In divided Turkey, Erdogan’s hold is weakened but not broken Premium

Whom Turkey chooses in the elections — between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Kemal Kilicdaroglu — will have consequences not just for the country, but for the rest of the world, too. Read the analysis by subscribing to The Hindu.

“Why are you so curious,” Cehan finally asked after at least 40 minutes of Google Translate-aided conversation. And suddenly, it occurred to me that his honest responses could have got him in trouble if he was not careful. Sitting on a public bench in Kaleici, Antalya, overlooking the blue Mediterranean waters, we discussed politics, President Erdogan’s possible return, growing religiosity in Turkey, steep inflation, and the Kurds.

On May 15, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — an Islamist who was imprisoned on the charges of inciting religious hatred and violence in 1999 while holding the mayoral office of Istanbul — prayed at Hagia Sophia for his return as Turkey’s most powerful man despite growing anti-incumbency sentiments. In the opinion polls before the May 14 elections, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, Mr. Erdogan’s rival and the opposition coalition candidate, was said to have a slight edge. However, the preliminary results showed that Mr. Erdogan won 49.5% of the votes against Mr. Kılıcdaroglu’s 44.9%, and his coalition has secured a comfortable majority in Parliament.

A resurgent Mr. Erdogan will now face off Mr. Kılıcdaroglu in a presidential run-off May 28.

Clearly, his hold over Turkey is stirred, not shaken. For each Ataturkist Turkish citizen, there’s at least one staunch Erdogan supporter and half a decrier of the “West’s conspiracy to undermine Islam”.

Cehan, 36, is a fitness trainer in Antalya and he wasn’t expecting to be ambushed by a curious foreigner on a sunny afternoon. He was there with his friend, Orhan, smoking cigarettes and drinking beers that the duo kept furnishing from a tiny black plastic bag. “If he [Erdogan] comes back, we won’t be able to drink beers in public like this,” he typed on his phone and offered me a pint that I was too happy to accept. “My parents are Ottoman supporters, but I am an Ataturk,” he said, referring to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern, secular Turkey.

He declared with mellow pride and echoed the sentiment of many a man and woman in Istanbul, Izmir, Bursa and Pamukkale.

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