The president is risking his continuity of power in an environment characterized by high inflation and the lack of a clear rival to meet him in the polls
Recep Tayyip Erdogan surprised everyone by announcing his intention to bring the presidential election a month forward to May 14. The Islamist leader is running for re-election amid an internal climate marked by the economic crisis driving about 85% inflation, facing an opposition unclear on the name of the candidate who will meet him at the polls and with major parties to majorities in parliament, such as the Kurdistan People’s Democratic Party (HDP), which is about to be banned. The Turks will have to choose whether to continue with the Islamist model introduced since 2003 by Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) or to return power to the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and restore secularism.
The 68-year-old president drew on recent history and linked this advance to the country’s May 14, 1950 elections, which destroyed Adnan Menderes’ Democratic Party and sank the CHP. Menderes was executed by the military ten years later after a coup. Erdogan stated that “73 years later our nation will again say to the coup plotters and incompetents that enough is enough” and warned that the opposition is “trying to rule the country through a puppet president”.
The name that rings loudest in the CHP is that of Ekrem Imamoglu, who has already shown his ability to outrun the Islamists at the polls with his victory in the last municipal elections in Istanbul. The problem is that the Social Democratic mayor was recently sentenced to two years, seven months and 15 days in prison for calling the members of the electoral council “stupid” for forcing the elections to be repeated. The second time he was also a winner. Technically, he could run for president in May because he has appealed the decision, but his party leader, 74-year-old Kemal Kilicdaroglu, has not made his plans clear either. In his 13 years as leader of the CHP, Kilicdaroglu, a less than charismatic figure, has never been able to defeat Erdogan.
Another name that pops up as a possible opponent of the person who has led the country for two decades is that of Meral Aksener, historian and former interior minister in the 1990s, who heads the Good Party (‘Iyi’, in Turkish), conservative and secular education.
Source: La Verdad
I am an experienced and passionate journalist with a strong track record in news website reporting. I specialize in technology coverage, breaking stories on the latest developments and trends from around the world. Working for Today Times Live has given me the opportunity to write thought-provoking pieces that have caught the attention of many readers.
