This election promises to be the most difficult after two decades in power. On the eve of a decisive election for Turkey and its future, outgoing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, threatened as ever, mobilizes his supporters, Saturday, May 13, through Istanbul, with a final prayer at Hagia Sophia, the basilica he has transformed into a mosque.

It is in this pink Byzantine basilica of the fourth century, which he converted into a mosque in 2020, that the head of state will close a campaign conducted at a brisk pace, with barely veiled invective and threats, formulated by himself and his entourage, against his social-democratic opponent Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

"The whole West has gone crazy! But I did it!" he boasted to his supporters about the conversion of Hagia Sophia.

Fear of violent excesses

The "Réis", 69 years old, regularly renewed by the ballot box since 2003, promised, Friday, to respect the result of the presidential and legislative elections to which 64 million voters are called, not without judging the question on this point "completely idiotic".

"We came to power democratically, with the support of our people: if our nation makes a different decision, we will do what democracy requires. There is nothing else to do," he said, visibly angry, during a television interview, broadcast simultaneously on most channels in the country.

Nevertheless, the fear of violent excesses remains in the big cities after a series of incidents that occurred in the final stretch of an ultra-polarized campaign, forcing his opponent to wear a bulletproof vest under his suit during his last campaign rallies.

The bus of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, star of the CHP (Social Democrat) party led by Kemal Kilicdaroglu and a powerful asset of his campaign, was stoned Sunday in Erzurum, eastern Anatolia.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who returned to Ankara, concludes his campaign Saturday with a symbolic visit to the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of modern and secular Turkey.

"Are you ready for democracy in this country?"

Ekrem Imamoglu, threatened with a prison sentence he has appealed, will wet his shirt again Saturday during four public meetings in the economic capital of which he took the lead in 2019.

Unlike the autocratic power "of one man", Recep Tayyip Erdogan, denounced by the opposition, his main opponent of 74 years offers in case of victory a collegial leadership, surrounded by vice-presidents representing the six parties of the coalition he leads, from the nationalist right to the liberal left.

"Are you ready for democracy in this country? To bring peace to this country? I am, I promise you," he said Friday, at his last big meeting, under a raging sky between lightning and thunderclaps in Ankara.

"I promise you" is also his campaign slogan, the refrain of his supporters' songs: return to the rule of law and the parliamentary regime, separation of powers, release of tens of thousands of political prisoners, judges, magistrates, intellectuals, soldiers and civil servants imprisoned for "terrorism" or "insulting the president".

Difficulties in attracting young people

The authoritarian drift of the last decade, and even more so since the abortive coup of 2016, an economy at half-mast with a devaluation of the Turkish lira by half in two years and inflation around 40% over one year, according to disputed official figures, have dented the credit and popularity of the head of state who asserts great achievements and development, of his country since 2003.

But he admitted that he was struggling to seduce young people, more than 5.2 million of whom will vote for the first time.

>> Read also: Erdogan generation: "I will choose the one who will be good for the future of the country"

Another unknown is the impact of the powerful earthquake that devastated a southern quarter of the country, leaving at least 50,000 dead and 3 million missing. In devastated ancient Antioch, "returnees" sometimes roamed the country by bus for hours to come to vote, in ruined schools or containers.

"It's not happy to vote in the middle of the rubble, but we want the government to change," Dilber Simsek, 48, said Saturday, sheltering in a tent. "Look, it's been three months since anything moved," she complains.

With AFP

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