Presidential and legislative elections in Turkey will go ahead as scheduled despite the February 6 earthquake, which killed more than 46,000 people and devastated entire areas of the south and southeast of the country. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who has led the Republican People’s Party (CHP) since 2010, has vowed to “return the country to democracy” if he is elected in May, AFP reported.
The coalition, dubbed the “Nation’s Alliance,” nearly collapsed on Friday, just ten weeks before the election. Meral Aksener, leader of the nationalist Good Party, the second largest party in the coalition, has spoken out strongly against Kılıçdaroğlu’s candidacy and has called on the people’s mayors of Istanbul and Ankara, Ekrem Imamoğlu and Mansur Yavas, to appear in its place. After meeting the two mayors and then Kılıçdaroğlu in Ankara on Monday, the Good Party leader finally agreed to join the Alliance.
For some opposition supporters, Kılıçdaroğlu, a 74-year-old former high-ranking official from the Alevi minority, suffers from a lack of charisma compared to the head of state. However, Erdogan, whose popularity has suffered from Turkey’s ongoing economic crisis, will have to answer to voters for slow relief efforts in the hours after the Feb. 6 earthquake. Apologizing for the delay in delivering aid, the 69-year-old Turkish president has set out to rebuild the devastated areas, pledging to build some 490,000 houses to quake-resistant standards “within a year.”
According to polls, the presidential election on May 14 promises to be the most difficult for Erdogan since 2003, when he came to power as prime minister. In addition, the pro-Kurdish leftist HDP, which favors Kılıçdaroğlu’s nomination, may not nominate a candidate this year in favor of the opposition alliance, Turkish media reported. The HDP, the third formation in parliament, won 12 percent of the vote in the last legislative elections, while its jailed candidate won 8.4 percent of the vote in the 2018 presidential election. than half of voters vote for Erdogan’s ruling AK Party and its nationalist allies, according to a recent poll.
