Despite the possible counteraccusations of the most delicate vote for Erdoğan in two decades at the helm of his country, maybe the most significant fact of the electoral cycle that has just ended with Sunday’s presidential runoff in Turkey seems to be rather the failure of the proposed strategic reorientation towards the West promoted by the opposition and its seeker, Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu. All that the peremptory chairman had to do to reconfirm himself after the suddenly positive result of the first round was eventually to reaffirm his commitment to an independent foreign – and profitable – policy, as well as to accentuate populist tones and avoid jingoistic surpluses inultra-nationalists, espoused nearly entirely by his rival.
sanctioned voting data gave Erdoğan52.18 of the votes and47.82 for Kiliçdaroğlu. The ultimate collected about 830,000 further votes than in the first round, while Erdoğan closed with a positive balance of 600,000. The difference wasn’t enough to shift the balance, given that the gregarious chairman surpassed the opposition seeker by further than2.3 million votes.
There were actually numerous dubieties as to whether a possible palm by Kiliçdaroğlu would lead, among other effects, to the rupture of relations between Ankara and Moscow or the realignment of Turkey to NATO, given the interests at stake and the now consolidated changes of Eurasian strategic equilibrium. still, the seeker of the Alliance of the Nation had accentuated thepro-Atlantist aspects of his electoral docket, indeed going so far as to denounce a missing Russian hindrance in the vote in Turkey.
The choice proved to be a clunker and it couldn’t have been else if one thinks of the station of the maturity of the
Türkiye, the century ofErdoğan.Turkish population towards the United States and the West. likewise, identification with NATO is original to sharing and sharing inanti-Russian provocations in the environment of a conflict, similar as the one in Ukraine, which has caused veritably serious profitable problems and brought the earth to the point of a nuclear conflagration. At the same time, Turkish choosers understand how relations with Russia have contributed much to their country’s energy security, as well as reaping a number of profitable benefits, at least in the run- up to the current extremity.
Kiliçdaroğlu’s other losing move ahead of the runoff is his grasp of Ümit Özdağ’s far-right Victory Party to secure the support of his( many) choosers. The leader of this party had agreed to support Erdoğan’s rival on condition that the government program include a commitment to deport the millions of Syrian deportees hosted by Turkey and to abandon any concession in the battle against” Kurdish terrorism”. This last pledge has inescapably caused a significant drop in support for Kiliçdaroğlu in the south- eastern businesses where there’s a sizeable Kurdish nonage.
As for the issue of deportees, Erdoğan has also been hanging for some time to deport as numerous of them as possible to Syria. Not only that, the Turkish chairman had in turn quested an electoral agreement for the runoff with the seeker who finished third in the first round, Sinan Oğan, who also tookultra-nationalist and jingoistic positions. Oğan had offered his support to the seeker who would commit to expelling Syrian deportees, but eventually decided for Erdoğan despite the two not subscribing any formal agreement on the issue, allowing the peremptory chairman to present himself as a fairly more moderate volition on the immigration theme.
In general, Kiliçdaroğlu thus tried to recover ground after the May 14 vote with a more aggressive and” divisive” strategy, presumably overvaluing the desire for change within Turkish society. The opposition and colorful voices in the West also didn’t fail to denounce fraud and irregularities in advancing operations. In the first round, for illustration, it appeared unusual that the areas devastated by the February earthquake had a turnout of over 80 per cent or that Erdoğan’s supporter of the Justice and Development Party( AKP), the Nationalist Movement party( MHP) of the extreme right, had scored unanticipated results in the businesses heavily peopled by the Kurdish nonage.
It’s also apparent that, as in numerous other countries, including Western countries, Erdoğan has served from being the peremptory chairman, both in terms of fashionability and control of the sanctioned media. In any case, the swerve to the right that followed in the first round didn’t help a Kiliçdaroğlu formerly punished by being portrayed – incompletely rightly – as a kind of poppet of the West.
Populism andanti-imperialism have been Erdoğan’s trump cards, indeed if the ultimate of these two factors actually has further nuanced outlines. Erdoğan’santi-Western rhetoric is primarily an electoral armament. For illustration, there are no concrete plans on his part to leave NATO. likewise, his government agreed to confirm Finland’s entry into the Alliance. The obstacles that Ankara continues to pose to Sweden’s training are rather motivated by issues of a political nature to be linked over all to the Kurdish” trouble”.
Indeed with regard to the Russian- Ukrainian conflict, Turkey, contrary to what Western governments frequently claim, doesn’t support Moscow but tries to maintain a neutral or, better to say, equidistant position. In other words, Turkish interests are guiding Erdoğan’s choices. On the one hand, Ankara inventories munitions similar as the” Bayraktar” drones- to Ukraine and on the other favors the connection of the nearly each-round cooperation with Russia, refusing to misbehave with the Western warrants governance.
This” independent foreign policy”, celebrated by Putin in his congratulatory communication transferred to Erdoğan after his palm in the runoff, will thus by all probability remain one of the characterizing rudiments of Turkey’s third term as chairman as well. That Ankara’s precedences are located more in the East than in the West also depends on the dynamics that are reshuffling the global balance favoring the emergence of a multipolar order.
In recapitulating the factors that uphold Turkey’s transnational displacing process promoted over two decades by Erdoğan, the Turkish intelligencer Ceyda Karan in apre-election analysis published last week by the Lebanese online review The Cradle recalled that Ankara” it needs at least 200 billion bones of coffers ”. For this reason,” the direction of Erdoğan’s foreign policy will be determined by profitable openings” and, accordingly, the Turkish chairman” will not be seen as a dependable mate by any country”, both in the Atlanticist and Eurasian camps.
This station of Erdoğan will remain so in view of the heavy profitable and financial extremity that Turkey is going through and which risks calling into question the bournes as a indigenous power that the chairman has precisely cultivated. Precisely in this perspective, the relationship with Russia, at the center of attention of Western media and governments in thepre-electoral period, will continue to have a veritably special dimension.
Thanks to the work of Erdoğan and Putin, the two countries are now linked by solid and growing relations that produce benefits for both in numerous sectors, from tourism to energy( gas, nuclear), from construction to trade, from assiduity to investment, up to the service( S- 400) and politic( Syria). still, the realistic inclination of both governments ensures that there’s also no lack of rudiments of conflict or divergent interests, observable in colorful areas. A veritably recent illustration is precisely Ukraine and Ankara’s military backing to the Zelensky governance. In this regard, virtually coinciding with Erdoğan’s electoral success and the respects expressed by Putin, the news of the nearly complete destruction by Russia of the line of Turkish” Bayraktar TB2″ drones supplied by the Ukrainian fortified forces has spread.
