Who is the man who has led Erdogan to the second round in the Turkish elections

2023-05-17 22:49:00

Kemal Kilicdaroglu has been president of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) for 13 years, long enough to lose five general elections and two presidential elections against Recep Tayyip Erdogan. This time, however, it could be different. Kilicdaroglu has managed to unite a good part of the opposition around his figure and the polls placed him ahead. But once again, Erdogan prevailed at the polls last Sunday, although the eternal candidate has forced a second round to be held on May 28. He is no longer the favorite, but his objective remains intact: to overthrow the all-powerful president after two decades running the country. “I’m here until the end,” he said in a post-election video as he pounded on his office desk.

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Further

We are here. Fight to the end. pic.twitter.com/37rBQEectn

— Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu (@kilicdarogluk) May 15, 2023

Kilicdaroglu entered politics after retiring in 1999 as an economics official and joined Bülent Ecevit’s Democratic Left Party. However, he was not nominated as a candidate and then he became part of the CHP, the historic formation founded by the father of the country, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. In 2002, the same year that Erdogan swept his newly founded party, the AKP, in the general elections, Kilicdaroglu was elected as a deputy. During this period, the politician embraced the fight against corruption and became famous for attacking heavyweights from Erdogan’s party, managing to achieve the resignation of two vice-presidents of the party. So, his calm character and physique earned him the nickname ‘Gandhi Kemal’.

In 2010, a sex scandal forced the resignation of the president of the CHP, which was then perceived as the party of Turkish elites that continued to defend intransigent Kemalist secularism against an Erdogan who promoted a moderate Islam, close to the people and close to Europe. Kilicdaroglu was his successor and immediately began a radical reform process. He wanted founding a “new Republican People’s Party” and he expelled old heavyweights from the hard line of the formation, turning towards social democracy and towards more flexible positions towards religion. For example, he introduced an imam and an Islamic theologian to the new party assembly and abandoned the party’s longstanding opposition to women wearing headscarves in universities and public offices. “Even so, it is not possible to completely reverse the old feelings [negativos] towards us,” he said then. Erdogan had revolutionized the country and Kilicdaroglu was trying to adapt.

In the 2011 parliamentary elections, he managed to increase the party’s vote percentage by six points and got 23 more deputies, but he was still far from the absolute majority of the AKP, which controlled 327 of the 550 seats. In 2014 he opted for a risky strategy to try to defeat Erdogan in the presidential elections. He forged an alliance with the ultranationalist formation MHP (now Erdogan’s associates), which during the years of street violence in the 1970s was one of the great enemies of the CHP. Both parties chose as their candidate Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, a nationalist who had been secretary general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation for 10 years. Then they got 38.4% of the votes, but Erdogan won in the first round with 51.7%.

Always in the shadow of the charismatic Turkish president, Kilicdaroglu took a step forward in 2017, when one of his deputies was sentenced to 25 years in prison on espionage charges. He then organized a walking march from Ankara to Istanbul to demand justice. “I walk with conviction… I am going to walk every millimeter of those 450 kilometres”, said. The march lasted 25 days. The authorities accused the deputy of giving journalists secret information about some trucks of the Turkish intelligence services hunted on the border with Syria and allegedly transporting weapons for the rebels. Several media published images of the weapons that were supposedly hidden under boxes of humanitarian aid. After pressure, Erdogan acknowledged that the trucks belonged to the secret services, but denied that they were carrying weapons to Syria.

Months before, Turkey had approved in a referendum with a narrow 51.4% and with 1.3 million votes by margin a controversial constitutional reform to change the country to a presidential system with broad powers for Erdogan. In the presidential elections of the following year, Erdogan again won Kilicdaroglu’s CHP and in the parliamentary elections, Kilicdaroglu again improved results, but was still light years behind the president’s AKP. His first major victory as party leader came in 2019, when the CHP took over the Ankara and Istanbul mayors, which had been controlled by the AKP and its predecessors since 1994. Both Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu were actively involved in the campaign. The court even ordered a repeat of the vote in Istanbul, but the CHP multiplied its margin of victory.

From onions to balance with the nationalists

During this electoral campaign, Kilicdaroglu has tried to exploit that simple and unifying profile in the face of Erdogan’s polarization. During his rallies, he raises his hands into finger hearts and posts videos of him from his humble kitchen denouncing Erdogan’s policies. He has also promised that if he wins, he will not move into the colossal 1,100-room palace built by Erdogan.

He has managed to unify a large part of the opposition in a broad anti-Erdogan alliance: Islamists, nationalists, Kurds… He has even boasted of his Alevi origin, a minority traditionally discriminated against in Turkey, as a lever to overcome identity problems and sectarianism in the country. The weakest link this time seems to have been the difficult balance between the hardest nationalists who consider any concession or rapprochement to the pro-Kurdish HDP party intolerable, but the votes of this formation, third in the Assembly, are essential.

Erdogan knew this and has exploited it, even going so far as to spread manipulated videos in which one of the co-founders of the Kurdish PKK militia, considered a terrorist organization by the EU and the US, seemed to ask for the vote for Kilicdaroglu. The Government considers the formation as the political arm of the armed group. Erdogan has also wanted to exploit the old fears towards the secularism of the CHP trying to take advantage of and introduce into the debate a image in which Kilicdaroglu appears stepping on a prayer rug with shoes. The opponent says that he was involuntary, asked for forgiveness and denounced a smear campaign.

However, for the second round, Kilicdaroglu has to make a move and has chosen to toughen his speech to capture the nationalist votes that have escaped him. “We will not abandon this homeland to the mentality that has brought us 10 million illegal refugees.” “The border is our honor. With this flow of refugees we cannot protect our honor. This flood of irregular people infiltrates our veins on a daily basis and threatens our survival”, he added in a clearly racist speech.