Turkey heads to the polls on Sunday for one of the most important
elections in the country’s recent history. The stakes are high — for the
average Turk, and for the elite who have governed for more than two decades.
اضافة اعلان
Despite what has
felt like an iron grip on national politics, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and
his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) are vulnerable. Amid staggering
inflation, record low wages, and a tightening of personal freedoms, the party
that came to power in 2002 could finally
be on its way out.
Either way,
security and transparency will be essential if the results are to be respected.
For all of Turkey’s
economic and political woes, Turks believe in the democratic process and take
elections seriously. Since the 1990s, Turkey’s voter turnout has averaged
78.5 percent and exceeded 86
percent in 2018. Both are higher than many Western
democracies, including the US (turnout for the 2020 presidential election was
66.8 percent, the highest
of the 21st century)
and France, where 72 percent of the electorate voted
in last year’s presidential race. Thousands of Turks have already queued
outside their embassies around the world to vote early.
An election cannot be considered “free” and “fair” if it’s held under the restrictions of a state of emergency (which is how the 2018 general elections were conducted). And yet, areas hit hardest by February’s earthquakes have been under a state of emergency for months.
But while Turks may
exercise their voting rights, they do not always accept the results. It is a
downward spiral of trust that the AKP has presided over. In 2007, roughly 75
percent of the country believed elections were fair. By 2015, that had shrunk
to around half, and today, electoral trust is as low as it
has ever been.
Several factors
have contributed to this crisis. For starters, an election cannot be considered
“free” and “fair” if it’s held under the restrictions of a state of emergency
(which is how the 2018
general elections were conducted). And yet, areas hit hardest
by February’s earthquakes have been under a state of emergency for months.
Second,
the media landscape heavily favors the incumbent party, which hurts the
opposition’s campaigning. A 2018 post-election analysis by
the Organization for Security and
Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) found that opposition
candidates couldn’t get airtime, in
part because the news media is “dominated
by outlets whose owners are considered affiliated with the government or depend
on public contracts.” Five years ago, opposition candidates received a fraction
of the news coverage afforded to Erdogan and his party, the OSCE found.
These dynamics
remain in place. In the run-up to this election, public broadcaster TRT gave
Erdogan nearly 33 hours of airtime between
April 1 and May 1, while opposition candidate Kemal
Kilicdaroglu received just 32 minutes.
Election results have a way of being manipulated by those in power.
Third, election
results have a way of being manipulated by those in power. In June 2015, after
suffering parliamentary losses that made it impossible to form a government,
Erdogan called for “repeat” elections five months later. This time, AKP came out
on top.
Then, in March
2019, after losing the mayoral race in Istanbul, the AKP cried foul and
demanded a do-over. Turkey’s electoral board agreed.
The AKP’s candidate
lost the second election, too, but that didn’t stop supporters from playing
dirty. After Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu declared that “those calling off the
first round of elections were foolish,” defamation charges were brought. He has
since been sentenced to more than two
years in jail for “publicly insulting” the elections
committee.
Given past
transgressions by the ruling party, election monitors are planning a heavy
presence this weekend. For instance, Oy ve Otesi (Vote and
Beyond), a domestic monitoring organization founded after the
Gezi Park protests of 2013, has trained more than 220,000 citizens to ensure
that elections are transparent, independent, and fair.
International
monitors are also scheduled to observe the voting, though Ankara has taken
steps in recent days to restrict
access to European monitors. Media clampdowns have also
been reported
ahead of the vote.
Elections observers
hope that by raising concerns when issues arise, systemic corruption can be
avoided. This will be easier in large cities like Ankara, Izmir, and Istanbul.
Harder will be tracking discrepancies in areas hit by the earthquakes, where
nearly two million eligible voters – out of nine million – have been displaced. One local initiative, TULOV,
has begun a campaign to bring earthquake victims to the polls, but so
far, only
a few thousand have been helped so far.
Against the odds,
this has become one of Turkey’s most competitive races in years. Opposition
candidates are testing Erdogan and the AKP, empowered by an angry, frustrated
electorate. The election could go very wrong. Or, with thousands of trained
volunteers committed to spending hours guarding ballot boxes throughout the
country, Sunday could be a much-needed reminder that Turkey’s democratic spirit
is alive and well.
Alexandra de Cramer
is a journalist based in Istanbul. She reported on the Arab Spring from Beirut
as a Middle East correspondent for Milliyet newspaper. Her work ranges from
current affairs to culture, and has been featured in Monocle, Courier
Magazine, Maison Francaise, and Istanbul Art News.
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