FDD, again, so very concerned with Turkey’s elections. Because it’s known Erdogan will win. Western powers will lie and say it was stolen. I think (an opinion) the Turkish people are way smarter/savvy than western media would like you to believe.
There are intense and often heated differences between Turkey watchers over the outcome of the presidential elections that are just around the corner on May 14
The truth is, at this point in the calendar, it’s a guessing game. For my part, I am on record predicting that Erdogan has a greater chance of holding onto power for a third five-year term than opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu has of winning. I have attempted to explain my rationale in other opinion pieces and interviews. At this point, however, it is worth pondering, should my prediction come to pass, who or what factors will account for Erdogan staying in office?
To begin, there is the most obvious element: Turkish voters themselves.
According to the author of the oped, who clearly insults or belittles the Turkish people
“The majority of Turks going to the polls on May 14 will not prioritize the rule of law, democracy, and other governance issues as their top priority”
Obviously they are going to prioritize Turkish rule of law, Turkish democracy and Turkish governance.
“Instead, voters are primarily motivated by their desire to hedge: “in voting, who do I believe will take care of my economic interests?”
Reads like a governance issue.
You may recall that the opposition is already cozy with the US?
When you read this bit from FDD below you should understand why that is!
“Linked to voter demands is the main opposition, the “Nation Alliance”—the six opposition parties who took the decision to nominate Kemal Kilicdaroglu as their candidate. Unfortunately, one can observe that, from the outset, this opposition bloc never prioritized the rule of law and democratic governance issues beyond rhetoric. Instead, it has been focused on the division of political spoils. The process of deciding who the alliance’s presidential candidate would be, for example, turned into a dysfunctional squabble and nearly broke apart the alliance. Given that the alliance’s main campaign promise is to transition Turkey back to a parliamentary system of governance (that would deprioritize the powers and position of the presidency), one wonders why alliance leaders fought so hard on who the presidential candidate would be.”
In plain talk, very plain, the opposition bloc is running on the idea of returning Turkey to the parliamentary system they left behind. The President would, therefore, be leaving himself as a shell of a leader. And he knows this! Who will fill the hollow shell? That would undoubtedly be the US led NATO choice of Prime Minister.
Hence the coziness with the opposition.
I’d written quite a bit about the change in governance at my big tech censored blog. This change by Turkey, was greeted with howls of condemnation emanating from the US.
In the final analysis, supposing an Erdogan victory, voters will be grievously let down by opposition political elites who did their very best to not defeat Erdogan. In the event that Kilicdaroglu loses, much of the blame will be attributed to his lackluster candidacy.
The west will claim this election is illegitimate or will be stolen. One can already read these types of claims and hear the rumblings. We’ve all heard and read this before…
When able I’ll dig out some of my previous coverage on the changes Turkey made. Look for the ‘flashback’ in the headline