Turkey elections 2023

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Erdogan has announced elections will take place on May 14.

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

Ugh nervous already.

Still a tossup race but feel like the opposition f'ed it up yet again<

[Mike88]

Ugh nervous already.

Still a tossup race but feel like the opposition f'ed it up yet again<

Yeah, I have the same feeling. The ingredients are all there for Erdogan to lose, but he will probably win again with relative ease. Not sure, however, if AKP will hold on to their absolute majority in Parliament.

[Storr]

I was looking at the election's wikipedia page and noticed that Erdogan's current governing partner the nut job ultranationalist MHP has been polling below the 7% threshold in most recent polls. That would probably doom Erdogan.

[Logical]

I was looking at the election's wikipedia page and noticed that Erdogan's current governing partner the nut job ultranationalist MHP has been polling below the 7% threshold in most recent polls. That would probably doom Erdogan.

The electoral system was changed in 2018 so that individual parties within electoral alliances are not subject to the national threshold. AKP and MHP are running together as "People's Alliance" so the threshold won't be an issue.

[Sir Mohamed]

Usually Erdogan should lose, but well... it's not that I expect him to be out of office a few months down the road.

[Sebastiansg7]

I hope to be very active in this thread. Turkey is one of my favorite countries in the world, and I obviously hope Erdogan loses.

[President Johnson]

Is it just that the Wikipedia page hasn't been updated in months, or have polls been banned in Turkey lately? Erdogan was losing through summer 2022, but I haven't seen any more recent surveys.

[It's Perro Sanxe wot won it]

Hopefully this vote results in a Turkey committed to democracy and secularism. Are there any news on who the CHP/Nation Alliance candidate will be?

[Mike88]

Is it just that the Wikipedia page hasn't been updated in months, or have polls been banned in Turkey lately? Erdogan was losing through summer 2022, but I haven't seen any more recent surveys.

The Turkish wiki page is more updated. Polls in Turkey are all over the place: some have Erdogan winning by a landslide, others show a neck and neck race, and others show the CHP candidates with a lead.

[Sir Mohamed]

Is it just that the Wikipedia page hasn't been updated in months, or have polls been banned in Turkey lately? Erdogan was losing through summer 2022, but I haven't seen any more recent surveys.

Seems like it just wasn't updated. Turkish Wikipedia has a page: https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_T%C3%BCrkiye_cumhurba%C5%9Fkanl%C4%B1%C4%9F%C4%B1_se%C3%A7imi_i%C3%A7in_yap%C4%B1lan_anketler

Erdogan still trailing, but too close for comfort, imho. I think he'll be "reelected" again.

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

More and more leaning toward leaving my vote blank. Why should I bother when the people who were supposed to be more left-leaning are abandoning or overlooking minorities (especially LGBT+) just to get some conservative people on board? At this point I dont see much of a difference between AKP, nation alliance or HDP.

[Antonio the Sixth]

More and more leaning toward leaving my vote blank. Why should I bother when the people who were supposed to be more left-leaning are abandoning or overlooking minorities (especially LGBT+) just to get some conservative people on board? At this point I dont see much of a difference between AKP, nation alliance or HDP.

Believe me, there's always a good reason to vote even when both options seem awful. There's always a greater and a lesser evil, and in this case there's clearly one candidate who has the ability to entrench himself and further erode democracy in Turkey. A vote against Erdogan is, if nothing else, a vote for the possibility of politics getting better in the future. Please do keep that in mind.

[warandwar]

More and more leaning toward leaving my vote blank. Why should I bother when the people who were supposed to be more left-leaning are abandoning or overlooking minorities (especially LGBT+) just to get some conservative people on board? At this point I dont see much of a difference between AKP, nation alliance or HDP.

In what ways is HDP doing this?

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

More and more leaning toward leaving my vote blank. Why should I bother when the people who were supposed to be more left-leaning are abandoning or overlooking minorities (especially LGBT+) just to get some conservative people on board? At this point I dont see much of a difference between AKP, nation alliance or HDP.

In what ways is HDP doing this?

