Will Erdoğan be reelected in 2023?

[Sir Mohamed]

With hyperinflation and other problems, especially the economy, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan currently has low approval ratings and trails almost all potential challengers for the 2023 general election. Do you think he'll win or be defeated? And if so wins, will it be an actual victory or the result of election meddling?

Tbh, I'm actually unsure. Under "normal conditions", he'd almost certainly be DOA. But we're talking about Erdoğan here.

[mileslunn]

I think he wins through rigging not a fair and free one.

[President Johnson]

Him and Bolsonaro look finished, though I don't want to get my hopes up early. However, Erdogan is more likely to be in a position to rig the election. It's possible that happens.

[Oryxslayer]

Looking at the precedent set by the Istanbul Mayoral contest - which was Erdogan's base and not given up willingly - its a question of if the actual margin is large enough that it can't be fudged methodically by the AKP electoral machine. A tight race will be made into a Erdogan victory, but if the present polls are correct, and remain similar to the final margin, the cost of fraud on the magnitude required would not be a net benefit. Dumping all the current problems on the opposition would by then be a better option.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

He probably pulls out a win. Voted for the first option. That being said, there is some rationale to giving the opposition a very weak win.
The coming months will be interesting to watch.

[Former President tack50]

I want to think Turkey is still democratic enough that Erdogan will be defeated but who knows

[omar04]

I don't think so. the akp's advantage of almost 20% in june 2018 has evaporated by now

[Coldstream]

I got burned by thinking Hungary could have a democratic election, it’s not happening again.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I got burned by thinking Hungary could have a democratic election, it’s not happening again.

What standard for "democratic election" are you using here?

[Oryxslayer]

I got burned by thinking Hungary could have a democratic election, it’s not happening again.

I mean the polls in Hungary pointed to a tight race between Orban and the unified opposition, and even if those did end up being close to the truth, the opposition would still likely lose thanks to gerrymandering.

The Turkish opposition is leading in polls right now by consistently over 10%.

This is what I mean by manipulatable margins - the gets to a point where the cost of such extreme fraud is outweighed by other factors. Manipulation becomes ever the more obvious the larger the margin that needs to be overturned. In 2018 he only outperformed polls by 4-5%, and would still lose based on the present data. So if the situation remains the same, its not hard to see him pulling a Trump and remaining the AKP's boss while blaming the new government for the mess he left it in, and hoping hindsight campaigns sweep them back into power at later points.

[CumbrianLefty]

I got burned by thinking Hungary could have a democratic election, it’s not happening again.

Though in hindsight, the Hungarian opposition totally misplayed that one.

Edrogan's opponents are hopefully made of smarter stuff.

[Coldstream]

I got burned by thinking Hungary could have a democratic election, it’s not happening again.

Though in hindsight, the Hungarian opposition totally misplayed that one.

Edrogan's opponents are hopefully made of smarter stuff.

It’s not the oppositions fault they live in a de facto dictatorship.

[_.]

The AKP and Erdoğan will both be voted out unless inflation is toned down from the current 79.6% very significantly, and even if inflation declines, it still is pretty likely the AKP and Erdoğan lose just because of the hard times Turks are going through right now.

It remains to be seen, though, how Erdoğan will react to the loss. Will it react with a 1/6 kind of event (maybe even a successful one!), or peacefully accept and begin the rebuild?

This will tell us a lot about the country's future. Hopefully Erdoğan can choose the latter option.

[tepoe]

I got burned by thinking Hungary could have a democratic election, it’s not happening again.

Though in hindsight, the Hungarian opposition totally misplayed that one.

Edrogan's opponents are hopefully made of smarter stuff.

It’s not the oppositions fault they live in a de facto dictatorship.

No need to argue on this, as both factors were in play in Hungary's April election (and they were interconnected, as Orbán was mostly able to force his opposition's mistakes by changing election rules and using wast state resources for campaigning), but the suprisingly huge margin had a lot to do with extreme preelection spending (price caps and repaying a year of income tax for millions to postpone the effects of an already emerging cost of living crisis) and the effective use of the "stability in time of war" card in a time when voter tensions in connection with the war in Ukraine were extreme.

To put this back in the topic of this thread: even if the Turkish opposition is way better organised, unified and strategic than the Hungarian, the fact that Erdoğan's preelection options also include a wide range of moves completely unheard and not even considered in Western democracies, a scenario where he can actually win the support of the electorate without major rigging is not out of question despite all the economic and opinion polling trends. It is too early to give a reliable predicion to this question.    

