Today, Explained - The most important election of 2023

Episode Date: May 17, 2023

After 21 years of leading Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a global political giant. But a crumbling Turkish economy and the opposition candidate pose the biggest threat to his power in years. This episode was produced by Haleema Shah, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Patrick Boyd and Michael Raphael, and hosted by Noel King. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You will recall that around the time Donald Trump won the presidency in the United States, we started worrying about authoritarian leaders. Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was one of them. He'd followed a similar playbook to Trump's, appealed to a conservative base, largely religious, that felt left out, juiced the economy, and slowly chipped away at things like the free press and free speech. And as it did in the U.S., it worked. Erdogan has been very popular among many of his countrymen and countrywomen.

But Turks voted in a presidential election over the weekend, and for the first time in a long time, some cracks started to show. Erdogan lost half the population in a Democratic vote, and he's been forced into a runoff with a challenger. Coming up on today explained how a bad economy and a very bad earthquake backed an authoritarian leader into a corner. The all-new FanDuel Sportsbook and Casino is bringing you more action than ever. Want more ways to follow your faves? Check out our new player prop tracking with real-time notifications.

Or how about more ways to customize your casino page with our new favorite and recently played games tabs. And to top it all off, quick and secure withdrawals. Get more everything with FanDuel Sportsbook and Casino. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600. Visit connectsontario.ca. It's Today Explained. I'm Noelle King with Humeyra Pamuk. She's a correspondent for Reuters who covers foreign policy.

And Humeyra says this election was indeed a big one. This was indeed a historic election in Turkey. And in the first round, which took place on Sunday, we have seen incumbent president Recep Tayyip Erdogan to garner 49.4% of the vote. We do not doubt that the choice of our nation, which gave the majority in the parliament to our alliance, will be in favor of trust and stability. His rival opposition challenger, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, got around 45 percent of the vote. Kılıçdaroğlu tells them to work for a brighter future. His logo is a heart symbol. Which means that now this race is going

to go to a runoff that is going to take place on May the 28th. It's quite the nail-biting, nerve-wracking competition so far. Why is it so nerve-wracking and nail-biting? Is it just the closeness of the numbers or is it what's at stake here? It is because of what's at stake. This is a historic election for Turkey. And The Economist has declared this as one of the most important elections of 2023. It really is because Turkey is a major regional power that sits in a geographically unique and valuable place. That geographical advantage allows it to be very instrumental in diplomatic theaters that have global importance.

After months of global grain shortage, negotiators in Turkey say that they have reached a deal to resume grain exports from Ukraine. And Ukraine war is the most recent and best example. Turkey is also a NATO ally and an EU-aspirant country. Why is the election so close? There is a severe economic crisis. At this market, shoppers told us they can only afford to buy a fraction of the groceries they used to.

I'm 80 years old and I've never seen such high prices. We should change this, said this woman. Turkish lira has depreciated a great deal. The economy is clearly mismanaged. And there was also only three months ago a devastating earthquake in the southeast that killed 50,000 people. A magnitude 7.8 captured on security cameras, bringing down buildings in an instant. So you can ask the question, why is Taip Erdogan able to get nearly half the votes when there are so many reasons that work against him? But Erdogan has the advantages of an incumbent. He represents stability to many people,

even though his policies have been the reason why the economy is so bad. And he's a really skillful politician, and he has made sure that he exploits all of these advantages fully. One of the things that the West is particularly concerned about in Turkey is democracy. So I was looking at a chart a couple of days ago that suggests when Recep Tayyip Erdogan became prime minister in 2003, Turkey became less democratic. And it continued to become less democratic more and more until today. And by some measures, Turkey is barely a democracy at this point. What happened? What did Erdogan do? In the initial years of Erdogan, a lot of people in the West actually did see him as a model for the rest of the Middle East, as a model democracy. There are

a lot of articles in New York Times archives calling him the Muslim Democrat. For a couple of years, he has actually done reforms to improve liberties and rights and freedoms of women. But that was only for a couple of years. And I think it's safe to say that since 2010, we have seen a backsliding in the Turkish democracy. The rights of certain groups of people, Kurds, secularists, these were curtailed. We are looking at journalists being jailed. In Turkey, four journalists and a writer have been charged with being involved in a plot to overthrow the government. All of the men have been fiercely critical of the administration in their writing. They're accused of membership of a terrorist group and inciting hatred. President Erdogan and his lawyers have filed thousands of criminal complaints against citizens

accusing them of insulting the president. And some of these accusations, some of these charges were based on tweets, something a citizen has said in a television broadcast. They have also made new legislation that would allow them to possibly censor what you can say on the internet. Few could have predicted the scene about to unfold on the floor of the Turkish parliament. Burak Erbay was protesting against a bill that's meant to stamp out disinformation. But opponents say it'll become another tool to stifle dissent. They have also been in touch with Twitter, trying to restrict some of the accounts. You know, I don't want to hear about Elon Musk talking about free speech ever again. He is literally bowing down to a dictatorship. So when you look at the big picture, we have seen a democratic backsliding. We have seen a curtailing of human rights, freedoms, definitely the freedom of the press.

