Highlights: No candidate emerged victorious in the first round of Turkey's presidential election on May 14. A second round is scheduled for Sunday, May 28. Outgoing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the favourite with 49.5% of the vote. But his rival Kemal Kiliçdaroglu still hopes to beat him. The opposition hopes to mobilise one to two million of the more than eight million Turks who did not go to vote on 14th May. The nationalist card to seduce Sinan Ogan's voters is a key strategy.

Last week of presidential campaign in Turkey, after the first round on May 14, in which no candidate emerged victorious. A second round is therefore scheduled for Sunday, May 28. The outgoing president...

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Presidential election in Turkey: a few days before the second round, Kilicdaroglu mobilizes at all costs

Turkish opposition candidate Kemal Kiliçdaroglu at a press conference in Ankara, May 18, 2023. © Adem Altan / AFP

Text by: Anne Andlauer

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Last week of presidential campaign in Turkey, after the first round on May 14, in which no candidate emerged victorious. A second round is therefore scheduled for Sunday, May 28. Outgoing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the favourite with 49.5% in the first round. But his rival Kemal Kiliçdaroglu still hopes to beat him after convincing 45% of the vote. While the camp of power seems confident in its victory, the opposition is mobilizing at all costs.

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From our correspondent in Istanbul,

In a campaign between the two rounds, no political activity is trivial. Even when the mayor of Istanbul visits a café-bookstore: Ekrem Imamoglu, who will become vice-president if the opposition candidate Kemal Kiliçdaroglu wins, comes to meet young people conveniently seated around the coffee tables. The youth is a key electorate for the Turkish opposition and selfies with the mayor, a good advertisement on social networks.

Ekrem Imamoglu refuses to answer journalists' questions. Next to him, the district mayor Riza Akpolat, elected from the same party, is less stingy with comments. And for good reason: in the first round, his district of Besiktas voted 80% for Kemal Kiliçdaroglu. But it's still not enough

We are redirecting our efforts to voters who did not go to vote, those to whom we did not address enough and those who complain about us, summarizes Riza Akpolat. We are trying to convince them in the short time we have left.

Even if he manages to retain his voters in the first round, Kemal Kiliçdaroglu needs about three million additional votes to win in the second round. The opposition hopes to mobilise one to two million of the more than eight million Turks who did not go to vote on 14th May.

The nationalist card to seduce Sinan Ogan's voters

She also believes she can count on some of the voters of Sinan Ogan, an ultranationalist who came third in the first round, with 2.8 million votes.

Ahmet Kiraz, a local representative of Kemal Kiliçdaroglu's CHP party, believes that when it comes to choosing Sinan Ogan's voters will prefer the opposition: "They are nationalists reluctant to vote in the first round for [Kemal] Kiliçdaroglu for many reasons: because he is left-wing, because he is the CHP... We think that this electorate will vote for the most part anyway for Kiliçdaroglu, because it is above all an electorate that refuses to vote [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan because it negotiated with the PKK [Kurdistan Workers' Party - Editor's note], concluded agreements.

Kemal Kiliçdaroglu is playing the nationalist card to the full, which he had waved very little before the first round. His camp recalls every day that Recep Tayyip Erdogan has negotiated with the PKK in the past and promises to send Syrian refugees home. All this is not to displease Kemal Kiliçdaroglu's main ally, the ultranationalist Iyi party, or "Good Party". Egemen Güner, one of its local leaders, assures that a victory is possible:

There is no reason to lose morale. No one has won or lost the election yet. As we were focused on winning in the first round, some of us may have been disappointed. But note that until now, all elections in Turkey had ended in a single round with a victory for Mr. Erdogan. There, we have a second round, the match resumes on a score of 0-0, and we believe that we can make up for the 5 points we are missing to win Kemal Kiliçdaroglu.

Egemen Güner, one of Iyi's local leaders, says victory is possible

Anne Andlauer

Erdogan camp confident

In the camp of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, we are just as confident. All the more confident that the outgoing president came close to victory in the first round with 49.5%. Arif, an activist with the AKP, the party of the head of state, believes that Tayyip Erdogan does not have much work to do to win next Sunday.

Moreover, he notes, he is not really campaigning: "We did not expect such a result in the first round ... We didn't think we would be so far ahead. We even went to vote worried, thinking we could lose. But the results of the first round show that Erdogan still has real support in society. For the second round, it's clear: he's the favorite, we're not at all afraid that he will lose, we're even sure he'll win.

Arif wants to believe that the electorate of Recep Tayyip Erdogan will be all the more mobilized on Sunday as the Turkish leader claims that this mandate will be his last.

► Read also: Elections in Turkey: in Iraqi Kurdistan, the sky falls on the head of the PKK

Presidential election in Turkey: a few days before the second round, Kilicdaroglu mobilizes at all costs

Presidential election in Turkey: a few days before the second round, Kilicdaroglu mobilizes at all costs

The nationalist card to seduce Sinan Ogan's voters

Erdogan camp confident

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