Jean Marcou, Professor of Law at Sciences Po Grenoble, researcher at CERDAP2 and associate researcher at the French Institute of Anatolian Studies in Istanbul.
The verdict of the polls has fallen in Turkey. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who missed re-election by just half a point in the first round of the May 14 presidential election on May 28, with 52.18% of the vote, over the over opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu (47.82%) in the second round. second round. The latter was nevertheless unprecedented, as since the presidential elections have been held on the basis of universal suffrage in Turkey (2014), a single round had been sufficient to decide between the candidates, Erdoğan having already won in 2014 (51.79%) and in 2018 (52.59%). It is worth looking back at this result result before looking at the re-elected president's first initiatives and try to identify the main challenges of this new mandate.
A resilient electoral base
The lessons from the first round were confirmed in the second. Relying on network of large and small Anatolian towns, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's electoral base held firm. The incumbent has a majority in most of the departments on the peninsula, which makes up most of the Turkish territory, with the exception of Ankara (in opposition since 2019), Eskişehir (long-standing stronghold of the Kemalist CHP party) and Tunceli (birthplace of Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu). Apart from these three continental departments, Erdoğan leaves his opponent only European Turkey, Istanbul (which has had an opposition mayor since mayor since 2019), the Aegean and Mediterranean coastal counties Mediterranean seas (a traditional CHP area of influence), the Kurdish Kurdish southeast (traditionally dominated by the Kurdish opposition party opposition HDP party, which ran in the May 14 parliamentary elections under the YSP - Yeni Sol Partisi - New Left Party), and the eastern border counties. eastern border counties.
The municipal 2019 municipal elections, which saw the majority of Turkey's top ten metropolises (including Istanbul and Ankara) vote for the opposition, did not have the expected the expected knock-on effect. While the opposition has a majority in these territories, the AKP and its leader have not been routed. In Istanbul, in 2019, it was already noted that the opposition had won the metropolitan mayoral election mayor, but that the municipal councils (central and peripheral) remained in the hands of the AKP. On May 14 and 28, 2023, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu won a majority in Istanbul, but at the same time his electoral alliance lost the legislative elections there. In a country where over 80% of the population lives in cities, the opposition has a majority in the most open, international metropolises (Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Antalya...), but Erdoğan continues to dominate the urban and neo-urban fabric of Anatolia. urban fabric, where traditional religious and patriarchal values are still very influential.
Loyalty to a tutelary tutelary figure
Does this mean that the polls wrong, as has often been said? Undoubtedly, most of them reflected real discontent. This discontent stemmed from the economic crisis the country for several years and had worsened in 2022, under the dual impact of higher energy and food prices resulting from the as a result of the war in Ukraine. But the polls the ultimate decision of Erdoğ's voters in the polling booth. even Erdoğan's disaffected disgruntled. And it has to be said that, in the end, they have maintained their confidence in the outgoing president.
There are several may explain this conservative reflex. The uncertainties of the ambient context, in which the elections took place. Located in a strategic strategic area, Turkey is close to several conflict zones (war in Ukraine in Syria and, in many respects, Iraq). Its economic economic situation. It has just been exacerbated by an unprecedented earthquake earthquake, which hit 11 provinces, nearly a dozen towns with several hundred thousand hundreds of thousands of inhabitants, over 100,000 km2 of a territory of almost 800,000 km2, with over 56,000 victims identified. So, when it came when it came to voting, a good proportion of AKP voters forgot their bitterness their heartburn, and to a tutelary figure. It is significant to note that many of the voters surveyed referred to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's past record, and in particular to his major projects. works.
It is also that in the majority of departments affected by the earthquake by the February 6 earthquake, the AKP won by a wide margin. Of course it should be remembered that many of these lands were previously held by the AKP, but the fact remains that the inhabitants of these urban areas of Anatolia of Anatolia, who had the opportunity to express their discontent, did not really hold the the outgoing president of the turpitudes revealed by the first investigations into the causes investigations into the causes of the very high death toll. Attached, to their family and religious traditions, they were not about to do what were not prepared to do what was less problematic for voters in the country's western the country's western Turkish metropolises, i.e. vote for a candidate from an atypical in Anatolia, with its Alevi and Kurdish identity.
A weakened opposition
For the first time, however, the opposition had managed to unite and provide itself with a real challenger to Erdoğan, supported by 6 political formations and the Kurdish party (HDP-YSP), which had not presented a candidate. In this respect, it can be said that she succeeded in winning the votes of voters hostile to Erdoğan, but this rejection failed to embody a credible alternative, which might have encouraged some AKP voters to take the step of change. In any case, at the end of the first round, his candidate had no more reserves of votes, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who also had few, nevertheless logically recovered the majority of the nationalist, even xenophobic, votes that had gone to the third man in the first round, Sinan Oğan. The latter had made the migration issue the raison d'être of a candidacy that also proved to be very anti-Kurdish during the campaign.
At the end of election, the opposition, despite forcing the AKP leader into a second round the AKP leader, finds itself in a difficult position. The Alliance of the Alliance, which it had set up, was defeated, with one of its main formations (the Bon Parti - İyi Parti) had announced that it was ending after the elections. elections. The Kemalist Party (CHP), the leading opposition party, will therefore therefore lose the deputies of the AKP splinter parties of Ali Babacan (DEVA) and Ahmet Davutoğlu (GP), who had stood for election on its lists and who will be form their own group. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, its leader, risks being challenged in his own camp, even though even though he has announced his intention to continue the fight for democracy he began in 2010, when he took the helm of the formation. For their part, the two co-leaders of the Kurdish HDP-YSP, Pervin Buldan and Mehmet Sancar, announced that they would not they would not be standing for re-election at the next party congress, expressing their their disappointment at the result, which they did not describe as a defeat, but defeat, but said it was "far from the expectations they might have had". they might have had".
