appointed as vice-presidents, among the other five party leaders, in case of victory. After that tense crisis, the leaders of the six parties finally announced that their united candidate is Kemal Kilicdaroglu. It should be noted, that Kilicdaroglu’s party members, Istanbul Mayor E. Imamoglu and Ankara Mayor M. Yavas, are young and promising politicians and enjoy a certain popularity. This is evidenced not only by their success in 2019, but also by the polls, based on which, they almost always rank first, surpassing Erdogan. Therefore, it was no coincidence that there were nominated by Aksener, who recently kept repeating about the need to nominate a “winning candidate”.

It should be noted that M. Aksener’s support, especially for Ekrem Imamoglu was clearly expressed months ago. During a rally in Sarachane, in December in support for Imamoglu, which was called after Istanbul’s Criminal Court of 1^st Instance sentenced him to prison and banned him from politics, Aksener made a pretty bold speech, drawing comparisons between Imamoglu and Erdogan, implying that Imamoglu will continue its political course in the same way that Erdogan did: “Years ago, there was a mayor who was told that “he cannot even be a village head” for reading a poem here [it was about Erdogan]. He became president. Addressing you from here he said: “This song will not end here”. That’s true, the song did not end there. Today, as Meral Aksener, I promise that this song will not end here either,” she noted. However, this time, İYİ leader was actually forced to concede the final decision to CHP with the most votes, which nominated its long-term leader.

Without addressing the questions, what were the reasons for that decision, such as the personal ambitions of Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the risk of nominating him due to the ongoing legal proceedings against Imamoglu, and the possible intra-party problems in case of choosing between Imamoglu and Yavas, and the desire not to leave Ankara and Istanbul without opposition favorites in the local elections to be held in 2024 and not to concede to AKP, perhaps, we should mention that if the latter are young and will have quite serious opportunities to manifest themselves in future, then for the 74-year-old Kılıçdaroğlu the 2023 elections will be the last big political struggle. It should be noted, that the success of the process of nominating a candidate by the opposition was very important at this stage and despite the recorded intrigues, there is already a great chance for success. In the event of the failure of the process and the split of the opposition, which was a very likely scenario, considering the factor of Aksener, it would already be obvious, that the history of 2018 will repeat itself almost identically, and Erdogan will go to the elections with a guaranteed victory again.

Both the People’s Alliance and the Nation Alliance led by Kılıçdaroğlu are currently working on increasing the number of supporters. Kılıçdaroğlu makes calls not only to unite against Erdogan, which according to him is the first and the smallest goal, but also to unite around the idea of making Turkey competitive with the world. “Our democracy, economy, justice system and freedoms are under heavy Erdogan threat. This has been the case for many years, but the legacy I will leave to this country at my age should not be that small. We will send Erdogan. I always say this. This is the easiest of our goals, but our main goal is much bigger. We will create the conditions that will build a competitive Türkiye...Turks, Kurds, Sunni, Alevis, uncovered and covered, the left and the right should unite in this common,” he noted in one of his video messages.

Thus, on March 20, Kılıçdaroğlu also met with the co-chairmen of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP). The HDP, which is the third political force after the People’s Alliance and the Nation Alliance with its more than 10% rating, did not make a statement after the meeting about supporting Kılıçdaroğlu as a presidential candidate, however did not nominate his presidential candidate either. The HDP, which by the way is under legal proceedings on charges of connection with the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), which is considered a terrorist in Turkey, and it is possible that the Constitutional Court will decide to close it down and impose a five-year ban on political activity for the party’s elite right before the elections, entered into a tactical cooperation with the Nation Alliance. It is predicted, that even if the announcement of support for Kılıçdaroğlu is not made before the elections, which is not ruled out to be coordinated with the latter, in order not to repel nationalist-conservative voters, at least two-third of HDP voters will vote for Kılıçdaroğlu in presidential elections. As for the parliamentary elections, the former co-leader of HDP Selahattin Demirtas, who is in prison, has already stated, that if the party is closed, their parliamentary candidates will be nominated by the lists of the Green Left Party (YSP), which will nevertheless complicate their work several times in favor of the ruling bloc. It should be noted, that HDP will also participate in the elections in an alliance with the left-wing socialist parties, which is currently called the Alliance for Work and Freedom (Emek ve Özgürlük İttifakı).

Other political forces will also participate in the parliamentary and presidential elections. If they can get a very limited number of mandates in the parliamentary elections, they have no significant chances in the presidential elections. For instance, Homeland Party (Muharrem Ince), Patriotic Party (Dogu Perincek), New Welfare Party (Fatih Erbakan) parties and other political powers have already nominated their presidential candidates.

What is the rating of political forces based on the polls?

M any research companies operating in Turkey regularly publish the results of their polls, which show the rating of the country’s political forces and their leaders. Although the results of the research published by the companies are often contradictory and sometimes also manipulative, depending on their ties with the authority or the opposition, however, they still provide some insight into the chances of political forces. In the last polls conducted before the 2018 elections, such research centers as for instance, Optimar, KONDA, if we look back, were able to find out the public’s sentiments with very close accuracy, particularly in the matter of the election of the president.

Thus, emphasizing that the official campaign in Turkey has not started yet and everything can change upside down at any moment, we will present below the results of the research conducted by some companies in March of this year. According to March 2023 polls, Erdogan’s AKP is in the first place, Kılıçdaroğlu’s CHP - second, Askener’s İYİ – third, pro-Kurdish HDP – forth, Bahceli’s MHP – fifth. Other parties, such as Babacan’s DEVA, Davutoglu’s Gelecek, Karamollaoglu’s Saadet, Umit Ozdag’s Victory Party, Muharrem Ince’s Homeland Party and Fatih Erbakan’s New Welfare Party, claim to have a maximum of 4% votes (based on some polls, Ince’s Homeland will have up to 6%) and depending on the polls, they often switch places.

According to the combined data of the Turkish service of Euronews, the votes of the pro-Kurdish HDP, as well as combining the votes of the parties included in the ruling People’s Alliance and the opposition Nation Alliance, they will have the following ratings (the results of Yöneylem are counted along with the answers of undecided voters).

After the announcement of the name of the joint candidate by the Nation Alliance, the polls of March are the first polls. They currently show, that Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’s votes exceed Tayyip Erdogan’s votes. It should also be noted, if any of the presidential candidates fails to collect 50%+1 votes, a second round of elections will be held, where the first two candidates with the highest votes will compete. Below, referring the combined data of the Turkish service of Euronews, we also present the results of the polls showing the rates of Kılıçdaroğlu and Erdogan (counted without the answers of undecided voters).

Summing up, let’s note that there are only a few days left for the elections that are so important from the point of view of the future course of both the authority, the opposition and the state in Turkey. At the moment, the authority and the opposition are doing the last preparatory work before the start of the official campaign. Both the People’s Alliance who nominated Erdogan’s candidacy and the Nation Alliance who nominated Kılıçdaroğlu’s candidacy have serious chances to win both the presidential and the parliamentary elections. Moreover, during the last two decades, the opposition is perhaps the closest to victory, if taking into account that so far it manages to act from united positions. However, the actual course of the campaign will be very important and decisive. It will really be very difficult for the opposition candidate and his allies to conduct the campaign with such skill that they will surpass Erdogan, having years of successful experience. The latter will certainly use all the possible means both during the campaign and elections itself and will show his best skills to achieve victory.