Lately, I barely hear them defend LGBT rights or put it on front of their agenda when this is the time we are under attack by the government. Their coalition mostly consists of conservative kurds in rural areas and leftists in big cities so they dont want to piss of their former coalition.
An example of this: https://twitter.com/HDPgenelmerkezi/status/1621453042766811137/photo/4
In the fourth picture they are going to talk about "what does women/laborers/alevis/kurds want" but as we can see no LGBT agenda. I agree that those four topics are important but no group is in as big of a trouble as LGBT people.

I have voted for them before, I generally like their agenda but I have issues with them not being able to separate themselves from terrorism.

More and more leaning toward leaving my vote blank. Why should I bother when the people who were supposed to be more left-leaning are abandoning or overlooking minorities (especially LGBT+) just to get some conservative people on board? At this point I dont see much of a difference between AKP, nation alliance or HDP.

Believe me, there's always a good reason to vote even when both options seem awful. There's always a greater and a lesser evil, and in this case there's clearly one candidate who has the ability to entrench himself and further erode democracy in Turkey. A vote against Erdogan is, if nothing else, a vote for the possibility of politics getting better in the future. Please do keep that in mind.

I have done that many times but at this point it seems like even at the worst point of our democracy, they care more about their personal ambitions rather than easily winning elections with popular candidates (Yavaş or İmamoğlu). I will probably hold my nose and vote against Erdoğan but then again people are really done with all parties for this particular reason.

[Antonio the Sixth]

More and more leaning toward leaving my vote blank. Why should I bother when the people who were supposed to be more left-leaning are abandoning or overlooking minorities (especially LGBT+) just to get some conservative people on board? At this point I dont see much of a difference between AKP, nation alliance or HDP.

Believe me, there's always a good reason to vote even when both options seem awful. There's always a greater and a lesser evil, and in this case there's clearly one candidate who has the ability to entrench himself and further erode democracy in Turkey. A vote against Erdogan is, if nothing else, a vote for the possibility of politics getting better in the future. Please do keep that in mind.

I have done that many times but at this point it seems like even at the worst point of our democracy, they care more about their personal ambitions rather than easily winning elections with popular candidates (Yavaş or İmamoğlu). I will probably hold my nose and vote against Erdoğan but then again people are really done with all parties for this particular reason.

That's certainly nothing new with pro-democracy forces being self-absorbed squabbling egomaniacs. Unfortunately that seems to be the best we can do in a lot of places. At the end of the day though, it's still worth a shot with one of these people if it staves off the threat of tyranny for the next 5 years. It might not even matter in the end - there's just no way of knowing. But any shot you have is worth taking.

[windjammer]

More and more leaning toward leaving my vote blank. Why should I bother when the people who were supposed to be more left-leaning are abandoning or overlooking minorities (especially LGBT+) just to get some conservative people on board? At this point I dont see much of a difference between AKP, nation alliance or HDP.

In what ways is HDP doing this?

Lately, I barely hear them defend LGBT rights or put it on front of their agenda when this is the time we are under attack by the government. Their coalition mostly consists of conservative kurds in rural areas and leftists in big cities so they dont want to piss of their former coalition.
An example of this: https://twitter.com/HDPgenelmerkezi/status/1621453042766811137/photo/4
In the fourth picture they are going to talk about "what does women/laborers/alevis/kurds want" but as we can see no LGBT agenda. I agree that those four topics are important but no group is in as big of a trouble as LGBT people.

I have voted for them before, I generally like their agenda but I have issues with them not being able to separate themselves from terrorism.

More and more leaning toward leaving my vote blank. Why should I bother when the people who were supposed to be more left-leaning are abandoning or overlooking minorities (especially LGBT+) just to get some conservative people on board? At this point I dont see much of a difference between AKP, nation alliance or HDP.

Believe me, there's always a good reason to vote even when both options seem awful. There's always a greater and a lesser evil, and in this case there's clearly one candidate who has the ability to entrench himself and further erode democracy in Turkey. A vote against Erdogan is, if nothing else, a vote for the possibility of politics getting better in the future. Please do keep that in mind.

