Forget 28-M, the most important elections of the year are those of Turkey

“Tek çare kanser” (the only solution is cancer), could be read on the walls of Istanbul during the Gezi protests in 2014, a long series of mobilizations throughout Turkey initiated by the attempt to save a park in the center of that city that soon became a general revolt against the Executive of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The graffiti referred to the longstanding belief that the then Turkish prime minister was profoundly ill – a rumor that time has proven false – but above all it reflected the conviction that Erdogan was too strong, that his government controlled all the levers. of power, that not even a popular uprising that undoubtedly had the support of a large part of society could put an end to it..

Since then, the Erdogan regime has survived several crucial tests, including the loss of an absolute majority – which it resolved by forcing a return to war against Kurdish guerrillas and a rerun of elections – a failed coup and a change from a political model to a presidential system. Erdogan, unstoppable, accumulated more and more power, while changing the foundations of Turkish society towards an increasingly conservative and Islamized population.. “The only thing that can save us is the economy,” the Turks used to lament.

But the tables have turned, and weariness with Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) seems to have peaked.. Turkey will return to the polls this Sunday, and for the first time in two decades, polls give the opposition candidate a slight lead, which continues to expand as his electoral prospects improve.. To counter this, Erdogan has tried everything: reforming the electoral law, threatening a new war against Kurdish militias in Syria, playing the nationalist card against the West and NATO, offering low-interest mortgages, announcing new subsidies and even giving away gas. kitchen and water heaters to consumers throughout the next year. However, the intention to vote in favor of their rivals does not stop growing.

“To win the elections, Erdogan has to get more than the 26 million votes he got in 2018 because Turkey's voting population has grown.. Its problem is that it faces a dramatically different political context that makes the task very difficult,” say analysts Gönül Tol and Ali Yaycioglu in an article for Foreign Policy magazine.. “The effect of grouping around the leader after the failed hit is long overdue. The wave of nationalism that Erdogan rode long ago has come back to haunt him: there is a growing nationalist opposition, with several parties drawing votes from their far-right ally, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).. The Turkish economy has fallen into a major crisis, with runaway double-digit inflation and skyrocketing food prices. And most importantly, the opposition is more united than ever,” these experts point out..

That doesn't mean everything is decided. The AKP has mobilized its bases, who consider that their lives have improved enormously in these 20 years and who perceive that this empowerment is in danger in case of defeat.. Consequently, any outcome is possible, including the need to hold a second round within two weeks.. Whatever happens, the implications, both for Turkey itself and for regional stability, the future of NATO and even democratic contestation in other parts of the world, will be far-reaching.. So if there are some elections that deserve the description of transcendental, it is without a doubt these.

Will Sweden's accession to NATO be unblocked?

For months, the Turkish government has blocked Sweden's NATO accession process, which it accuses of providing “protection to Kurdish terrorists” and the movement of Fethullah Gülen, a religious brotherhood suspected of having orchestrated the coup. failed in 2016. The conflict was also exacerbated by the burning of a Koran at the hands of anti-Islamic activists during protests in Stockholm, an incident that Erdogan's government exploited in its own interest..

Many experts are of the opinion that Erdogan is deliberately exacerbating the crisis for electoral reasons, but that the situation will be resolved quickly after the elections, because Ankara would no longer see any tangible profit from prolonging the crisis and could instead benefit from lifting the veto.. Things could go even faster if opposition candidate Kemal Kiliçdaroglu wins, who has already expressed his intention to allow Sweden into NATO despite disagreements between the two countries.. “If you take your bilateral problems to a multilateral organization like NATO, you are creating a kind of polarization between the other NATO members and your country,” Unal Çevikoz, Kiliçdaroglu's chief foreign policy adviser, recently explained in an interview..

But not all is so easy. The AKP government has been feeding anti-Western sentiment for years and, as we have seen, is now trying to channel it into conspiracy theories about election interference abroad.. Even in the event of a landslide victory for the ruling party, redirecting that hostility may be more difficult than it seems.. And Erdogan seems very comfortable playing the ambiguity card, aware that a large part of the Turkish public distrusts NATO.. In an informal survey by Anadolu Agency last January, 92% of a total of 50,000 participants – a not insignificant sample – declared that Turkey should not approve Sweden's entry into the Atlantic Alliance.

Ankara also hopes to be able to position itself as a future intermediary in negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, which is why its position in this conflict has been ambivalent: while, on the one hand, Turkey has supplied the highly effective Bayraktar drones to Kiev, it has become at the same time on one of the main thoroughfares in Moscow to evade Western sanctions. And this does not only apply to the Erdogan Executive: Kiliçdaroglu has stated that he will maintain “a solid and credible continuation of relations between Turkey and Russia”, although prioritizing the country's role as a member of NATO.

Chaos at the EU borders?

The region where the difference between the victory of one candidate or another will be most noticeable will probably be the Middle East. Although Turkish foreign policy tends to be nationalist and Ankara already had a strong streak of military adventurism in the days before Erdogan, there is no doubt that he has not hesitated to intervene in his neighborhood when he saw fit, especially in neighboring Syria, where Turkey has been one of the main supporters of the rebel forces against the Bashar al-Assad regime. If Erdogan wins, the most likely result is maintenance of the current status quo, in which Turkey would continue to support the existence of a parallel administration in the northwest of the country, with the presence of the Turkish Army included.. In other words, Turkey militarily occupies 10% of the territory of Syria.

The opposition bloc, by contrast, is largely opposed to Turkish involvement in an operation in Syria that is widely perceived as Erdogan's personal project.. “Kiliçdaroglu's priority will be to discuss an end to the war in Syria with Assad, in which there will be some kind of understanding on the repatriation of refugees in exchange for an agreement in which the YPG [Syria's Kurdish militias, a sister organization of the PKK] are folded under the Asad regime,” explains Soner Cagaptay, director of the Research Program on Turkey at the Washington Institute, in statements to the publication Al Monitor.

The issue of refugees, in fact, is one of the most important issues of the campaign. In these years, Turkey has welcomed more than four million Syrians, which has increased the country's population by 5%. Although some live in refugee camps, 90% have integrated into the cities, with the consequent demographic pressure on issues such as housing, employment and even water. The opposition has promised to return them to Syria within two years, a proposal that has proved very popular in Turkish society as problems of coexistence have grown, to the point that Erdogan himself has had to play with it, flirting with the idea of a “solution in Syria” that allows the return of these people. But his personal confrontation with the Syrian president makes reconciliation between Ankara and Damascus more unlikely while he remains in office..

So Kiliçdaroglu has the important asset that any normalization process between Turkey and Syria is much more likely and expedited with him in the presidential chair.. So much so that it has been strong enough to say that the European Union should provide funds so that Turkish builders can rebuild towns in Syria in order to rehouse their citizens, or else threaten – as Erdogan did – to allow refugees freely enter European territory. Kiliçdaroglu has declared: “Sorry, I will open the doors. They can go wherever they want”, in case the EU does not compromise.

As can be seen, the importance of these elections goes far beyond Turkey itself.. A defeat of Erdogan could inspire opposition parties in other illiberal democracies where elections still matter somewhat, such as Hungary, Poland, perhaps Venezuela. At the same time, some experts point out that, given the unnatural nature of the coalition against the current Turkish president, the wisest thing for him to do if he loses is to sit back and wait for his political enemies to start tearing each other apart and ungovernability to set in. impose. That, however, would also go against Erdogan’s own way of being. A whole host of unknowns that, for better or worse, are about to be resolved. The first date, this Sunday.