Turkey's elections. Accounts of the Presidency and Parliament

Turkey has entered the last three weeks remaining for the May 14, 2023 elections, and although attention is more focused on the presidential elections as they will determine the political fate of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the legislative elections are no less important than the presidential elections.

On the one hand, any elected president will find it difficult to exercise power if the coalition he supports does not have a parliamentary majority to pass laws and legislation and avoid conflict with the legislature. On the other hand, the results of the parliamentary elections may have an impact on the presidential election if the latter goes to a run-off. The coalition, which will obtain a majority or a parliamentary majority, will have its presidential candidate, who is in the run-off, better able to attract hesitant and decisive votes and convince them that he can bring about political stability and avoid a conflict between the presidency and parliament that would lead to political paralysis.

The presidential election on May 14 may not be decided, but the results of the parliamentary race will immediately paint half the picture of Turkey's future after these elections.

Seat Chair First

It is also noted that a key aspect of Erdoğan and his main rival's Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu motivation in forming parliamentary candidate lists was based on presidential election calculations. For his part, Erdogan included candidates of the conservative Welfare, Kurdish Free Call and Democratic Left parties on AKP lists in order to attract the votes of all three parties in his favor in the presidential elections. Kılıçdaroğlu did the same as the candidates of 4 small parties, Happiness, Future, Democracy, Progress and Democracy, on the CHP's lists for the parliamentary elections to win their votes in the presidential race.

Interestingly, both Erdogan and Kılıçdaroğlu sought to press as many buttons as possible at once to secure victory in the presidency from the first round or at least in a possible run-off, for example, continuing to spend generously on economic stimulus packages, raising wage rates, promising to rebuild areas devastated by the February 6 earthquake within a year, and seeking to attract the largest number of small parties to the ruling coalition.

Kılıçdaroğlu, on the other hand, was more impulsive in the game of pressing buttons. He entered into electoral cooperation with the Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) without threatening his partnership with the nationalist Good Party. Candidates from four smaller parties, including conservative parties, have also been included on the CHP's lists for parliamentary elections, although figures leading these parties have in the past been very hostile to Kılıçdaroğlu.

Although the contradiction within the opposition Nation Alliance is more pronounced than the ruling People's Alliance, whose components seem more ideologically harmonious, Kılıçdaroğlu showed skill in combining contradictions when he realized that the bumpy road to power could not be taken without adopting a new CHP identity that prioritizes conciliatory discourse with other components over the traditional ideology that is alienating Kurds and conservatives.

Regardless of whether this shift was tactical and circumstantial dictated by electoral need, it helped Kılıçdaroğlu push most opposition parties to stand behind him and agree on one key goal: ending Erdogan's rule. It remains difficult to say whether this tactic is beneficial to Kılıçdaroğlu and the Six-Party Alliance in general, given that its potential negative repercussions are not yet fully clear and can only be known after the ballot boxes are counted.

The motives of Erdogan and Kılıçdaroğlu in forming parliamentary candidate lists were based on the calculations of the presidential elections, and the two men sought to press the largest number of buttons to settle them in his favor

However, some negative reversals can be observed, including a remarkable rise in the likely approval ratings of the leader of the opposition Al-Balad Party, Muharrem Ince, from 1% to nearly 7%, according to recent opinion polls, an initial sign of a shift in the electoral behavior of part of the voting bloc of the National Good Party, which opposes electoral cooperation between Kılıçdaroğlu and the Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP). These polls also suggest that Ince will be able to attract discontent with Kılıçdaroğlu within the CHP as a result of his alliance with the HDP and small conservative parties.

However, movements in voter turnout between parties cannot be treated as fixed. As the election approaches, the moving votes are likely to decide their position more clearly. But if Muharrem Ince's likely voter turnout remains above 6 percent, it will increase the likelihood that the presidential election will go to a second round.

Kılıçdaroğlu's weaknesses

Kılıçdaroğlu's weaknesses lie firstly in the fact that, despite his ability to mobilize as many opposition parties as possible, he could not form a clear political strategy for the Nation Alliance that transcends electoral calculations, second, his inability to increase the confidence of hesitant voices in his ability to bring political stability to the country should the opposition come to power, third, the difficulty he faces in taking the presidential competition out of the context of "for or against Erdogan," and fourth, his failure to convince Muharrem Ince to withdraw from the presidential race. Clearly, these four points all reduce his chances of deciding the presidential election from the first round, and undermine his ability to win a possible run-off.

The current political engineering on the run-off may not be suitable for both Erdogan and Kılıçdaroğlu if neither of them manages to obtain a parliamentary majority and reduce the dilemma of vote leakage from their alliances in favor of other presidential candidates Muharrem Ince and Sinan Ogan.

In addition to the dangers that Ince poses to Kılıçdaroğlu, Sinan Oğan may be able to get some votes from Erdogan's ally the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and nationalist votes from both the Good Party and the Republican People's Party (CHP). But the biggest negative impact on this equation will be on Kılıçdaroğlu more than Erdogan, because the nationalist votes that went to Muharrem Ince after the six-table crisis went as a reaction to the cooperation between Kılıçdaroğlu, the Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) and conservative parties, and it is unlikely that all of them will return to him in a possible run-off between him and Erdogan, because the main reason for the change in their electoral behavior will remain.

The assumption that Kılıçdaroğlu will be able to win a second round may not be accurate because political stability will be the key factor in determining undecided votes and will serve Erdogan more

Complexities of the run-off

It is clear that the electoral complexities in the possible presidential run-off will be greater than in the first round, overlapping between the results of the parliamentary elections on the one hand and the electoral behavior of the nationalist votes that leaked out of the opposition six-party alliance (it can be described as the de facto seven-way alliance after the HDP's tacit support for Kılıçdaroğlu).

Given this, the prevailing assumption that Kılıçdaroğlu will be able to decide a possible second round may not be entirely accurate, because political stability will be the main factor in determining the undecided votes, and Erdogan will serve morethan Kılıçdaroğlu, because first, he has proven his ability for two decades to bring about this stability, and secondly because the differences that have plagued the opposition front after the crisis of determining its presidential candidate and the unclear formula it offers to form a government coalition will not be attractive to the hesitant votes that It fears that Turkey will return to the time of unstable coalition governments.

Although Kılıçdaroğlu benefits in part from the fact that the presidential contest is a referendum on Erdogan personally, it is not the only option for voters who want Turkey without Erdogan. Meanwhile, Kılıçdaroğlu faces a dilemma within his own party in particular: nationalists angry at Kılıçdaroğlu's cooperation with the Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP), and Ataturkis angry at the alliance with the parties of Future, Democracy, Progress and Happiness.

Who do young people vote for?

The youth vote will also be influential in this election, as more than 6 million young people will vote for the first time. The assumption was that the youth vote would not serve Erdogan, because this new generation wants to see a different president. However, Kılıçdaroğlu is not an attractive element for young people because he is part of Turkish politics albeit on the opposition front for two decades.

With that in mind, Ince and Sinan Ogan may have a greater share of youth votes. Such an expectation would continue to serve Erdogan more than Kılıçdaroğlu, because the less the latter is able to win the largest number of votes opposed to Erdogan, the more Erdogan can boost his chances of re-election. However, the choices Muharrem Ince will make in the presidential race still play an important role in determining who will win the presidency of Turkey in either a first round or a run-off, because Ince has not completely closed the door on the possibility of negotiating with Kılıçdaroğlu, leaving room for the latter to find a last-minute settlement.