I have done that many times but at this point it seems like even at the worst point of our democracy, they care more about their personal ambitions rather than easily winning elections with popular candidates (Yavaş or İmamoğlu). I will probably hold my nose and vote against Erdoğan but then again people are really done with all parties for this particular reason.

From what I have heard. The young turkish generation is very progressive and secular.


Just be patient

[Logical]

Devastating earthquake in Southern Anatolia
https://twitter.com/USGS_Quakes/status/1622424153184948225

[DL]

Any theories on whether the earthquake will have any impact on the election? I've read some stories that Erdogan is being criticized for handling it badly...

[President Johnson]

Any theories on whether the earthquake will have any impact on the election? I've read some stories that Erdogan is being criticized for handling it badly...

So far yes. I guess it's too early to determine that.

I wanted to ask the question as well but thought it may be tasteless to some this early. But it's a legitimate question.

[Epaminondas]

I have done that many times but at this point it seems like even at the worst point of our democracy, they care more about their personal ambitions rather than easily winning elections with popular candidates (Yavaş or İmamoğlu). I will probably hold my nose and vote against Erdoğan but then again people are really done with all parties for this particular reason.

I felt that way as a young voter too, until Bernie's bus analogy convinced me to always vote: if you can't get all the way to your destination in one trip, getting closer is still worth it. Going the wrong way, however, will only slow things down further.

In my last trip to Istanbul I chatted with a few young guys on the bus and they impressed me by their belief that Erdogan has no place in today's society.

[DavidB.]

What are the chances that this election is postponed?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Quite a few reports now of people in Hatay province complaining that the reason for the poor response of the government is political: i.e. that they're being victimized for not being a sufficiently pro-AKP region, unlike the other areas devastated by the earthquakes. I've no idea whether the accusations have any truth to them or if they're just an understandably paranoid rationalization of an otherwise inexplicable failure of the State to meet its expected obligations in a crisis, but it's relevant to this thread either way.

[Logical]

Quite a few reports now of people in Hatay province complaining that the reason for the poor response of the government is political: i.e. that they're being victimized for not being a sufficiently pro-AKP region, unlike the other areas devastated by the earthquakes. I've no idea whether the accusations have any truth to them or if they're just an understandably paranoid rationalization of an otherwise inexplicable failure of the State to meet its expected obligations in a crisis, but it's relevant to this thread either way.

I do not believe that they are discriminated against. The earthquake response is just really really poor everywhere. Some of the highest death toll is in Kahramanmaras and Adiyaman provinces, both AKP strongholds. I will try to classify the worst affected provinces by the scale of the damage and political lean.

Adana : Medium damage, 408+ dead, pro opposition province
Adiyaman : Extreme damage, 3105+ dead, AKP stronghold with a large Kurdish and Alevi population
Diyarbakir : Medium damage, 255+ dead, HDP and Kurdish nationalist heartland
Gaziantep : Severe damage, 2141+ dead, AKP friendly province with large Kurdish and Syrian populations
Hatay : Extreme damage, 5111+ dead, swing province with significant Arab minority
Kahramanmaras : Extreme damage, 5323+ dead, AKP heartland
Kilis : Medium damage, 22+ dead, very small and rural AKP stronghold
Malatya : Medium damage, 289+ dead, another AKP bastion with a large Kurdish minority
Osmaniye : Severe damage, 878+ dead, MHP heartland; their leader is from here
Sanliurfa : Medium damage, 304+ dead, conservative Kurdish majority province where the AKP is much stronger than HDP

As you can see casualties is correlated to how strong the earthquake was. Some AKP voting regions suffered just as badly as opposition friendly ones. Per capita wise the worst hit province is Adiyaman where Erdogan won 67% of the vote on 2018.

[jaichind]

Generically my impression is that "Act of God" type disasters tend to help the regime in the short run since any help the government can render is viewed in a positive way in a situation where the government could not plan for it.  Also, the collective action of everyone in dealing with adversity tends to consolidate support for the regime.  As time goes on this bump in support of the regime tends to reverse as the expected recovery takes longer than expected and is something the government can be expected to plan for.  So my guess is if the election is in the next couple of months this tends to help AKP but if the election is in 2024 this will hurt AKP.