ISTANBUL: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday emerged from his toughest election test unbowed and in strong position to extend two decades of his Islamic-rooted rule by another five years in a historic May 28 runoff.
The 69-year-old leader defied pollsters and his country’s most dire economic crisis since the 1990s to come within a fraction of a percentage point of winning Sunday’s presidential ballot.
His right-wing party also retained control of parliament through an alliance with ultra-nationalists on a drama-filled night that concluded with Erdogan delivering a victory speech from a balcony to jubilant supporters.
He even won in regions hit by a calamitous February earthquake that claimed more than 50,000 lives — and where anger at the government’s slow response to Turkiye’s worst disaster of modern times was seething.
“A staggering win for Erdogan,” emerging markets economist Timothy Ash said in a note to clients.
“He has the magic dust at these times. And he just gets Turks — the nationalist, socially conservative and Muslim ones.”
The main opposition party led by Kemal Kilicdaroglu confronted the reality Monday that they were unable to beat Erdogan at one of his most vulnerable moments.
“Don’t despair,” Kilicdaroglu told his supporters. “We will stand up and take this election together.”
Turkiye’s election officials confirmed that there would be a second round because the remaining uncounted votes would not swing the outcome.
Erdogan secured 49.5 percent of the vote and Kilicdaroglu picked up 44.9 percent.
Nationalist candidate Sinan Ogan — a former member of a far-right party now allied with the government — won 5.2 percent.
Official turnout reached a record 88.9 percent.
Observers from the Council of Europe said the election was “marked by an unlevel playing field but still competitive.”
The markets were depressed and Erdogan’s supporters ecstatic.
The lira touched new lows against the dollar and stocks on the Istanbul exchange fell on a realization that the era of Erdogan’s unconventional economics may not be over.
“We think Turkiye is now at very high risk of an increase in macroeconomic instability,” the Capital Economics consultancy said.
The view was different in the more nationalist and conservative corners of Turkiye.
“The people won!” the right-wing Yeni Safak newspaper proclaimed in a banner headline.
The pro-government Sabah daily called Erdogan’s performance a “superb success.”
Erdogan supporter Hamdi Kurumahmut was brimming with confidence the morning after Turkiye’s biggest election of its post-Ottoman era.
“Erdogan is going to win. He is a real leader. The Turkish people trust him. He has a vision for Turkiye,” Kurumahmut said in Istanbul.
“There are things that need to be improved on the economy, education or the refugee policy. But we know he’s the one who can sort all that out,” the 40-year-old tourism sector worker added.
US President Joe Biden is “looking forward to working with whoever” wins Turkiye’s knife-edge election, the White House said Monday as it praised the NATO ally for holding a peaceful vote.
“We congratulate the Turkish people for expressing their desires at the ballot box in a peaceful way,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.
Some Kilicdaroglu supporters tried to stay positive.
“I don’t want to even think about a scenario in which Erdogan wins,” Emin Serbest said as the last voted were being counted.
“If Kilicdaroglu wins... a beautiful time awaits us,” said the 33-year-old Istanbul municipality worker.
But most analysts feel that Kilicdaroglu and his six-party opposition alliance will have a difficult time halting Erdogan’s momentum over the coming two weeks.
Emre Peker of the Eurasia Group consultancy put the odds of an Erdogan victory at 80 percent.
“The results show that Erdogan and his allies successfully bolstered the incumbent’s support with strong messaging on terrorism, security, and family values — even as the economy continued to top voter concerns,” Peker said in note.
Political risk consultant Anthony Skinner said Sunday’s result underscored the difficulty of trying to gauge public opinion in the strongly polarized nation of 85 million people.
“Many pre-election public opinion poll results did not reflect Erdogan’s resourcefulness and the degree of support he still enjoys in the country,” the veteran Turkiye watcher said.
“It just goes to show how careful one needs to be when looking at public opinion polls prior to elections.”