[omar04]

The opposition alliance is dealing with a split between the HDP and IYI. https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2022/09/cracks-turkeys-opposition-alliance-emerge-over-ties-hdp-kurds

[It's not just that you are a crook senator]

As someone who lives in Turkey, I can give my thoughts on the ground.

The economic situation is dire here and AKP doesn't seem to be offering any kind of good solutions, therefore they keep igniting culture wars but none of them really stick more than a few days. Polling has been extremely bad for them, I don't think it was ever this bad during any part of their government. They can't logically blame other parties and people for any of the problems because they have been ruling the country for 20 years. Also, the younger people in general really hate them because we are not able to have the same opportunities as the young people in Western countries and AKP is becoming increasingly out of touch with the demands of the contemporary world (such as rule of law, justice, and human rights).

Another big issue is refugees as Turkey is now home to millions of refugees, which is massively opposed here by all sides because we pretty much have open borders now, they are taken without any kind of background check and they are not really assimilating to the Turkish culture. Hundreds of thousands of refugees were given citizenship because AKP sees them as their ticket to re-election. I am normally not opposed to accepting refugees (in reasonable numbers), but AKP has done it in a way to not only in an uncontrolled and harmful way but also is using them to demographically change the country to hold onto power.

How AKP can be re-elected?

1) As I mentioned above, they can be re-elected by giving millions of refugees citizenship and voting rights as they are doing now. The refugees wouldn't be voting for any other party because the other parties are largely opposed to them being citizens in the first place. This way, they can make up for the deficit in the votes they lost and we would not observe this effect in polls because they do not include refugees in their samples.

2) AKP still has over 10 million official members. AKP is pretty powerful because they know how to maintain their local networks and give people jobs & benefits based on their party membership and loyalty. This could keep former AKP members in line to vote for them again.

3) If the CHP leader Kılıçtaroğlu is selected as the candidate for the opposition alliance (which is sadly looking very likely), he will struggle to beat Erdoğan big time because his name has been smeared pretty hard for 12 years and he lost many elections as a party leader. Frankly, even people who regularly vote for CHP dislike him because he refuses to resign after losing that many elections, if you are going to criticize someone for being an authoritarian leader better not be doing the same within your own party. Ekrem İmamoğlu and Mansur Yavaş would be heavy favorites to win against Erdoğan so one of them should be the candidate, even though each has different weaknesses.

Overall race rating: TOSSUP.

[It's not just that you are a crook senator]

The opposition alliance is dealing with a split between the HDP and IYI. https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2022/09/cracks-turkeys-opposition-alliance-emerge-over-ties-hdp-kurds

HDP and other parties have never been at the same table in the first place. Which they shouldn't be because it is electoral suicide.

[Lord Halifax]

Ekrem İmamoğlu and Mansur Yavaş would be heavy favorites to win against Erdoğan so one of them should be the candidate, even though each has different weaknesses.

Very interesting post, thank you. What are the relative strengths and weaknesses of the two big city mayors?

[It's not just that you are a crook senator]

Ekrem İmamoğlu and Mansur Yavaş would be heavy favorites to win against Erdoğan so one of them should be the candidate, even though each has different weaknesses.

Very interesting post, thank you. What are the relative strengths and weaknesses of the two big city mayors?

Ekrem İmamoğlu would be a good president because I think he could actually transform the country into a more liberal place, especially in terms of LGBT rights, women's rights, and rule of law. I see his presidency playing out in a way of Clinton and Blair, with important changes in the country as well as having some controversies. I think he would get HDP voters on board against Erdoğan as he has a good balance between being civil with HDP but also not getting too close to them, however, a lot of people contrastingly think he is too close to HDP which could turn off center-right voters he needs. Furthermore, he has given out Erdoğan like dismissive and rude answers when he was confronted with his controversies, which worries people that he can become the next Erdoğan within a few years.

Masur Yavaş would be a good president because he cares about getting things done more than petty politics, which is why he has done a lot of great stuff in Ankara and his approval ratings are like %+60 in this swing city. This country desperately needs huge changes in all aspects of life and he can get things done. However, he comes from a nationalist right-wing background which is a turn-off for HDP voters. I don't think he would deal with the Kurdish issues well but I don't necessarily think he would be awful about it either.

We really need a leadership change and a lot of people say they would even vote for a shoe against Erdoğan, so for me and a lot of people this is not about picking someone who is closest to our ideology, it is about saving the country. Therefore, the most electable candidate should be nominated and that candidate should work really hard day and night to win the election and make important changes in the country. Do I think it will be all roses and rainbows when Erdoğan loses? No, but anything would be better than him at this point.