On the 14th of this month, the upcoming presidential elections in Turkey represent one of the region’s and the world’s most significant interests for several reasons, most notably related to recognizing the compass of Turkish foreign policy during the next phase.
Will it be a victory of Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the opposition candidate supported by the opposition alliance consisting of six parties, who pledged to review all of Erdogan’s policies, or will Turkey continue in the direction outlined by the current president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the candidate to win a third presidential term?
Erdogan, the current Turkish president who has been directing his country’s policies for two full decades, specifically after he took up the position of prime minister in March 2003, following the Justice and Development Party’s victory in the 2002 general elections, faces a difficult challenge this time, not only from the opposition but also because his party is no longer what it used to be, in addition to Erdogan’s own age (around 69 years old), and he no longer has the same health capacity he had at the beginning of his current presidential term.
The Erdogan era has witnessed major qualitative changes and turns, whether in the prime minister’s or president’s position, starting from the invasion of Iraq, and up to the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, passing through the events in Syria and the years of chaos and turmoil witnessed by the Arab world, in which he directly intervened by supporting and backing the Muslim Brotherhood organization. Especially in Egypt, his positions caused a rift and tension between the two countries for years. That ended during the last few months as part of regional geopolitical shifts to resolve the existing disputes between the active capitals within the region.
During Erdogan’s rule, Turkey has witnessed significant changes internally. It is enough to say that it has moved during that period from a parliamentary systemto a presidential system of government, which his opponent in the upcoming elections promised to change and return things to what they were in a scene of opposition alignment and unity.
If the recent earthquake hadn’t occurred, perhaps the situation would have been slightly different for Erdogan’s chances in the upcoming elections. According to World Bank estimates, the two major earthquakes that occurred last February caused losses to the Turkish economy estimated at about $34 billion, equivalent to about 4% of the country’s GDP. The costs of recovery and reconstruction are likely to double, and total GDP losses associated with global economic disruptions are also expected to increase the earthquakes cost.
The severe economic crisis that the Turkish economy has been suffering from in recent years, where the value of the local currency has deteriorated and inflation has risen to record levels exceeding 50%, contributes to complicating Erdogan’s and his party’s political situation in an unprecedented way. The earthquakes caused about 1.5 million people to lose their homes due to damage to buildings or their complete collapse.
Despite calls to postpone them, Erdogan is determined to hold the elections on time, while the opposition is equally determined to hold them as they see it as a perfect opportunity to attack the Justice and Development party. This is especially true since around 15% of the voters are from areas affected by the earthquake, which the government promised to rebuild within a year to standard specifications.
Additionally, Erdogan’s announcement in March that around 6.5 million buildings in Istanbul and other Turkish cities need to be demolished and rebuilt to comply with sound engineering standards and specifications presents another major challenge.
Now, the question looming large is whether the opposition will be able to capitalize on the desire of Turkish voters to overcome the effects of the earthquakes that killed around 47,000 people and impacted over 230,000 buildings partially or completely in the last two incidents, along with the scenario of the 1999 earthquake that brought AKP to power in 2002. Will Erdogan, who admitted to the government’s slow and inadequate rescue efforts in the early days, citing bad weather, confusion, and poor organization, succeed in convincing voters of his justifications and overcome the crisis in a year
