ANKARA: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Friday that presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkiye will be held on May 14. A second presidential election will take place on May 28 this year if a runoff is required.
These elections are considered the most significant in many years in Turkiye, as the opposition parties are united for the first time as it challenges Tayyip Erdogan’s two-decade rule.
Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the opposition’s presidential candidate, is the leader of the second-largest party in the parliament, the center-left Republican People’s Party (CHP). He has the support of the six political parties that form the opposition bloc.
The election campaigns are expected to evolve around Turkiye’s ongoing economic crisis and mismanagement allegations in response to the deadliest earthquakes that struck 11 provinces last month, killing over 46,000 people and leaving thousands homeless.
The Ankara office director of the think tank the German Marshall Fund of the United States (US), Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, said that any move to delay the elections would be contrary to Tayyip Erdogan’s strategy, and it is therefore expected the elections will be held on May 14, regardless of rumors to the elections will be postponed.
Elections delay contrary to Erdogan’s strategy
The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) remains the potential kingmaker in the election, as it has not joined either of the two key alliances. It has declared its willingness to talk with Kilicdaroglu.
Recent research by a Turkish polling firm, Yoneylem, suggested that the chance of an opposition alliance victory in the presidential election on the first ballot would increase if the HDP backs Kilicdaroglu.
Ilke Toygur, a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies Russia, Eurasia, and Europe Program and a professor at the University Carlos III of Madrid, believes Tayyip Erdogan’s calculations regarding the election are based on two main factors: Preventing the opposition alliance from consolidating, and assuming the economy will further deteriorate.