Turkiye’s resurgent Erdogan heads for historic election runoff
https://arab.news/884v6
Turkiye’s resurgent Erdogan heads for historic election runoff
- Incumbent leader defies pollsters to come within a fraction of a percentage point of winning Sunday’s presidential ballot
- Turkiye’s election officials confirm that there would be a second round
Syrian military tells civilians to evacuate contested area east of Aleppo amid rising tensions
- Syria’s military has announced it will open a “humanitarian corridor” for civilians to evacuate from an area in Aleppo province
- This follows several days of intense clashes between government forces and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces
DAMASCUS: Syria’s military said it would open a corridor Thursday for civilians to evacuate an area of Aleppo province that has seen a military buildup following intense clashes between government and Kurdish-led forces in Aleppo city.
The army’s announcement late Wednesday — which said civilians would be able to evacuate through the “humanitarian corridor” from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday — appeared to signal plans for an offensive in the towns of Deir Hafer and Maskana and surrounding areas, about 60 kilometers (40 miles) east of Aleppo city.
The military called on the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and other armed groups to withdraw to the other side of the the Euphrates River, to the east of the contested zone.
Syrian government troops have already sent troop reinforcements to the area after accusing the SDF of building up its own forces there, which the SDF denied. There have been limited exchanges of fire between the two sides, and the SDF has said that Turkish drones carried out strikes there.
The government has accused the SDF of launching drone strikes in Aleppo city, including one that hit the Aleppo governorate building on Saturday shortly after two Cabinet ministers and a local official held a news conference there.
The tensions in the Deir Hafer area come after several days of intense clashes last week in Aleppo city that ended with the evacuation of Kurdish fighters and government forces taking control of three contested neighborhoods. The fighting killed at least 23 people, wounded dozens more, and displaced tens of thousands.
The fighting broke out as negotiations have stalled between Damascus and the SDF, which controls large swaths of northeast Syria, over an agreement to integrate their forces and for the central government to take control of institutions including border crossings and oil fields in the northeast.
Some of the factions that make up the new Syrian army, which was formed after the fall of former President Bashar Assad in a rebel offensive in December 2024, were previously Turkiye-backed insurgent groups that have a long history of clashing with Kurdish forces.
The SDF for years has been the main US partner in Syria in fighting against the Daesh group, but Turkiye considers the SDF a terrorist organization because of its association with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged a long-running insurgency in Turkiye. A peace process is now underway.
Despite the long-running US support for the SDF, the Trump administration has also developed close ties with the government of interim Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa and has pushed the Kurds to implement the integration deal. Washington has so far avoided publicly taking sides in the clashes in Aleppo.
The SDF in a statement warned of “dangerous repercussions on civilians, infrastructure, and vital facilities” in case of a further escalation and said Damascus bears “full responsibility for this escalation and all ensuing humanitarian and security repercussions in the region.”
Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of US Central Command, said in a statement Tuesday that the US is “closely monitoring” the situation and called for “all parties to exercise maximum restraint, avoid actions that could further escalate tensions, and prioritize the protection of civilians and critical infrastructure.” He called on the parties to “return to the negotiating table in good faith.”
Al-Sharaa blasts the SDF
In a televised interview aired Wednesday, Al-Sharaa praised the “courage of the Kurds” and said he would guarantee their rights and wants them to be part of the Syrian army, but he lashed out at the SDF.
He accused the group of not abiding by an agreement reached last year under which their forces were supposed to withdraw from neighborhoods they controlled in Aleppo city and of forcibly preventing civilians from leaving when the army opened a corridor for them to evacuate amid the recent clashes.
Al-Sharaa claimed that the SDF refused attempts by France and the US to mediate a ceasefire and withdrawal of Kurdish forces during the clashes due to an order from the PKK.
The interview was initially intended to air Tuesday on Shams TV, a broadcaster based in Irbil — the seat of northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region — but was canceled for what the station initially said were technical reasons.
Later the station’s manager said that the interview had been spiked out of fear of further inflaming tensions because of the hard line Al-Sharaa took against the SDF.
Syria’s state TV station instead aired clips from the interview on Wednesday. There was no immediate response from the SDF to Al-Sharaa’s comments.
