The longtime leader of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was reelected for another five years, and his supporters partied late into the night.
He told the jubilant crowds outside his vast castle on the outskirts of Ankara that “the entire nation of 85 million won.”
However, as he mocked his opponent Kemal Kilicdaroglu and attacked a jailed Kurdish leader as well as pro-LGBT policies, his cry for togetherness rang hollow.
No unequivocal victory was declared by the opposition leader.
Mr. Kilicdaroglu blasted the president’s political party for using all available state resources against him in “the most unfair election in recent years,” according to his complaint.
Using nearly complete unofficial results, President Erdogan won with little over 52% of the vote. In this sharply divided nation, almost half of voters rejected his authoritarian agenda for Turkey.
Even though he forced the president into a second round run-off for the first time since the position became directly elected in 2014, Mr. Kilicdaroglu was ultimately no match for the well-prepared Erdogan campaign.
While trailing by more than two million votes, he only just made a dent in his opponent’s first-round margin.
With an early statement to supporters from atop a bus in Istanbul, the capital of Turkey, the president capitalized on his victory. After nightfall, he delivered a balcony address from his palace to a crowd of supporters he estimated to be 320,000 strong.
He said, referring to the election as one of the most significant in Turkish history, “It is not just us who won, Turkey won.”
“Bye, bye, bye, Kemal” was his taunting phrase as he mocked his opponent’s defeat; this chant was also adopted by his Ankara-based fans.
What to expect from Erdogan now that he has more confidence
What the West should make of Erdogan’s triumph
In the two-week-old parliamentary vote, Mr. Erdogan scorned the major opposition party’s gain in MPs. According to him, the party had given away dozens of seats to its partners, bringing the actual total down to 129.
The opposition alliance’s pro-LGBT policies, he added, were in contrary to his own emphasis on families. He also denounced them.
The Supreme Election Council declared that there was no question as to who had won, despite the fact that the official results are still being verified.Although it is quite unusual for the palace complex to be made public, this outcome, which increased his reign to 25 years, was also unexpected.
To celebrate the victory, fans traveled from all across Ankara. In addition to Turkish flags being placed on the field for prayer, there were Islamic chants.
The economic crisis in Turkey was temporarily forgotten, and one fan, Seyhan, claimed it was all a lie: “Nobody is starving. His economic measures have earned us a lot of praise. Within the following five years, he will do even better.
On the other hand, the president acknowledged that Turkey’s most pressing problem was its inflation rate.
Whether he is ready to make the required preparations for doing so is the question. Inflation creeps into everyone’s lives at an average pace of approximately 44%.
Because Mr. Erdogan has refused to follow conventional economic policies and hike interest rates, the price of food, rent, and other necessities has increased dramatically.
“If they continue with low interest rates, as Erdogan has signaled, the only other option is stricter capital controls,” warns Selva Demiralp, an economist at Koc University in Istanbul. “The Turkish lira has hit record lows against the dollar and the central bank has struggled to meet surging demand for foreign currency.”
Erdogan has ruled Turkey for 20 years and is the supreme figure.
Supporters of Erdogan spoke with pleasure about his leadership role in the world and his tough stance against “terrorists,” by which they meant Kurdish militants. Economics was the furthest thing from their minds.
The pro-Kurdish HDP, Turkey’s second-largest opposition party, has been accused of supporting terrorists by President Erdogan, who also criticized him for pledging to liberate a former co-leader of the party.
Even though the European Court of Human Rights ordered Selahattin Demirtas’ release, he has remained incarcerated since 2016.
Mr. Demirtas will remain imprisoned during Mr. Erdogan’s tenure in office, he promised.
Additionally, he pledged to make the “voluntary” return of a million Syrian refugees a top priority while giving priority to rebuilding in the regions affected by the February twin earthquakes.
People from the Middle East and the Gulf region made up a large portion of the crowds in Istanbul’s Taksim Square.
Turkish flags were draped around the shoulders of Palestinians from Jordan, while Alaa Nassar, a tourist from Tunisia, claimed that Mr. Erdogan had not only improved his own nation but also “is supporting Arabs and the Muslim world.”
Despite all the jubilation, the concept of unification in this bitterly divided nation appears further away than ever.
After a botched coup attempt in 2016, Mr. Erdogan abolished the position of prime minister and consolidated vast power, which his rival had promised to curtail.
On Sunday, a voter claimed he wanted to put an end to the brain drain that started with the post-coup purge when he was outside a voting location in Ankara. It might possibly get worse right now.
Before the 2024 municipal elections, Turkey’s opposition will now need to reorganize.
Both the mayors of Ankara and Istanbul are well-liked, and one of them may have had a better chance of winning the presidential election. Both are members of Mr. Kilicdaroglu’s party.
