Turkish Presidential Election

Yurt2

Watching a Turkish news channel. The Turkish language sounds like drunk Kerrymen at a lock-in at 3am.

igCorcaigh

LOL Yurt!

https://www.trtworld.com/

Yurt2

AA state news agency now has Erdogan at 49%, Kilicdaroglu at 44%. More pro-opposition districts to come. Will run Erdogan very close, and we'll be going to round 2.

igCorcaigh

Would the opposition have to form a coalition?

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120597387#Comment_120597387

If Kilicdaroglu wins? Nope. Erdogan constitutional reforms made the Presidency a powerful decree-issuing executive role like a turbo-French presidency and radically weakened parliament. The AKP will be the largest party in parliament (without majority), but that's largely meaningless because it had its balls chopped off by Erdogan.

ninebeanrows

49.8

44.4

~5.1

After ~90% of vote

Run off almost a certainty but advantage Erdogan

igCorcaigh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120597401#Comment_120597401

Oh I see... So is this election for president and parliament?

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120597404#Comment_120597404

Ogan's party (3rd place candidate) are rightists that split from the Kemalist CHP. Think gene-pool Fianna Fáil. His votes are likely to break heavily for Kilicdaroglu. And particularly if with gritted teeth endorses Kilicdaroglu as is most likely.

Plus, if Erdogan starts to smell like a loser, as is the case everywhere, more votes will migrate to Kilicdaroglu. It's going to be extremely tight either way.

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120597415#Comment_120597415

Both are being held at the same time yes.

igCorcaigh

TRT seems a bit pro Edogan, but interesting point that Erdgoan has picked up support from the earthquake zones.

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120597758#Comment_120597758

TRT is a Government mouthpiece, it's Turkey's attempt at doing a Russia Today.

The level of support in earthquake affected areas is cause for suspicion to me. Approx 3 million have been displaced by the earthquake and a huge amount of them went to Western Turkey, Izmir, Istanbul or Ankara etc. They are for the most part still registered to vote in their hometowns and have more or less been disenfranchised unless they make the trek East just to vote.

NSAman

Seems as if problems with the vote counting is happening. Apparently the numbers don’t add up, a few million missing? (Aljezzera reporting well… opposition reporting)

Headshot

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120597857#Comment_120597857

It's far from surprising!!

If this was a clean election in the first place it'd be a bigger shock

Please god let this be the end of Edogan

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120597857#Comment_120597857

The two main news agencies reporting were working off two different tally methods. There was an initial count, votes get passed over to something called the Supreme Election Council who audit the vote and officially confirm the numbers for each district. We're still awaiting the 'official official' numbers which we probably wont have until the morning.

timmyntc

49 to 45 in favour of erdogan with 91% reporting, according to the election board.

Run off on the way as id imagine those left to report will favour kilicdaroglu

techman1

Whatever happens I think erdogen is extremely weakened. Putins failing war in Ukraine has weakened all the big autocrats as Putin was the big daddy of them all.

I think totalitarianism and fundamentalism has already passed its high water mark and is now in retreat. A weakened erdogen will have to play ball now with the West if he wants to keep the Turkish economy functioning. We have alot to thank Zelensky and the Ukrainians for this big turnaround, they were the first to really stand up against the Russians and fight back

fly_agaric

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120598401#Comment_120598401

I am not so optimistic. If Erdogan wins with relatively little "thumbs on the scales" in the vote despite all that has happened in Turkey, he is strengthened, he will be emboldened to go further now just as he did when he won the last election there.

It is still in the balance as regards the Ukraine war, and how the world's dictators/autocrats (who might have similar dreams to Putin) will view it.

I mean even 200k mobilised poors/non elites no one important cares about except relatives and a load of convicts dead and injured is very a small price to pay for any dictator of a country with huge area/resources and > hundreds of millions in population if they can:

1. Win land or national glory, right a historic wrong as they see it, wipe out some annoying neighbours they have always disliked and feared, &
2. are able to convince enough to stay apathetic and/or fearful through massive state repression + keep a core onside with a diet of nationalism, propaganda and lies to cheer it on

The fact that Russia itself has been badly damaged and the Russian people themselves harmed by waging the war does not matter if Putin and clique have done well out of it themselves and they remain in absolute power in Russia (or increase that grip on power). That is the lesson current and future dictators of the biggest nation states with the "mass" to initiate wars of conquest & genocide on a smaller neighbour like Russia has may yet draw from this, depending on how it all ends. It has to end the right way.

