- Turkey’s next general election was scheduled for June 18.
- President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced that Turkey will have early elections.
- This could be the most difficult election of Erdogan’s two-decade tenure.
Turkey: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced that Turkey‘s elections will go place on May 14 — a month earlier than planned — as the opposition continues to seek a unified candidate to oppose him.
This could be the most difficult election of Erdogan’s two-decade tenure, which has seen economic booms, massive infrastructure projects, tensions with neighbors, wars, and a failed coup.
“I will utilize my authority… to bring the election date ahead to May 14,” Erdogan stated in a video from a gathering with young people this weekend in the northwest city of Bursa.
Turkey’s next general election was scheduled for June 18.
“This is not an early election, but rather putting it forward,” Erdogan stated in a video broadcast made available by his office.
The Turkish leader stated that they had agreed on a timeline change with their junior right-wing coalition partner in order to avoid disrupting school test timetables.
The clock is ticking
The election campaign is scheduled to begin on March 10, giving the Turkish opposition even less time to prepare.
They have been attempting for months to come up with a single candidate to run against Erdogan in the elections.
While Turkey’s high inflation and sinking currency may boost their cause, internal squabbles work in Erdogan’s favor.
He has used the government’s media supremacy to control the nation’s political dialogue.
According to an opposition party source, their united candidate will be unveiled in February.
In opinion polls, Istanbul’s popular opposition mayor Ekrem Imamoglu is a favorite to beat Erdogan in a head-to-head race.
He was the one who ended Erdogan’s ruling party’s dominance in the 2019 municipal elections.
An Istanbul court barred the 52-year-old from running for president last month, but he has appealed and can still run.
Due to Imamoglu’s legal fight, the main opposition CHP party’s leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu has emerged as the most likely contender to challenge Erdogan.
Kilicdaroglu, who is more bookish and less telegenic than the mayor, has failed to gain the backing of the other opposition leaders.
Erdogan’s long rule
Erdogan, a devout Muslim who does not drink or smoke, aspires to join Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in the pantheon of transformative Turkish leaders.
Critics, on the other hand, accuse him of eroding the contemporary republic’s secular pillars.
Since taking office in 2003, first as prime minister and subsequently as president, he has embarked on a massive infrastructure project, constructing tunnels, bridges, and the country’s largest airport.
He questioned Turkey’s coup-ridden history and severed the military’s wings, surviving a violent coup attempt in 2016.
However, his subsequent crackdown on critics, as well as tense relations with NATO partners, have generated concerns about Turkey’s future trajectory under his leadership.
Erdogan announced on Wednesday his plan to move the election to May 14, the date of Turkey’s first free election in 1950.
Adnan Menderes, the winner on that occasion, a prime minister and a symbol of Turkish conservatism, was deposed by a military dictatorship in 1960 and executed a year later.
Erdogan’s choice of May 14 is considered a nod to the conservative voters.
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