Nationalism has been one of the major themes of the Turkish presidential elections, with both President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and opposition challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu using its rhetoric as both sides draw on nationalist parties’ support.
Turkey goes to the polls for the second presidential election round on Sunday after Erdogan very nearly clinched it in the first on May 14, winning 49.51 percent of the vote compared to 44.8 percent for Kilicdaroglu.
While the first round score made the second round much less of a contest, the campaign still grabbed the international media’s attention this week as the leader of the nationalist, anti-immigration Victory Party Umit Ozdag announced on Wednesday he is backing Kilicdaroglu.
This endorsement is unlikely to make a difference to the second round given the electoral arithmetic; the Victory Party won just 2.2 percent of the vote in the first. Similarly, another nationalist candidate Sinan Ogan endorsed Erdogan after finishing third on May 14 – but analysts observe that Erdogan needs no kingmaker. In any case, it “isn’t clear” that either candidate could rely on their voters following their lead, noted Howard Eissenstat, a Turkey specialist at St. Lawrence University and the Middle East Institute in Washington DC.
>> Read more: Kilicdaroglu faces ‘real uphill battle’ after Erdogan nearly clinched first-round win
Beneath the surface, Eissenstat suggested, the two candidates’ manoeuvrings foreground the significance of 75-year-old Devlet Bahcel, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) for more than a quarter of a century. The Erdogan-aligned MHP won just over 10 percent of the vote in the parliamentary elections held alongside the first presidential round, highlighting its significance for the president’s coalition.
Ozdag and Ogan both have their eyes on picking up Bahceli’s role in Turkish politics, Eissenstat said: “Clearly both…
Source : france24
