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Voters in Turkey were voting in a run-off election on Sunday (May 28) to decide who among President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu will lead the country over the next five years. Kilicdaroglu, with 44.88% of the vote fell short of Erdogan’s 49.52% in the first round of voting on May 14, but neither of the two top candidates could make it past the 50% threshold, necessitating the run-off.
Kilicdaroglu, who belongs to the Republican People’s Party (CHP), is the joint candidate of six opposition parties against Erdogan, whose AK Party leads the People’s Alliance. Both candidates have made promises involving the future of various minority groups in the country. It is worth analysing how these policies could affect each of these stakeholder groups in the election.
Syrian refugees
An estimated 4 million Syrian refugees currently live in Turkey, and polls show some 80% of Turks want them to go back, The Guardian reported.
Both candidates have promised to send back a large number of Syrians, and to restore Turkey’s relations with the government of President Bashar al-Assad. Erdogan has promised to repatriate around 1 million refugees, Al Jazeera reported. According to a report by the BBC, Kilicdaroglu, who has accused Erdogan of letting in 10 million refugees, has assured his supporters that he will send back 3.5 million.
For the Syrian refugees, the outcome of the election is a no-win situation. Their position has been made more vulnerable by the several anti-refugee speeches that Kilicdaroglu has made in the hope of getting the support of Turkish nationalists who may be tiring of Erdogan.
The Kurds and PKK
For several years, Erdogan’s government has been pushing a hard line against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a terrorist group seeking the creation of an independent Kurdish state. The President has made security issues and the threat of terrorism — including from the Gulen Movement of a former Erdogan ally that is accused of orchestrating the attempted coup of 2016 — a major part of his campaign rhetoric.
Meanwhile, Kilicdaroglu has promised to protect Turkey’s democracy — including pushing back against terrorism that he has painted as a threat to the nation and state structure. Yet, he has also received the backing of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP).
Thus, while both candidates are perceived to be against terrorism, Erdogan has put it at the heart of his campaign, while Kilicdaroglu’s position has been somewhat complicated.
Women and LGBTQ+
Other vulnerable groups whom the outcome of the election could impact are women and the LGBTQ+ community. Erdogan has been blunt in his opposition to LGBTQ+ rights, declaring “We are against the LGBT” and “Family is sacred to us – a strong family means a strong nation.”
Erdogan’s re-election will likely mean the empowerment of individuals and institutions that seek to repress both women and LGBTQ+ peoples, with the state possibly turning a blind eye to violence against them.
Kilicdaroglu has been relatively more supportive of Turkey’s LGBTQ+ community. He has said on television that he does not view the community as a force that corrupts the family unit. His political alliance, the Labour and Freedom Alliance, aims to remove all political, administrative, economic, and cultural barriers to social equality for women and the LGBTQ+ community, according to a report published by Al Jazeera earlier this month.
(Tanvi Jha is an intern with The Indian Express.)
