Jean Marcou, Professor of Law at Sciences Po Grenoble, researcher at CERDAP2 and associate researcher at the French Institute of Anatolian Studies in Istanbul.

Just a few days away from the crucial and legislative elections in Turkey on May 14, the media in many countries the media in many countries around the world have taken the measure of the event, and are not hesitating to headline a possible defeat for Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. It's true that, if this scenario, which is far from Turkish elections would take on a truly international dimension. international dimension. On the borders of a Europe tainted by populism, a country that was converted to liberal democracy to liberal democracy when it joined the Western bloc after the Second World War. which, over the last decade, had too often given the impression of drifting away from it would thus demonstrate its desire to return to the fundamentals of pluralism and the pluralism and the rule of law.

How did it come to this? Why has Turkey, whose recent authoritarian excesses have often been compared (hastily and summarily) to those affecting Vladimir Putin's Russia Vladimir Putin's Russia, is it now in a position to hold a real election, the outcome of which the outcome of which will depend on voters who will turn out en masse (something that voters in many in many European Union countries)?

A resilient pluralism

As has often been said in recent weeks there is a real electoral culture in Turkey. But it is it is true that the democratic process has often been suspended, even neutralized in this country. Established when the country was allied with the West at the start of the Cold War the Cold War, parliamentary rule was disrupted by cyclical military coups which, in the second half of the twentieth century, had finally installed the second half of the twentieth century, a democracy based on a kind of security constitutionalism, in which state power rested on the major institutions of the Republic (army, diplomacy, judiciary, university university hierarchy...) brought into line a civil power born of unpredictable electoral results. unpredictable electoral results.

When he came to power just over twenty years ago twenty years ago, in an electoral tidal wave that reflected, among other things, a rejection of of this hybrid regime, the AKP initially embodied a desire for openness and a the hope of putting an end to this democracy under tutelage. In terms of development of fundamental freedoms, recognition of the duty of memory and the expression of the country's multiple identities, the first decade of the of the millennium was marked by unprecedented advances. But this openness soon to suffer the same fate as its predecessors. Having gradually established itself the state, the majority party believed it could convert civil society to new new principles, and change its way of life according to a process that the that the assurance of its electoral success seemed likely to perpetuate in the medium and long term. long term. However, this conversion gradually showed that it was not to everyone's taste. to everyone's taste.

In 2012, through a series of determined to defeat a reform reducing the legal time limit for abortion, which abortion, described by the AKP leader at the time as a "crime against humanity". as a "crime against humanity". In 2013, during what Gezi events, a protest movement (based on the refusal of a the refusal of a planned urban restructuring project in an emblematic of Istanbul) spread throughout the country, shaking it for several weeks. In 2015, having established itself as Turkey's third-largest political party the Kurdish opposition party (HDP) managed to deprive the AKP of its absolute absolute majority in parliament, leaving Erdoğan without a vote for almost four days! Finally, in 2019, after seizing the majority of the country's major the country's major cities, the opposition inflicted a real slap in the face on the candidate in Istanbul, the metropolis where Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's political career really began after his victory in the 1994 municipal elections. So, nor was the security-conscious constitutionalism of the establishment had failed to tame the flame of Turkish democracy, the of Turkish democracy, the AKP leader's presidentialist constitutionalism has not succeeded in the flame of Turkish democracy.

A electoral culture

Turks love elections. elections. The billboards, posters, advertising campaigns and banners of all kinds advertising campaigns and banners of all kinds that form the obligatory backdrop to any in this country. Journalists indulge in surprising micro-trottoir techniques, stopping passers-by at random to ask them a burning question. passers-by, asking them point-blank: " Kim kazanacak? " (who's going to win?). This kind of this kind of improvised poll provokes a gathering where different points of view are expressed and the candidates, their their past, their promises and the social transformations underway, and even the results of previous elections.

The electoral process has already begun, as expatriates voted in over 150 polling stations in in 73 countries, from April 27 to May 9. Since 2014, Turkish citizens Turkish citizens have been able to vote abroad at diplomatic representations. This out-of-country electorate is not insignificant since it represents 5% of registered voters, i.e. 3.4 million out of a total 65 million voters.

By the evening of May 9, 2023, 1.8 million voters had cast their ballots, representing a turnout of 53%, up almost up nearly 3 points on the previous general election in 2018. In front of the polling stations set up in the diplomatic representations diplomatic representations of European countries with the largest diasporas (Germany, France, Netherlands...), voters sometimes had to wait several hours hours to cast their ballots. New polling had to be opened to cope with the crowds. It has to be said it's easy to vote in Turkey, as you're automatically registered on the electoral roll on the electoral roll when you come of age. But when you're abroad, you sometimes have to travel hundreds of kilometers to get to the polling place. The mobilization is therefore significant.

 Expatriate Turks will continue to be able to continue to be able to carry out their electoral duties at offices set up at border frontier posts, as they did before 2014, but this modality is now now marginal. On the other hand, on May 14, 2023, in Turkey itself, the turnout will be much higher, as even more people will be voting in the metropolitan territory, with turnout rates generally exceeding 80%, or even 85%, without legal obligation to go to the polls.

A presidential election

But for voters to turn out, there has to be something really at stake. In the two previous presidential elections (the country's first two by universal suffrage), Erdoğan dominated the debates in a ballot tailored to his needs, to the extent that the only interest in the results lay in the good performance of the Kurdish candidate, Selahattin Demirtaş, who came a surprising third, particularly in 2018, because he campaigned from prison! The great novelty of this presidential election is therefore that it will be, for the first time, a contested ballot in which Turks will have change within reach of the ballot paper, with the opposition offering them a candidate in a real challenger position.

Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu's ability to play this role was not initially obvious at the outset. Leader since 2010 of the Kemalist CHP, the main opposition party opposition party, he had passed in the two previous presidential elections, probably to avoid an inevitable defeat. It's true that the context context of recent years (the AKP's erosion of power, the worsening economic crisis economic crisis...) has shifted the balance in his favor. But his rather modest personality modest personality and his Alevi and Kurdish origins do not predestine him for a highly personalized highly personalized.

What's more, potential competitors over the years. Muharrem İnce, the CHP's presidential candidate in 2018, after a good showing in that election, quickly election, was quick to claim (unsuccessfully) the leadership of the Kemalist party. Mansur Yavaş and especially Ekrem Imamoğlu, brilliantly elected mayors of Ankara and Istanbul respectively in Istanbul, in 2019, have become popular even outside the party, relegating, for some, relegating Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu as a has-been.

Now, Muharrem İnce, even if he is again in the running for this election, has become a marginalized dissident. As for the two popular mayors mayors, the first has proved too nationalistic to hope to rally the Kurdish opposition electorate that will be one of the key issues in this election, and the second second is heavily handicapped by legal proceedings that could have jeopardized his candidacy had it been declared. So, in the end - and everyone in the agreed within the Alliance de la Nation, which brings together the main main opposition parties, Kılıçdaroğlu emerged as the only possible common possible common candidate. But is he a default candidate and the easiest opponent for Erdoğan? Nothing is less certain, as the campaign has shaken certainties stated a little too quickly. too quickly.

The moment Kılıçdaroğlu ?

In many ways, Erdoğan didn't see coming - or rather, coming back, who is now challenging him in the polls. It must be said that he thought that he had destroyed him as soon as he came to the forefront of the Turkish political scene. by creating the lasting impression that the Kemalist leader of Alevi origin was either hiding his origins (in the worthy tradition of the Shiite currents of Islam) or shirking his responsibilities.

In November 2011, seizing the opportunity of a polemic within the Kemalist formation itself, over the massacres in Dersim, the Kurdish Alevi province, renamed Tunceli, from which Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu originated, and where a fierce repression repression took place in the second half of the 1930s, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, then Prime Minister, criticized him for not daring to speak out about this episode of the Kemalist era, and even went so far as to apologize for the the Republic's apologies for what had happened. "This is an exceptional opportunity for the CHP to confront this tragedy, because its leader is a member of the Tunceli community . You are from Tunceli, why are you running away? he cried. From then on, Bay Kemal was permanently accused of being the man of being the man in hiding or the man on the run. The leitmotif returned, particularly during the 2014 and 2018 presidential elections. Why doesn't the leader of the main opposition party openly talk about his origins? why doesn't he simply run for president? presidential elections," Erdoğan kept claiming, at the time, at countless meetings.

But if he avoided a direct electoral electoral confrontation with Erdoğan over the past decade, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has not remained inactive. Multiplying civil protest and resistance initiatives, he has image of a man of integrity and an active defender of fundamental freedoms freedoms, all too often undermined by the powers that be. In particular, when, in 2017, he led a large march for justice between Ankara and Istanbul. Rallying the 450 km separating the two cities on foot to protest against the the imprisonment of an elected member of his party, the CHP leader caught the authorities unawares, just as they were introducing an authoritarian authoritarian presidential regime. Having let go of a march they thought was doomed to failure they thought doomed to failure, they watched helplessly as the movement gained unexpected momentum. before coming culminating in a million-strong rally in Istanbul. Istanbul, 25 days later.

The Kıl styleıçdaroğlu

Drawing on the benefits of patient fieldwork, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu was also able to also managed to play new cards in this campaign, which clearly that have clearly taken Recep Tayyip Erdoğan the wrong way round. In addition to traditional mass rallies, which have become less fashionable new modes of communication and the unexpected context created by the the earthquake, his use of short thematic clips, published on Tweeter, hit a hit. Two in particular caught the eye. On April 9, 2023, the opposition candidate brandished an onion from his kitchen onion to evoke the difficult daily life of Turks, confronted with a cost of living. On April 19, 2023, from his library cluttered with books and magazines, especially to young people who were about to vote for the first time, he underlined the diversity of Turkish society. the diversity of Turkish society and openly evoked its Alevi identity. Alevi identity.

So the one who was said to be hidden appeared without glitter in electronic fireside chats electronic chats tone was clearly aimed at creating a new political climate of confidence despite the prevailing polarization. The speed and density of his density thanks to the use of simple words, in a setting free of all media in places free of media artifice, contrasted with the now more distant the now more distant image of Erdoğan behind the wheel of the TOGG, the first car the first car designed and built in Turkey, commissioning the new Anadolu the new Anadolu drone carrier, or remotely inaugurating Akkuyu nuclear power plant.

Now the die has been cast. The style Kılıçdaroğlu style, resolutely style, with its emphasis on closeness and sincerity the outgoing president's style, always marked by grandeur, but also but not without a certain pragmatism when necessary, pragmatism, which led him to very recently and urgently increase civil servants' salaries by 45% ? It is probably have to wait until the second round of the presidential elections on to find out. In the meantime, on May 14, the legislative elections will have have given their verdict, giving the two candidates still in the running for the election to the supreme magistracy, important indications as to the political political means at their disposal to implement their program, if elected.