2023-05-11 23:18:20
Betül’s story is that of many families who are suffering from the economic crisis in Turkey. Three years ago she ran a hairdressing salon in Bayrampasa, a residential neighborhood in the European part of Istanbul, where she lives with her husband and her two children. Inflation reached 85% in October last year, although several studies indicate that it continues to exceed 100% in metropolitan cities such as Istanbul.
This sudden increase in rents, gas and electricity bills forced Betül to close its business. Now, through word of mouth, she cuts the hair of the neighbors in the neighborhood. Her husband works at a gas station and her crisis interrupted a business project, which she ended up in nothing and with debts. Since then, they have survived with the help and discounts they find, such as “popular milk”, an initiative of the Istanbul city council to cover the basic needs of families experiencing financial difficulties.
“My children are two and five years old, so they give us free milk. I cook with that too. I look for the most affordable products in the markets. I am quite an expert in finding offers, ”she jokes. She and her family are thinking of moving to Germany, where they could find jobs that pay better than the minimum wage in Turkey (400 euros), but for this they need to save because the Turkish lira has devalued 73% in the last five years. .
The economic situation is the focus of the campaign for the presidential and parliamentary elections this Sunday in Turkey. Most economists point out that the price increase is due to the unorthodox measures of the current president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has intervened in the decisions of the Central Bank, creating mistrust among investors and causing the lira and prices to wobble.
The president assures that these problems are now behind us and insists on highlighting the advances of his government in the last two decades, especially the development of infrastructure and defense. The opposition has for the first time formed a coalition of six parties of different ideologies – from center-left to liberals, nationalists and Islamists – with the aim of overthrowing Erdogan. The alliance has proposed a common candidate for the presidency: Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, who leads most polls.
This Thursday, the candidate Muharren Ince, to whom the polls gave around 5% of intention to vote, has withdrawn from the race, which can benefit Kiliçdaroglu. If neither of the two leading candidates reaches 50% of the vote, a runoff would be held on May 28. In parliamentary elections, the dance of percentages is more uncertain, although it indicates that Erdogan could win Parliament again. In any case, the polls show very close elections between two very different models of Turkey, the result of years of social polarization.
“I will vote for Erdogan again, I think he can get us out of this crisis. My parents came to Istanbul thirty years ago from Konya (Central Anatolia) and saw how Erdogan improved the country”, explains Betül. “If anyone can solve our situation, it is him. The opposition does not convince me, they do not know the needs of the people, ”he adds.
Muharrem, a 70-year-old retiree living on the Aegean coast of Izmir, agrees. “Erdogan is a strong leader. Turkey helps other countries economically in Africa, helps Ukraine, helps the Balkans. If we were in crisis, I couldn’t do it. Everything is opposition propaganda, ”he blurts out. Muharrem admits that prices have gone up a lot in supermarkets, but “inflation has gone up all over Europe,” he adds.
“Erdogan has been losing support in society from 55% of voting intentions to 45% in the last five years. It reached the lowest level, of 38%, in May 2022, when the economic situation got much worse, ”explains Ulas Tol, head of research at the TEAM social impact study center. “The problems are still huge, but the president’s populist actions create a feeling that he is in charge again and can solve the crisis, but there is a catch. He cannot go beyond 45% of the votes, ”he warns.
earthquake zones
Three months after the devastating earthquakes that rocked Turkey causing more than 50,000 deaths, Dogukan has fully resumed its work. For ten years he has been in charge of sales for a walnut production company in Dukadiroglu, in Kahramanmaras, one of the provinces most affected by the earthquake.
“We have interrupted work on several occasions due to logistical problems and because many of the workers have been left homeless. Their homes were left completely uninhabitable,” he notes. Before the earthquake, the company was already going through a bad time due to the inflationary crisis that has plagued the country for almost two years.
“We import fertilizers and pesticides and every day it is more expensive to produce. Not only because of inflation, but also because the Turkish lira is weakening against the euro and it is more expensive to buy abroad, ”he describes. Dogukan, 42, assures that until now he had voted for Erdogan, but that the economic crisis has made him doubt the president’s management. This time he will vote for Kiliçdaroglu’s coalition. “Prices have risen in all countries, but here much more. Every day buying is more expensive ”, he explains.
“I think we need a change. My wife will continue to vote for Erdogan because the state has helped us a lot after the earthquake. I believe that only one change will get us out of this crisis. We will see what happens, ”she adds.
Around three million people left the earthquake region to settle in other provinces of the country, but only 133,000 have registered their vote in other provinces. The Turkish authorities gave a short window of time to register a new address to be able to vote and the majority will have to travel back to the affected area to participate in the elections.
Others, who have been living in tents for three months, will also have to go to the nearest polling station, sometimes several kilometers from where they live. This panorama entails multiple logistical problems to be able to vote, because many families have lost everything in the earthquake and do not have the financial means to pay for the trip.
A civil society organization that works to monitor the transparency of voting processes, Oy ve Ötesi, has launched a solidarity campaign for the population to buy bus tickets so that those affected by the earthquake can go to vote. The organization has 100,000 volunteers in these elections spread across all the country’s provinces to ensure that the voting process is clean and safe.
“We have volunteers at the polling station, they will observe the voting process and report possible irregularities,” says Ertim Orkun, director of the organization. “In Türkiye there are about 200,000 ballot boxes and we are 100,000 volunteers. We are not enough to be at all the polling stations, but with this figure we can have a statistical overview of the anomalies that may occur ”, he points out.
polarize the campaign
In this dance of votes, both candidates campaign to have the support of sectors of society that can be a key vote. One of them is the five million young people who will vote for the first time. “It is close to 8% of the electorate, a proportion to take into account,” says Tol. “This population group has two peculiarities: first, they are more dissidents, they feel more uncomfortable with the current government. Second, their opposition to the Government does not mean that they directly support the opposition, ”he describes.
On the other hand, the third force in the current Parliament, the pro-Kurdish leftist party HDP, has a stable support of 10% of the votes and can be decisive. The formation is presented to the parliamentary elections with a coalition of left-wing parties, but in the presidential elections it has not presented a candidate and has announced that it will support Kiliçdaroglu.
In recent weeks, Erdogan has linked the HDP to the terrorism of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) guerrilla to attack the main opposition coalition. In addition to terrorism, the president reproaches his support for the LGTBI community, an accusation that he frequently uses to confront the population.
The Minister of the Interior, Süleyman Soylu, has affirmed that the opposition are LGTBI who “want to marry animals” and has declared that these elections are a “coup d’état” by the West so that the opposition wins. This escalation of tension in the speeches has led to a stone attack by nationalist groups at an opposition electoral event in Erzurum, in eastern Anatolia, in which seven civilians were injured.
At another HDP/YSP event in Mersin, on the Mediterranean coast, a nationalist group also attacked the party vehicle, injuring five. The opposition has called for calm, has asked that its supporters not take to the streets to celebrate victory if they win, in an attempt to avoid clashes with Erdogan’s voters.
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