AMKC

Would love to Erdoğan lose but after Sunday it's looking very likely that he will just about get in for another term now and maybe stay untill he can not rule anymore a bit like his friend Putin.

The Turkish have missed out on rescuing there country from a dictatorship led Erdoğan country by the looks of it.

igCorcaigh

France 24 do this interesting Truth vs Fake segment to analyse the veracity of stories doing the rounds on social media.

And, they say that the videos of Erdogan giving money to children, when on the campaign trail, are actually true, but caveat that by saying that this is traditional in Turkey.

igCorcaigh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120601083#Comment_120601083

Yet he is loved by many in Turkey, as is Modi in India. Things must look very different from inside those countries than the outside.

Beta Ray Bill

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120601628#Comment_120601628

As is Putin in Russia. Many people there love him.

It's a strange one for Turkey and India though as there isn't as much censorships on what a person can google so to speak.

I think Turkeys issues Trump India's though, I think many in Turkey see their country as a former great power and would love to be a great power again (for what ever reason, boggles me to be honest)

KB has a brilliant video on Turkey

Denying Your History | Armenian Genocide

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2zEqDOwzW0

Yakov P. Golyadkin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120603731#Comment_120603731

While the internet in Turkey is relatively free, legacy media (TV, newspapers etc) are still very popular, and are, for the most part, controlled/influenced by the government. I was in Istanbul just after Easter - Every time Erdoğan appeared on TV he was opening an infrastructure project, addressing a large enthusiastic crowd etc, any footage of the opposition was interspersed with footage of riots, the aftermath of PKK bombings and so on. İt's crude but when it's all you see it is effective.

Turkey could well be viewed as two countries in one; The more liberal and secularist west (in particular Thrace, Istanbul, İzmir) and the conservative, religious east (this is of course a crude generalisation but accurate enough to illustrate the point). Erdoğan plays to the latter and nurtures a sense that the country was for too long run by and for the Godless elite.

Erdoğan will win in two weeks time and convincingly so.

Yakov P. Golyadkin

Oh, and yes, while there is a large amount of freedom on what you can Google, there is increasingly less freedom on what you can say

https://stockholmcf.org/more-than-36000-people-faced-criminal-investigation-for-insulting-president-erdogan-in-2019/

Headshot

I see Erdoğan has won the run off.

I just find it very hard to believe there was no election fraud in Turkey

igCorcaigh

Balls.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120651834#Comment_120651834

I was hoping Erdogan was going to lose but, as you say, I fear that some form of election fraud may be at play.

Why?

Because it's well-established that Erdogan has become more authoritarian in recent years.

And let's be honest, Vladimir Putin would prefer Erdogan over his electoral opponent who was far more aligned to Western values and democracy.

This outcome is bad for Turkey, bad for the West, and bad for Ukraine.

Glaceon

Turkey continues its slide into theocracy. 😔

Yakov P. Golyadkin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120651834#Comment_120651834

I really don't think there was any fraud as in ballot stuffing etc, or certainly not enough to make any substantive difference to the result. Erdoğan is popular outside the larger cities and amongst religious voters, of which Turkey has plenty. The real damage has been done over the years past with an increasingly compliant media and institutions of state. İt's heartening that it ended so close but very upsetting that, in the 100th year of the secular republic, we have a would-be Sultan in charge, and presumably further emboldened.

AMKC

Well the Turkish people have voted and maybe it's not their best choice but not much we can do about. It will end up just like Russia with Erdoğan as a dictator and controlling all media in the Country. He already controls 90per cent of it and that is why he won. It was not a fair election but the opposition done very well considering how much power Erdoğan has.

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120651834#Comment_120651834

Yeah I thought for sure he'd be in more trouble after crashing the economy with his "unique" take on monetary policy. It just goes to show the power of having control over the media. They've also been flogging their foreign reserves in recent times to prop up the economy. Be interesting to see if there is a crash now again that's he's safely over the line.