Erdoğan renews his team
For once everything is currently happening in Ankara, where ceremonies to swear in swearing-in ceremonies, investitures and handovers of power between ministers one after the other. Since being re-elected, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been busy bouncing back. Having felt the wind from his sails, he now intends to show that, after twenty years in power power, he is capable of overcoming the wear and tear of time, and change with continuity. continuity. In this respect, the first deadlines are economic. In the statements following his victory, the Head of State repeated his desire to inflation. Inflation fell below 40% (39.6%) in May. However, one swallow does not make a spring spring, and the Turkish executive is eagerly on its policy in this area. The first innovations of the in Ankara, shortly after the swearing-in ceremony and the investiture and the investiture ceremony of the re-elected president at the presidential palace. inauguration ceremony at the presidential palace, when his new ministerial team.
Concerning appointments, probably the most important event is the return of Mehmet of Mehmet Şimşek to Treasury and Finance, a position he held between 2009 and 2015, before being appointed Deputy Prime Minister between 2015 and 2018. Is this appointment a sign of the President's desire to return to a more orthodox orthodox economic policy? Şimşek, who had notable contacts with Erdoğan, just after his re-election and before his appointment, said. transparency, consistency, predictability and respect for international respect for international standards will be our basic principles for achieving our objectives". It's true that Mehmet Şimşek, an alumnus of US investment bank investment bank Merill Lynch, has the profile the profile to reassure international financial institutions and the business community (as indeed do a number of other ministers, for example Alparslan Bayraktar, for energy), but will he really have the means to do so? the means?
The other surprise surprise revealed by this new team concerns the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Affairs. Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, who had headed Turkish diplomacy since the departure of Ahmet Davutoğlu, in 2014, is stepping down, and replaced by Hakan Fidan, Erdoğan's intelligence chief. Erdoğan's intelligence chief since 2010. This key figure in the regime, who had tried to enter politics in the elections in 2015, but was prevented from doing so by the president prevented from doing so by the President himself, is finally fulfilling what long-held aspiration. This is also a new minister who will be will be fully aware of the issues he will have to deal with in the coming days. days.
In addition to this unexpected appointment, there's also that of Yaşar Güler of Yaşar Güler, Chief of Staff of the Turkish Army, who replaces his colleague Hulusi Akar at the Ministry of Defense. This confirms that, since the failed coup of 2016, through the very person of the Minister of Defense the military as an institution has been represented within the executive Akar had already preceded Güler at the head of the General Staff. The final observation in the analysis of this team is, unfortunately, that of a very marginal presence, with only one female minister, Mahinur Özdemir Göktaş (Social and Family Affairs). and Family Affairs).
The end of the diplomatic pause
International affairs are already preoccupying the new executive. Significantly so, Erdoğan was not only congratulated congratulated by Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban or Ilham Alyem, but by most Western heads of state or government, including Joe Biden and Biden and Rishi Sunak, who said they looked forward to working with him again within and Emmanuel Macron, who spoke of the "immense challenges" facing for Turkey and France, citing "the return of peace to Europe the future of our Euro-Atlantic Alliance and the Mediterranean. Mediterranean. It was also noted that the President of the Kurdish region region of Northern Iraq, Nechirvan Barzani, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pachinian, and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg attended the inauguration investiture ceremony in Ankara on June 3.
It's worth remembering that, in recent months, the elections have put this country's international international affairs. On the one hand, Turkish politicians political leaders were absorbed by the demands of the campaign, while foreign on the other, their foreign interlocutors have often taken a back seat, preferring to wait the election results before taking important decisions. And all the more so as change was said to be possible. After the elections, diplomatic business returns to normal. And clearly, the West are determined to push Sweden's Sweden's application to join NATO, which has been blocked by Turkey blocked by Turkey for months. On the sidelines of the investiture ceremony, after a meeting with meeting with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his new Foreign Minister Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jens Stoltenberg announced a forthcoming Turkish-Swedish meeting on the subject.
But there are other on the table. In the Eastern Mediterranean, it seems that the Greek-Turkish rapprochement that began in the wake of last February's earthquake is set to continue, with both countries the two countries recently cancelled naval manoeuvres, which had been scheduled on both sides, to avoid the risk of reviving tensions that are still latent. tensions. On its southern border, Turkish diplomacy will have to decide will soon have to decide how it intends to turn its relationship with Bashar al-Assad's Syrian regime, whose rehabilitation is accelerating in the Arab-Muslim world. This raises the question of what Kurdish policy Ankara will follow followed by Ankara in the coming months, both in Syria and in Iraq, where the Turkish army is also currently present. Without wishing to go into all the issues all the issues, we need only point out that, for the time being, Turkey has been NATO to use its diplomatic influence in the Balkans and send Balkans and to send military reinforcements to prevent the situation in Kosovo from degenerating. Kosovo. The positioning of the new Turkish diplomacy in these different theaters of operation, will be an invaluable clue to the posture that this executive the posture that this executive, renewed by the electoral ordeal, intends to adopt. the offensive policy it pursued in 2019-2020, in Cyprus and Libya, or will it Libya, or will it seek to consolidate its stature as mediator, as revealed by the the Ukrainian conflict?