And that has caused a lot of concern in the West. Despite all of this, Recep Tayyip Erdogan got about half of the vote in this election over the weekend. The people who voted for Erdogan, why don't they mind that Turkey is becoming less democratic? What is Erdogan doing for them? I think in emerging countries like Turkey, things like human rights, press freedom, they always take a back seat when your primary problem is the economy. Erdogan emerged as the leader of conservative, pious Turks whose voices had been suppressed in the 1970s. Turkey has had multiple military coups and it had been for years ran by these army generals

who weren't very tolerant of any Islamist tendency. One of the things that happened during the soft coup was the headscarf ban really becoming more entrenched, filtering down into more regulations and banning the headscarf almost completely from public institutions, including universities. So those groups who have felt long oppressed thought that Erdogan was the leader who represented them. And he did come from humble roots, even though today he does live in a palace in Ankara. And he managed to connect with those people in a way that no other politician was able to. And again, in his initial days, and to a certain extent to date, let's say within the first decade,

he has helped pull working class out of poverty. He has made health services much more accessible, built bridges, schools. He really did improve living conditions for millions of Turks. But again, within his first decade, all of those things have really helped him to create and maintain a really tight and solidified voter base that at the moment is not really paying attention to anything else that's happening because their identity connection with him is really, really strong. Okay, he's popular with his base. His base is about half the country. The other half of the country went out this weekend and voted for someone else. Why might Erdogan lose this election? What are his weaknesses? I think the economy was thought to be the biggest weakness because it was the economy which kept Erdogan in power for so many years. As we said, there were things that wasn't going well. Human rights, freedoms,

democratic backsliding, judicial independence, rule of law. Turkey has had problems and Turkey has seen its track record basically deteriorate in all of those aspects. But the economic problems have been piling up for several years. Poverty is a real thing. And the second big thing is, again, the devastating earthquake. 50,000 people have been killed. Tens of thousands, if not millions of homes, have been destroyed. And this devastating impact has a lot to do with how Erdogan's government has worked with construction companies and lacks enforcement of safety standards. The results of the first round show us that his base was not very responsive to the economic problems. The conservative people are well aware of the economic problems. They are suffering through that. The people whose homes

were destroyed in the devastating earthquake that happened in February, they are well aware that the hardships that they're going through. But the key thing here is they don't see Erdogan as the culprit of this. I will sacrifice myself for him. This natural disaster was a test from God. Erdogan did what he could and people should be thankful. I am, even though I'm living in a tent. For the earthquake, they think it was a natural disaster that came from God. Erdogan did what he could and people should be thankful. I am, even though I'm living in a tent. For the earthquake, they think it was a natural disaster that came from God. And in the end, Erdogan is still the best placed person to pull them out of this. When it comes to the economy,

Erdogan has been extremely successful in exploiting the post-truth environment. At every instance, he has managed to find another culprit to blame. Every single time people talked about how the economic conditions were bad, he blamed foreign powers. He blamed a so-called interest rate lobby. He blamed the West. Are you going to do the same with the instruction you received from America? Are you going to do the same with the instruction you received from Biden? He blamed Biden just a day before the election. And when he ran out of people to blame, he said the price of the onion is so expensive because the grocery store owners are artificially keeping it high. So do you see what's happening here?

Yes. He's got a narrative and it is strongly resonating with millions of people. Coming up, who is the man now posing such a threat to Recep Tayyip Erdogan's power? Support for Today Explained comes from Aura. Aura believes that sharing pictures is a great way to keep up with family, and Aura says it's never been easier thanks to their digital picture frames. They were named the number one digital photo frame by Wirecutter. Aura frames make it easy to share unlimited photos and videos directly from your phone to the frame. When you give an Aura frame as a gift, you can personalize it, you can preload it with a thoughtful message, maybe your favorite photos.

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. It's Today Explained. Humera Pamuk is a correspondent with Reuters. She covers foreign policy. Humera, tell me about the challenger here, Kamal Kilicduroglu. So Kilicduroglu was born in the eastern province of Tunceli in Turkey. He's an Alevi, a minority group that follows the faith drawing on Shiite, Muslim, Sufi and Anatolian folk traditions. I am a Levite. I am a sincere Muslim who was raised with the faith of the Prophet Muhammad and Ali. Before entering politics, he worked in the finance ministry.

