Ruling AKP’s final resort is to intimidate voters: “election coup”

Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu described the upcoming May 14 elections as a “political coup” plot, erupting a furor as opposition reacted harshly to the comment.

“July 15 was their de facto coup attempt. May 14th is their political coup attempt. It is that clear and unambiguous. May 14, 2023, is the West’s political coup attempt. It is a coup attempt that can be formed by bringing together all of the preparations to demolish Turkey on May 14,” the minister who is responsible for the public security of the country said on April 29.

He had previously mentioned the opposition in a sentence where he was talking about “burying the opposition in Cudi and Gabar,” where the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) armed groups are present.

However, calling the election, which is the most legitimate ground of democracy, a coup d’état plot is another level of context shift.

Calling election a coup plot

Because of this highly anti-democratic view, it is also possible to consider anyone who does not work for President Tayyip Erdoğan, at least half of the population—a coup plotter. Or is this unprecedented outburst in political history due to the fear of losing the elections and the blessings of sweeping power?

Or is this outburst from the Minister of Interior just a week before the elections a message to the opposition voters: “We will not surrender power even if we lose it with your votes?”

Is the Interior Minister, who controls the police and gendarmerie forces in charge of protecting the ballot boxes, threatening the opposition voters, implying that if they would like to survive on May 14, they should stay at home and not attempt to vote?

But as the proverb goes, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

If the president holds a rally in a mosque

Just a few days before Soylu made those comments, wasn’t it President Erdoğan who, for the first time in Turkish history, set up an election podium in the courtyard of a mosque? Wasn’t it Erdoğan who, in his election speech at the Sultanahmet Mosque, claimed that the CHP would abolish the Ministry of Religious Affairs if it came to power, made the crowd boo his political opponent, and said, “Boo is not enough, we will make him a political corpse”?

When Erdoğan, who had put himself in the position of Imam of the country, did this, everything became free for his congregation.

Soylu was not the only one. Didn’t AKP Deputy Chairman Binali Yıldırım, whose family members had a lot to lose if the government changed, say that if CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu won the presidency, those who wanted to invade Turkey would win?

A century ago, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was establishing the Republic (and then the Presidency of Religious Affairs) after the war he led against the invaders and their local collaborators within the Sultan’s Palace. The reactionaries who said “I wish the Greeks had won so that the caliphate would have remained”, were carrying the flag of rebellion in collaboration with the invaders. Those were the ones whom Yıldırım and Erdoğan both admire.

Soylu and Yıldırım were not the only ones, there were also the Minister of Justice’s words.

Entrusting a child, entrusting an election coup

After Erdoğan had his political opponent booed in a mosque for words he did not say, Minister of Justice Bekir Bozdağ has found the courage; perhaps we should say audacity, he needed.

On the night of the May 14 election, he suggested that if Kılıçdaroğlu won, those who voted for the opposition would be the ones who celebrated with champagne, and if Erdoğan won, his supporters would celebrate by praying with praise.

In a scathing video message, opposition leader Ahmet Davutoğlu, who founded the Future Party and joined the opposition bloc after parting ways with Erdoğan and the AKP, for which he served as Foreign Minister and Prime Minister, said Bozdağ’s remarks amounted to an offence under Article 218 of the Penal Code, which aims to incite one section of the public against another.

In his video message, Davutoğlu also stated that the DSP Chairman Önder Aksakal, the member of the AKP’s People’s Alliance along with Islamist Hüda-Par, called the opposition “kufar” (infidel), and this is also discrimination, arguing that the ballot boxes cannot be entrusted to this Minister of Justice and calling on people to protect the ballot boxes.

Meanwhile, Bozdağ dropped another bombshell: he asked voters whether they would entrust their children to someone from the government or the opposition. The minister who asked this question stirred debate by mentioning “consent of a minor” in 2016, when he was the Minister of Justice, when a judicial regulation that would pave a way to pardon child rapists stirred debate.

One side on hope, the other on fear

Erdoğan has won the elections he has won so far by using the balance of hope and fear appropriately. In this election, despite the administrative incompetence and irregularities that were further exposed by the economic crisis and the earthquake disaster, he tried to win the election by reviving hope with the slogan “We will do it again”.

The rhetoric of fear, usually started with “If we go” sentences, was not as successful as they wished. For example, he tried to use “if we go, the headscarf ban would be revived.” The rhetoric was discarded when Kılıçdaroğlu had proposed a constitutional amendment to guarantee the use of the headscarf. Again, that door of abusing the fears of people was closed—to a large extent—when Kılıçdaroğlu openly stated that he was Alevi. What remained were rumours that the Diyanet would be shut down, champagne-praying dichotomy fantasies, and Soylu’s open threats.

Having lost the chance to get the support of the HDP with the MHP and Hüda-Par alliances, Erdoğan now accuses the CHP, the IYI Party, etc. of collaborating with the PKK and the US because the Labor and Freedom Alliance decided to support Kılıçdaroğlu, and bases his electoral discourse on intimidating voters by defaming the opponent.

While Erdoğan and the People’s Alliance are trying to win the election by striking fear into hearts, Kılıçdaroğlu and the People’s Alliance are trying to win the election with the promise of good days in their own government.

Mr. Kemal has 60 percent in the business world

A KONDA poll leaked on a social media site predicted that the current situation is still neck and neck, the AKP alliance is losing its parliamentary advantages, and the presidential race would likely end in the second round in favour of Kılıçdaroğlu with 51 to 49 percent. However, if the decline in the votes of Muharrem İnce and Sinan Oğan continued, Kılıçdaroğlu could have won in the first round.

On April 29, I moderated a panel at the Uludağ Economy Summit; KONDA executive Bekir Ağırdır and political scientist Gülfem Saydan Sanver were panellists. There was great interest in the hall. I asked if the election would end in the first round. Barely a third of the room raised their hands. Saydan-Sanver asked the second question before I did: “Well, who will win the election?” At least 60 percent of the hall raised their hands for Kılıçdaroğlu.

The most applause was given to Ağırdır’s remarks that the ballot boxes must be protected.

The desperation to denigrate the election with coup slander may not work. This is what the rally squares seem to be saying.