Erdogan wants to hold presidential and parliamentary elections a month earlier

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking in parliament, allowed the elections to be held on May 14 – a month ahead of schedule.

“After 73 years, again on this day, our people will say no to these applauding putschists from the ‘bloc of six’ (a bloc of six opposition parties, including Erdogan’s main opponent, the Kemalist Republican People’s Party (CHP) – Vedomosti),” the Turkish official said. president (quoted by Hurriyet). The Turkish Central Election Commission has not yet announced its consent to the postponement of the voting date from the previously announced June 18. On May 14, 1950, the Islamist Democratic Party of Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, hanged in 1961 by the military, won the elections. These elections marked the end of the one-man rule of the Kemalists, whose heir is Turkey’s main opposition party CHP.

The alliance opposing Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) and his nationalist allies includes the CHP, the centre-left Good Party (İYİP), the Happy Party (Felicit), the Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA) and the Future Party. They have not yet chosen a compromise candidate for the presidential elections.

On the eve of the elections, the situation in Turkey is not easy, primarily from the point of view of the economy – although inflation slowed down first to 84.3% in November (for the first time in 2022), and then to 64.3% in December 2022, but still remains abnormally high, recalls Amur Gadzhiev, a researcher in the Turkish sector of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Against this background, Erdogan seeks to get “trump cards” in the form of symbolic instruments – the centenary of the republic, celebrated in 2023 and important for the whole society, and the date of May 14, symbolic for the right and Islamists. In addition, according to Hajiyev, the postponement of the elections to May shifts the voting date to the Muslim holy month of Ramadan (in 2023 – from March 22 to April 21), during which Erdogan’s party is likely to campaign actively, focusing on protecting traditional values ​​and Islam.

In addition to the symbols important for the Islamist electorate, Erdogan, for the sake of his own popularity, can activate foreign policy on all tracks – the Ukrainian conflict, the fight against the PKK in Syria and Iraq, and rapprochement with Syria and its President Bashar al-Assad, says Kirill Semenov, an expert at the Russian International Affairs Council .

The Syrian problem is also directly related to the problem of Syrian refugees, about 4 million of whom continue to live in Turkey and create social and economic tension, Semyonov notes. Preparations for the normalization of Syrian-Turkish relations are already in full swing, as evidenced by the meeting of the heads of intelligence and military departments of the two countries in Moscow at the end of December.