Millions of Turks living abroad wrapped up voting on Tuesday in a tense election that has turned into a referendum on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s two decades of rule.
The presidential and parliamentary elections that will take place on Sunday are considered a judgment on the Turkish leader who spent the longest period in power, and on the social transformation led by his party with Islamic roots.
Close battle
The election is the most important in Turkey for generations, and the most difficult of the 69-year-old’s career.
Opinion polls show Erdogan locked in a close battle with his secular rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu and his powerful six-party alliance that reflects Turkey’s cultural and political divide.
The first votes were cast by Turks who moved from poorer provinces to Western Europe over the decades, under plans to combat labor shortages on the continent in the aftermath of World War II.
They make up 3.4 million voters out of Turkey’s 64.1 million registered voters, and they tend to support more conservative candidates.
The official turnout on Tuesday, on the final morning of the overseas vote, was reported to have reached 51 percent — slightly lower than in the previous election, a potential source of concern for Erdogan.
“I am here because Turkey is in a very terrible situation right now,” Berliner Kutay Yilmaz said on the first day of voting in Germany late last month. “I want to go back (to Turkey) one day. That’s why I came here today and voted. I want the leader to change.”
“Please stay calm.”
The vote was accompanied by a wave of violence that reflects the prevailing anger in polarized Turkish society, in the face of its deepest economic crisis since the 1990s.
Dutch police said Sunday that they had to break up “A big brawl involving about 300 people.” At a polling station in Amsterdam. Also, police in the French city of Marseille used tear gas to break up a similar fight between Erdogan’s supporters and opponents last week.
However, this did not prevent another fight from breaking out at the same polling station in Marseille at a later time. The French police also arrested two people. Tensions escalated during a tour by the opposition mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, on Sunday in a stronghold of conservatives in Turkey.
Right-wing protesters pelted his campaign bus with rocks and bottles as he tried to deliver a speech from the board. On Tuesday, Turkey’s defense minister said an infantry sergeant had been dismissed pending an investigation into his involvement in the violence.
This incident prompted the 74-year-old Kilicdaroglu – who wants to appoint Imamoglu as his deputy – to appeal to everyone, saying, “Please, stay calm.” “We are heading towards elections, not war,” Kilicdaroglu said in a television interview.
show strength
The frantic atmosphere reflects the stakes for all parties. The opposition sees these elections as crucial to Türkiye’s democratic future. Erdogan, for his part, centralized power in his own hands and unleashed sweeping purges in the second decade of his rule.
However, his closeness to Russia and his military incursions into Syria led to the deterioration of his relations with the West.
But the Turkish president still commands support among poorer and more religious voters, who still remember the corruption and distress that have characterized half a century of secular rule.
Erdogan organized a rally to show his strength in Istanbul on Sunday, which drew hundreds of thousands of his enthusiastic supporters.
He also announced a new 45 percent increase in the wages of 700,000 civil servants on Tuesday, the latest in a long series of similar announcements during his election campaign.