2023-05-16 18:47:34
If the vote in Turkey was like that of the Turkish population in France, Recep Tayyip Erdogan would have been re-elected in the first round. And largely: the outgoing president obtained 64% of the votes there, according to the media Haberturk, which compiles the official results. The figure is significantly higher than its score of 49.5% garnered in the first round of the presidential election last Sunday in Turkey.
On the other hand, his rival Kemal Kiliçdaroglu collected only 34% of the votes of the Turks of France, against 44.9% on the whole of the ballot.
In France, nearly 400,000 voters
Out of a total population estimated at 700,000 people in France, some 397,000 are registered on the electoral lists, of whom only nearly half participate in the vote. The outgoing president’s very good score is nothing new: in 2018, he had already obtained 65% of the vote. This popularity is largely explained by the social origins of the Turks who have come to work in France since the 1960s, thanks to the establishment of migration agreements for Turkish workers.
“Several generations were born in France and are French, but their attachment to national and religious identity remains intact, thanks to transmission strategies. However, a large part of the immigration comes from the more conservative areas of central and northern Anatolia, and is very attached to the Islamic identity and the Turkish identity.explains Samim Akgönü, professor and director of the Turkish studies department at the University of Strasbourg.
Wide success in Germany for Erdogan
This electoral sociology is found in other European countries, such as Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Belgium. In Germany, where nearly 1.5 million voters are registered, the outgoing president won 65% of the votes.A score which, according to Samim Akgönü, confirms that, “in countries that have experienced migration from the working classes, the conservative vote is overrepresented”.
Other countries, on the other hand, voted overwhelmingly for Kemal Kiliçdaroglu. In the United States and the United Kingdom, the outgoing president obtained only 16 and 18% of the votes, against 80 and 79% for his opponent. In Australia, the gap is a little less spectacular, with a score of 54% for the opposition candidate against 42% for Erdogan. “The share of ‘white collar’ immigration, from the middle bourgeoisie – bankers, intellectuals, engineers – is greater, which explains this difference in votes”, relieves Samim Akgönü.
On the occasion of elections organized in advance (from April 27 to May 9), several incidents broke out in polling stations abroad. In Marseilles, the 1is May, a brawl took place between pro and anti-Erdogan voters, which resulted in four injuries. In Amsterdam, police say, 300 people were involved in a general fight at a polling station on May 7.
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The final results of the first round in Türkiye
Participation rate in the presidential and legislative elections of May 14 reached almost 89% of the 64 million registered voters, of whom 3.4 million live abroad.
The outgoing president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan won 49.5% of the votes cast.
Son principal rival, Kemal Kiliçdaroglu collected 44.89% of the votes.
The two qualified candidates in the second round will now seek to recover the votes of the ultranationalist candidate Sinan Ogan, who came in third position with 5% of the vote.
The coalition led by the AKP, President Erdogan’s party also won 322 parliamentary seats, against 213 for that of Kiliçdaroglu, out of a total of 600.
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