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Erdogan’s Election Machine Is Rusty And Worn Out
On the evening of June 16, Turkey will remember a ritual of democracy that the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has made the country forget over its 17 years in power — a televised debate between political rivals Binali Yildirim of the AKP and Ekrem Imamoglu of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), the two main contenders in the June 23 rerun of the mayoral election in Istanbul.
The AKP’s political culture has barred party candidates from facing their rivals directly and on equal terms in pre-election televised debates. In five parliamentary polls, two presidential polls, four local elections and three referendums held under AKP rule, the party’s leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has never held a televised debate with any rival ahead of the votes. In democratically governed countries, televised debates help voters to compare candidates and form healthier opinions. Erdogan and his party, however, have mostly pursued polarizing rhetoric targeting the legitimacy of their opponents and thus stood aloof from facing them in such debates over the past 17 years.
So, what has changed now ahead of the Istanbul election rerun to lead Yildirim — a former premier, transport minister and parliament speaker who was pressured to run for Istanbul mayor by Erdogan — to agree, no doubt with Erdogan’s consent, to a televised face-off with his young rival, Imamoglu? He had been averse to such a debate ahead of the original vote on March 31, in which Imamoglu won a razor-thin victory but saw it canceled by the Higher Election Board on the grounds that the heads of some balloting committees were not public servants as the law requires.
In the absence of any convincing signs that Erdogan’s and Yildirim’s political culture has changed in favor of pluralism since March 31, the only visible major change is in the opinion polls, which suggest that Imamoglu is likely to widen the margin of 13,000 votes he had against Yildirim in the original vote. This, in fact, is the factor that forced Yildirim to finally agree to face his opponent on TV. Trailing behind Imamoglu in surveys conducted between mid-May and the first week of June, he hopes to pull off a televised performance that will close the gap.
Erdogan’s Election Machine Is Rusty And Worn Out
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Last Updated: 05/2022
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