He then chaired Turkey's social insurance institution. He was a former civil servant. He became a lawmaker in 2002, the year when Erdogan actually came to power. And he rose to prominence as the anti-graft campaigner. And in his campaign for this election, making right the corrupt ways, ending corruption, ending graft, bringing back rule of law was a big part of his rhetoric. We are not going to leave the fate of the Turkish Republic in the hands of one person. And no one will accept the words of just one person. I've met him in person.

He's very mild-mannered, quite different from Erdogan. They call him Turki-es-Gandhi. Kilic Darulu's colleagues say he is soft-spoken, like Mahatma Gandhi, and to a certain degree even looks like him. Admittedly, he does lack the charisma that Erdogan has and has helped him convince millions of voters. But he comes across as a very decent, simple, and straightforward man. So if Erdogan is this populist conservative who is beloved by people like Donald Trump,

where is Khalid Jadar al-Luh politically? What does he represent? It's not super straightforward because, as I said, he's trying to put together a very inclusive platform. He leads the Secular Republican People's Party or CHP and also the National Alliance, a group of parties also known as the Table of Six. And that brings together a lot of Turkey's different voices. He is partnering up with an Islamist party which involves some members who were once in Erdogan's movement. His party is in an informal alliance with the country's Kurds. And of course, he's got the votes of secular CHP.

CHP was established by modern Turkey's founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and CHP has traditionally attracted secular Kemalist voters. So to put him in the political spectrum, by definition, I guess he's left-wing because CHP traditionally has been. But as mentioned, he is in an alliance with an Islamist party. He is in an alliance with a nationalist party. I think it's fair to say he is trying to put together a very inclusive platform, hoping to appeal to as many Turks as possible.

Kamal Kilicdarulu, who focuses on kitchen table issues from his kitchen table. This is the real agenda of the people. As they all know that when I come to power, there will be democracy. And your purchasing power will increase. OK, so you've got a religious conservative in Erdogan versus a guy who's like, no, we're going to need a broader coalition. And he kind of gathers everyone into the fold. This is Khalid Juralu. Am I reading that right?

Is there kind of a culture war within the election? You are spot on. There are culture wars. And we have seen the electorate vote in line with the cultural war fault lines in this election. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last weekend branded his opponent pro-LGBT, a supporter of terrorism and a drunkard. That is why, for some, the result has been really surprising because we have not seen the electorate punish Erdogan

because of the state of the economy. Instead, they felt that they still identify with him and that this connection over identity somehow is far more important reason for them to vote for him than to hold him accountable for the economic mismanagement that has led to their own hardship. I see. So at this point, how likely or unlikely is it that Erdogan loses this election? It's well established that this was one of the most unfair campaign periods because of Erdogan's outsized advantage when it comes to having resources, when it comes to having airtime on TV, the visibility of opposition candidates. So you can flip that question and say, against all the odds, there was this incredible resilience and passion to go out, rally behind the opposition, campaign with him on behalf of him,

and exercise this one democratic right that many citizens are left with. So you can say 45% against all those odds is pretty remarkable. I'm thinking of that democracy chart and how under, with Erdogan in power, it's ticked down, down, down, down. Every year, Turkey's a bit less democratic. If Erdogan wins, and many analysts think that he will, what would that say about where Turkey is headed? I don't see any reasons or any signals why Erdogan would suddenly change his course. If he ends up winning, it is going to be a stamp of approval from the people who voted for him that what he has been doing all these years is right. And that they like it. And that they should continue with it.

Of course, he really needs to find the solution to the deteriorating economic situation because it's really, really unsustainable. Whether or not he takes steps to improve Turkey's human rights track record, press freedoms, freedom of expression, I think we have seen enough to say that he doesn't tend to do those things organically or just on his own, but that if there is enough pressure from the West, that perhaps he might. But we don't see really from the Western countries such a pressure towards Turkey. Turkey is too important for them in other national security priorities. For example, when it comes to Turkey's relations with the United States, Washington considers Ankara as a valuable NATO ally and an important player when it comes to the Ukraine war.

Are we going to see President Biden put pressure on President Erdogan so that he would improve his country's human rights track record to the extent that their cooperation perhaps on Ukraine war or overall bilateral relation is going to be put at risk? He's not going to do that. We have not seen Biden administration prioritize human rights advocacy. So it's hard to imagine that Erdogan would change course if he secures the second round, because it's just going to be a stamp of approval from his people that he's doing everything right. Humeyra Pamuk of Reuters. Today's show was produced by Halima Shah and edited by Amin El-Sadi.

It was engineered by Michael Rayfield and it was fact-checked by Laura Bullard. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained. Thank you.