Longtime Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won reelection on Sunday, May 28, extending his increasingly rule over the country of nearly 85 million people for another five years.
Erdogan, as leader of the conservative and Islamist Justice and Development Party, has been in some kind of position of leadership in Turkey since 2003, when he was first elected prime minister. This third term as president gives Erdogan an even stronger hand in domestic and international affairs. (Related: Turkish annual inflation jumps to 83.45% due to excessive government spending on welfare and the military.)
Erdogan captured about 52 percent of the vote against his rival, Kemal Kilicdaroglu of the left-wing People's Republican Party, in the run-off for the presidency. Kilicdaroglu received the remaining 48 percent of the vote. Turnout for the election stood at over 85 percent of the 64 million eligible voters, including nearly two million Turks who cast their ballots abroad.
The first round of the presidential election was held two weeks previously, in which Erdogan was only narrowly prevented from winning at least 50 percent of the vote that would have prevented a runoff. This first round also coincided with a parliamentary election in which Erdogan's political alliance managed to maintain its majority.
As is typical in recent Turkish elections, Erdogan secured much of his support from the less developed Turkish heartland, while his left-wing rival fared better in the urban west, including the metropolis of Istanbul, the nation's capital Ankara and in the largely Kurdish-populated east, which is opposed to voting for Erdogan due to his anti-Kurdish policies.
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Erdogan's victory is considered a surprise, as pre-election polling showed Kilicdaroglu leading against the long-serving president. Furthermore, Erdogan was heavily criticized for his response to the deadly earthquakes that rocked his country in February. This is especially the case since he was responsible for a real estate developer "amnesty" that allowed buildings not up to the earthquake code to remain unrepaired, which likely worsened the death toll in Turkey that is already over 50,000.
The Kurdish-majority southeast of Turkey has long remained an opposition stronghold, as Erdogan has spent much of his tenure in power attacking Kurdish communities; equating Kurdish activist and political groups with the Marxist terror group the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which hasn't operated in Turkey for over two decades; and imprisoning and deposing democratically-elected national and local leaders and replacing them with unelected "trustees."
Erdogan criticizes opposition in victory speeches
In two speeches, one in Istanbul and another in Ankara, Erdogan thanked his supporters for entrusting him with the presidency for five more years.
"We hope to be worthy of your trust, as we have been for 21 years," he said on a campaign bus right outside his home in Istanbul.
He also ridiculed his challenger Kilicdaroglu for his loss, saying "bye bye bye Kemal," as his supporters booed. He also continued to criticize the former co-leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party, whom he imprisoned in 2018 over baseless allegations of terrorism.
Erdogan further disparaged the Turkish opposition for being "pro-LGBT," promising to protect the "sacred" family from attempts by the LGBT agenda to "infiltrate" Turkish culture.
These attacks continue Erdogan's campaign strategy of portraying Kilicdaroglu and the opposition, who also received the support of the pro-Kurdish political alliance, as colluding with "terrorists" and for being "deviants" due to their support of LGBT rights.
Despite these attacks, Erdogan went on to claim that the divisions of the election are now over.
"The only winner today is Turkey," he said in his speech in Ankara to thousands of supporters who gathered outside the presidential palace. He promised to work hard for Turkey as it celebrates its centennial this year, and he called the coming 100 years in Turkey the "Turkish century."
Kilicdaroglu, who campaigned promising to reverse Erdogan's democratic backsliding and restore the state of the Turkish economy, said in his concession speech that this election was "the most unjust ever" with all of the state's resources mobilized to help reelect Erdogan.
"We will continue to be at the forefront of this struggle until real democracy comes to our country," he said in Ankara as he thanked the more than 25 million people who voted for him.
Kilicdaroglu further asked his supporters to "remain upright" and to stay true to their will "to change an authoritarian government despite all the pressures."
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Watch this clip showing thousands of Erdogan supporters gathering outside the presidential complex in Ankara celebrating his election victory.
This video is from the channel Apex Mentality on Brighteon.com.
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