Turkiye’s presidential and parliamentary elections, which were held yesterday, are doubtlessly the most important and challenging in recent times. Unlike the previous elections, this year’s polls are widely seen as a direct challenge between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his AK Party (AKP), and opposition CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdarolu, who represents an election coalition of six opposition parties.
For the first time, Turkiye’s factious opposition has coalesced around a single candidate in the person of Kılıçdarolu which is likely to make the usually divided votes of the opposition merge into one.
The election is different this time because it is one of the elections that attracted the attention of the world and that is why its results no longer matter to just the Turkish citizens alone, but also to the entire world and especially the region because of the important roles Turkiye has been playing in global and regional politics under the leadership of President Erdogan.
As the results trickled in yesterday, it appears that the country is heading towards a runoff on May 28 as the country’s constitution stipulates that a candidate must win over 50% of the vote in order to be elected. More than 64 million Turks are eligible to vote at nearly 192,000 polling stations, including more than 6 million first-time voters. There are 3.4 million voters overseas, who completed voting by May 9. Aside from the presidential poll, voters are also in the thick of action to elect 600 members of parliament, chosen by party-list proportional representation in 87 regions.
Over the years, President Erdogan has been able to thrust Turkiye into global reckoning with a velocity never seen with any of his predecessors. He has made Turkiye one of the most stable countries politically and economically in the region, and his independent foreign policy has gained the respect of many and the ire of a few.
Domestically, Erdogan is credited with expanding the Turkish middle class by making credit more easily available to those families. His government also embarked on massive infrastructure projects that provided lots of jobs. Gross domestic product per capita more than tripled during his first decade in office, from $3,600 in 2002 to $11,700 in 2012. He delivered growth, lifted people out of poverty, and improved access to government services, such as health care.
Erdogan has been an astute politician, and he has been the most consequential Turkish leader since Ataturk.
One can only wish the winner the best of luck while hoping for the continuation and enhancement of the positive trajectory Turkiye has been on, especially given its regional importance.
