Turkish elections. Erdogan's opposition to Erdogan's achievements

In his election campaigns for the May 14, 2023 ballot, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is experimenting with a very different method than his previous methods, announcing at almost every rally the opening of a new project, and these openings do not convey to voters the message that "what we have done in the past is a guarantee of what we will do in the future," but goes beyond that to create the direct impression that the path that exists now is one that Turkey cannot return from.

In fact, these projects were not postponed for campaign purposes, as many projects have been opened since the previous elections, and what was announced during the election campaign are those projects that coincided only with the time of the election campaign. Some may have forgotten those projects that opened in previous months, but the announcement of new openings as part of the election campaign reminds us of previous projects as well.

Here, it is not possible to understand who criticizes the use of project openings or the announcement of achievements in the folds of the election campaign, if these or that are not used, how will voters realize what has been achieved and what can be achieved, and how will this be explained to them?

Is it unfair competition?

The question then is: Do Erdogan's initiatives and openings of projects constitute unfair electoral competition?

The opposition may feel that this is their major weakness, and therefore see it as an area of unfair competition. It is quite natural; opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has no proven achievements. If we look back at his history, we will find only a very failed bureaucratic administration and dozens of elections that he lost, without any biography that can be presented. In this case, his only chance of competing with Erdogan is to resort to vague nihilism that dilutes the government's achievements and projects.

He could say, for example, that he would bring "clean $300 billion" to the country, and then declare that this clean money is actually the money of drug lords and traffickers; he even said earlier that he had already brought that money. And if you ask questions such as: How did he bring it? And where did he put it? And how to convince their owners?, you will have reached the real world. At this point, people may not easily accept such questions, so don't ask for details.

However, the mouth of the people is not a bag that can be tied, there will be someone to ask questions, and you have to clarify, and the more he clarifies, the more ambiguity becomes! Why would drug lords, capitalists, and especially British moneylenders give you money? And if they give it to you, what will you give them in return? Such questions fall on the mind like rain.

Kılıçdaroğlu's promises are not addressed to the people

One of the strongest elements of Erdogan's election campaign is his policies in the aerospace industry, for which he annually holds the Technovest Aviation and Space Technology Festival. This policy is in fact very patriotic and respected by all, and no right-wing or left-wing citizen can oppose it. But the author of this policy is Erdogan, and its success must necessarily be attributed to him as with all other projects.

If the opposition were smarter, Kılıçdaroğlu would have been able to turn Technovest from a trump card in the hands of President Erdogan into a trump card in his hand, if he adopted the project himself to gain unexpected votes, but politics is not always done with reason, and perhaps the man has another logic that pushed him to a different behavior, as coinciding with the annual festival at Ataturk Airport, where he received more than a million visitors, he made a strange promise: "Immediately after we come to power, we will turn Ataturk Airport into an aviation and space hub, we will develop our space shuttles, and I have already spoken with Sierra Nevada (SNC) officials in the USA about this."

Whatever perspective you see this statement from, you will not be able to correct its deviation, as the Turkish proverb says, "If a madman throws a stone into a well, forty sane people cannot get it out", and thus you will not be able to find good intentions to explain evil.

Kılıçdaroğlu's election campaign is not directed at the Turkish people, but at the forces that seek to colonize Turkey, it is clear that he is looking forward to the support of these foreigners, not the votes of the people, and believes that their support will bring him victory.

The deviation in Kılıçdaroğlu's statement is that Turkey has already begun through "Technovest" to achieve successes that go far beyond what he promises, and logic says that if you want to compete with what exists, you have to promise something greater than it, but Kılıçdaroğlu does not know the level that Turkey has achieved in this field, and his imagination is very late to the facts.

It is also crazy for a candidate to assume that because there is an airport in an area, it can be used to go to space, and then finally evil appears in this and other statements in that insistence that he hand over to foreigners the tasks that Turkey has proven capable of accomplishing with its human resources, ignoring the self-confidence that Turkey has achieved a hundred years after the founding of the republic and trying to suppress it by re-raising the self-awareness of colonialism that believes that the Turkish people can achieve nothing on their own.

Kılıçdaroğlu's election campaign is therefore not directed at the Turkish people, but at the foreign powers that seek to colonize Turkey, it is clear that the candidate is looking for the support of these foreigners, not the votes of the people, and believes that their support will bring him important votes. What about the HDP? And about Fethullah Gülen's organization? Is there any other promise that can increase their enthusiasm and hope? And is there anyone else who would be happy with this promise other than them?

Without the initiatives that President Erdoğan has fought for for 20 years, Kılıçdaroğlu would not have been able to come out and say, "I am Alavi."

Opposing Erdogan with Erdogan's achievements!

Another interesting dimension is that some of Kılıçdaroğlu's "reasonable" promises are in essence nothing but promises to achieve achievements that President Erdogan has already "achieved" during the past twenty years; for example, the incomprehensible exit of Kılıçdaroğlu in a video saying "I am Alevi", was he trying, for example, to deal with the problem of his sectarian affiliation, which led some of his partners to doubt his ability to win by announcing it explicitly? Did his announcement solve the dilemma or complicate it?

Regardless of the answer, the irony is that if it weren't for the initiatives that President Erdoğan fought for for 20 years, Kılıçdaroğlu would not have been able to come out and say, "I am an Alvi." Today, not only Alawites, but Kurds and other minorities can freely express their identities and engage in politics under these identities.

In other words, what Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu has done is nothing but opposition to Erdogan using cards from Erdogan's own portfolio of his achievements: the fact that he can say "I am Alavi" is a success story that will be recorded in Erdogan's name, not in his name. But of course, on the other hand, this situation tells the story of the misery of the opposition in general.