ERBIL GUNASTI: Erdogan is facing a serious challenge after holding on to power for two decades

Ankara might seem a long way from Westminster right now but when, on Sunday, some 60 million Turks go to the polling booths, we will feel the effects.

The election – which includes the presidential contest - is less predictable than normal.

Incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has held on to power for two decades, is facing a serious challenge for once – seemingly neck-and-neck with rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

Most in America and Europe are hoping for an opposition victory. Erdogan has proved troublesome, disrupting Western interests and generally challenging the post-war status quo.

And his opponents, both at home and abroad, have plenty of ammo.

People's Alliance's presidential candidate Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks to his supporters during an election campaign rally in Istanbul, Turkey, Friday, May 12, 2023

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP) and the joint presidential candidate of the Nation Alliance makes remarks during an election rally in Samsun, Turkiye on May 12, 2023

The President has been accused of creating an autocracy, of suppressing free speech – closing newspapers, arresting editors - of persecuting political opponents and of ravaging an economy which now suffers inflation of 44 per cent.

The response to the devastating February earthquakes has been widely criticised, as has the corruption that allowed so many shoddy buildings to be constructed in the first place.

Work is in short supply, particularly for young first-time voters, whose influence will undoubtedly be felt on Sunday.

Yet for all these criticisms, and even after 15 straight election victories, millions of ordinary Turks want Erdogan to win again.

One recent poll suggested he is actually ahead, standing at 52 per cent compared with his opponent’s 48 per cent.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan greets the crowd as he attends Sultangazi election rally in Istanbul, Turkiye on May 12, 2023

He recently filled the former Ataturk airport with, perhaps, half a million supporters in a show of strength while 1.7 million are said to have gathered at his final rally in Istanbul.

Why?

Seen through Western eyes, there should be no contest. Kilicdaroglu favours a warm relationship with Europe, joining Ukraine’s fight against the Russian invaders, restoring social freedoms and respecting international treaties.

But it’s perhaps wise to see things from the streets of Trabzon or the dust roads of Turkey’s vast interior.

Erdogan has brought stability, investment and pride to Turkey. That translates into modern hospitals, universities, sports stadiums, motorways, bridges, tunnels and more.

As he is fond of pointing out, Turkey has developed three times more quickly in his two decades of power than in the previous 80 years - when the country was run by 27 prime ministers in succession. Turkish exports have increased ten-fold under him.

There is a new sense of independence. In the past, Turkey relied on American armaments.

Yet today, the United States is Turkish defence industry’s biggest client (it spent a billion dollars on Turkish weaponry in 2022.)

Turkey has built its first nuclear reactor, has discovered gas in the Black Sea and is drilling for oil in the seas around the Greek islands – which Turkey claims but which by international agreement belong to Greece.

And this is the point, or part of it: Erdogan is defying the West, and that is popular at home.

A sense that American and European interests are attempting to manipulate Turkish opinion hardly helps.

A recent headline in The Economist newspaper - calling for an opposition victory - is a case in point: barely noticed here, it caused waves in Turkey and helped galvanise Erdogan’s support.

Yet all this goes beyond one man: Erdogan has freedom to manoeuvre because the world is changing.

Like other emerging nations, Turkey is free to negotiate with Russia and China on its own terms – and make money. Trade with Russia stands at more than £48 billion pounds a year.

The Turkish opposition wants a rapprochement with the West. But to Erdogan’s supporters that means a return to the past, when Europeans and the United States of America effectively ran the place. And when coups d'etat were the norm.

The past is in any case the past. Whatever its current problems, and there are plenty, Turkey is no longer the ‘sick man of Europe’.

Today, it is impossible to side-line, playing a key role providing energy and food security to Western Europe and beyond during the Russia-Ukraine war, for example.

And don’t forget the fact that there are ten million refugees in Turkey ready to walk through the only natural land bridge in the world to Europe.

Whoever wins on Sunday, going back to Cold War certainties is pure fantasy - however much that might be hoped for in Washington, London and Paris. We are no longer in a bi-polar world.