Is Erdogan’s re-election a foregone conclusion?
Kurdish sources say that if the presidential election goes to a second round, Kurds would not vote for Good Party leader Meral Aksener but certainly would vote for former President Abdullah Gul if he were on the ballot.
Is Turkey’s strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s re-election as president in the snap elections to be held June 24 a foregone conclusion?
Almost every Turkey observer said it was when new Erdogan ally Devlet Bahceli, the chairman of Turkey’s Nationalist Movement Party, called for early elections and Erdogan heeded his call within 48 hours.
“The outcome of these elections is hardly in question: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will win,” Turkey expert Howard Eissenstat wrote recently. The Project on Middle East Democracy fellow says the vote is part of Turkey's “electoral authoritarianism,” where political power is uncontested but the facade of multiparty democracy is maintained.
Erdogan needs that facade and the legitimacy the elections would provide for his one-man rule. The elections are to be held under the state of emergency, which means the campaigning of Erdogan’s possible contenders could face serious obstacles; opposition rallies are likely be harassed. Moreover, thanks to recent legislation, election rigging could be also possible with the usage of unstamped ballots and so forth. So there has been no reason to think that Erdogan would not be re-elected.
