The long-time president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, won the election on Sunday, securing another five years in power. His supporters are celebrating.
Outside his enormous palace near Ankara, he told the jubilant crowd, “The entire nation of 85 million won.”
However, as he mocked his opponent, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, and took aim at a Kurdish leader who was imprisoned as well as the LGBT community, his call for unity sounded hollow.
The resistance chief censured “the most out of line political decision as of late”.
Mr Kilicdaroglu said the president’s ideological group had assembled every one of the method for the state against him and he didn’t unequivocally concede rout.
Based on almost-complete unofficial results, President Erdogan won with just over 52 percent of the vote. Close to around 50% of the electorate in this profoundly enraptured country didn’t back his tyrant vision of Turkey.
Even though Mr. Kilicdaroglu took the president to a run-off second round for the first time since the position was made directly electable in 2014, he was ultimately no match for the well-oiled Erdogan campaign.
Yet, he scarcely scratched his adversary’s first-round lead, falling multiple million votes behind.
The president made the most of his victory by giving a speech to his supporters at the top of a bus in Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city. Later that night, he gave an address from his palace balcony to a 320,000-strong cheering crowd.
“Not simply us won, Turkey won,” he proclaimed, calling it quite possibly of the main political decision in Turkish history.
The chant “Bye, bye, Kemal” that he used to mock his opponent’s defeat was also adopted by his supporters in Ankara.
During the parliamentary election two weeks prior, Mr. Erdogan mocked the main opposition party’s increase in MPs. He stated that the party had given its allies dozens of seats, which resulted in the actual number being reduced to 129.
He also criticized the pro-LGBT policies of the opposition alliance, saying that they were in opposition to his own emphasis on families.
In one incident late on Sunday, an opposition Good party official was fatally stabbed in front of a party office in the northern coastal town of Ordu. The run-up to the vote had become increasingly fractious.
Although the motive for Erhan Kurt’s death was unclear, a prominent opposition official suggested that young people were celebrating the election result.
The Supreme Election Council declared that there was no doubt who had won, despite the fact that the final results were not confirmed.
Although it is extremely unusual for the palace complex to be open to the public, this result extended his reign to 25 years.
Allies came from everywhere Ankara to taste the triumph. While some people prayed while laying Turkish flags on the grass, there were Islamic chants.
The economic crisis in Turkey was forgotten for a night. Seyhan, a supporter, stated that everything was a lie: Nobody is starving. We are extremely content with his economy strategies. He will improve in the following five years.”
However, the president acknowledged that controlling inflation was Turkey’s most pressing problem.
The inquiry is whether he is ready to go to the fundamental lengths to do as such. Inflation affects everyone’s lives at a rate of almost 44% per year.
The fact that Mr. Erdogan has refused to follow conventional economic policy and raise interest rates has led to an increase in the price of food, rent, and other necessities.
The Turkish lira has fallen to all-time lows against the dollar, and the central bank has had trouble keeping up with the rising demand for foreign currency.
“On the off chance that they go on with low financing costs, as Erdogan has flagged, the main other choice is stricter capital controls,” cautions Selva Demiralp, teacher of financial matters at Koc college in Istanbul.
Erdogan supporters talked about how proud they were of his powerful position in the world and his hard line on fighting “terrorists,” which they meant Kurdish militants, rather than economics.
President Erdogan has criticized his opponent for promising to free a former co-leader of Turkey’s second-largest opposition party, the pro-Kurdish HDP, and accused him of supporting terrorists.
Despite an order from the European Court of Human Rights to be released, Selahattin Demirtas has been held in jail since 2016.
Mr. Demirtas would be imprisoned while Mr. Erdogan was in power, Mr. Erdogan stated.
Additionally, he pledged to facilitate the “voluntary” return of a million Syrian refugees and to give reconstruction in areas affected by the twin earthquakes in February priority.
Istanbul’s Taksim Square was packed, with many people traveling from the Gulf and Middle East.
Jordanian Palestinians wore Turkish flags on their shoulders. Alaa Nassar, a Tunisian visitor, stated that Mr. Erdogan had not only improved his own nation, but that “he is also supporting Arabs and the Muslim world.”
In this divided nation, the idea of unity seems further away than ever, despite all the celebrations.
After a failed 2016 coup, Mr. Erdogan has seized a lot of power and abolished the prime minister’s position. His opponent had promised to roll back those powers.
On Sunday, a voter outside a polling place in Ankara said he wanted to see the brain drain that started with the purge after the coup end. There is a possibility that it might get worse now.
Turkey’s crushed resistance will currently need to refocus in front of neighborhood decisions in 2024.
Istanbul City hall leader Ekrem Imamoglu, a high-profile number one among resistance allies, engaged them not to surrender and said it was the ideal opportunity for change.
His social media video message was immediately interpreted as a veiled suggestion that the opposition required a new leader.
On Monday, he reminded them that in 2019, nine months after their previous presidential election defeat, he and another opposition candidate won in Istanbul.
He stated, “We will never anticipate different results by doing the same things.”
