PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS IN TURKEY: FROM CUTE GRANDPA TO UNCLE HITLER
Turkey has witnessed a critically important presidential election in recent weeks. In a country where the economy is on the brink of bankruptcy, human rights and the rule of law are not functioning, the political Islamist Erdoğan, who has been in power for 21 years, and his coalition partners, the ultra-nationalist fascist MHP, the radical Islamist YRP and HÜDAPAR, the political organization of the terrorist organization Kurdish Hezbollah, controversially won the election in the second round against Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the joint candidate of the multi-vocal opposition led by the social democratic CHP.
In the two rounds of the presidential elections, the people of Turkey were confronted with two different discourses and campaigns. The opposition candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’s first round campaign, symbolized by the two-handed heart sign and carried on with spring flowers, love, peace and tolerance, was responded by the political Islamist and fascist ruling bloc with LGBTI+ hostility. So much so that the government’s Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu even said in an election speech, “If the opposition comes to power, it will make it legal for people to marry animals.” (https://www.media-diversity.org/the-weaponization-of-turkiyes-lgbt-community-during-the-elections/)
Another focus of her first round campaign was women’s rights. She said that the first treaty she would sign if elected would be the Istanbul Convention (https://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Istanbul_Convention), which was canceled under the AKP government, and promised to grant women more equality, freedom and rights in politics, business life and daily life. In response to Kılıçdaroğlu’s promises, the Islamist-fascist government promised to repeal the Republic of Turkey’s “Law on the Protection of the Family and the Prevention of Violence against Women”, known as “Law №6284”, to criminalize extramarital affairs, and to end the education of girls and boys in mixed classes. (https://www.duvarenglish.com/islamist-new-welfare-party-decides-to-join-ruling-coalition-after-chairmans-meeting-with-erdogan-news-62086)
However, these promises, which in any democratic country would cause a huge controversy, were either ignored or normalized in the Turkish mainstream media. (https://www.gercekgundem.com/secim/huda-par-secim-vizyon-belgesini-acikladi-zina-suc-olmali-karma-egitim-zorunlu-olmaktan-cikmali-418832) (https://www.voaturkce.com/a/hudapar-secim-vizyon-belgesinde-neler-var/7047104.html)
In the first round of the elections, Erdoğan and his coalition received 49.50% of the votes, below the 50.01% threshold required to be elected in the first round, and the elections went to the second round.
The opposition candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who needed 5% of the votes to win in the second round, took a sharp turn at this stage and abandoned the language of love, tolerance and equality of the first round and started looking for ways to get the votes of the ultra-nationalist candidate Sinan Oğan, who received 5% of the votes in the first round. Kılıçdaroğlu’s entire rhetoric in this round was about the refugees and asylum seekers fleeing the civil war in Syria and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
Kılıçdaroğlu (https://www.duvarenglish.com/kilicdaroglu-will-go-after-nationalist-votes-adopt-aggressive-campaign-news-62428) started to say that if he came to power he would “forcibly” return all 3,5 million refugees and asylum-seekers in Turkey to their countries within a year and started to use images directly targeting Syrian and Afghan refugees in his campaign videos and posters. “Syrians will leave” posters were plastered all over the country, while xenophobia reached its peak, especially on social media.
Kılıçdaroğlu’s neo-Nazi-like rhetoric has also caused major cracks within the alliance. Voters of the right-liberal DEVA and Future Party and the Kurdish Green Left Party in the opposition alliance objected to Kılıçdaroğlu’s rhetoric, saying that “forcibly” sending refugees and asylum seekers away violates human rights.
While Kılıçdaroğlu’s hostile rhetoric against refugees and asylum seekers has been widely reported in the Turkish media, refugees and asylum seekers who have been in the country for a long time, some of whom have been granted Turkish citizenship, built a new life in Turkey or even had children born in Turkey, live in fear of being targeted. (https://www.voanews.com/a/syrians-in-turkey-watch-its-presidential-runoff-closely-/7101200.html) (https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/49041/turkeys-opposition-leader-vows-to-get-rid-of-refugees--but-can-he)
