Kemal Kilicdaroglu, 74, a social democrat, is the man chosen by the opposition – not without controversy to tell the truth – to revolutionize the Turkish political scene and put an end, in the elections on Sunday 14 May, to Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s twenty years in power. The leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), the main opposition force in Turkey, is ready to challenge the Sultan and this time, polls in hand, the feat seems possible.
To do this, Kilicdaroglu has put together an electoral cartel made up of as many as six parties, not all of whom were initially convinced that they would converge on his name for the presidential elections. Indeed, the announcement of his possible candidacy had split the opposition with the exit from the bloc of the Good Party (Iyi), the second force after the CHP, whose leader Meral Aksener preferred that of the mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, or as an alternative of that of Ankara, Mansur Yavas. The compromise that saved the apparent unity of the opposition is that, in case of victory, the two mayors will be Kilicdaroglu’s deputies.
For many years at loggerheads with Erdogan, as evidenced by the court cases from which he has always been defeated, the CHP leader since 2010 has not had any major electoral successes to oppose the Sultan in his political career. Elected deputy for the first time in 2002, Kilicadorglu was defeated in the local elections in Istanbul in 2009. Nonetheless, the following year he was elected by plebiscite to lead the CHP.
The 2011 elections were relatively positive, as the party – albeit almost doubled by Erdogan’s Akp – achieved an increase in consensus reaching 26%. An almost similar result was achieved in 2015, while in the 2018 elections the candidate of the CHP, Muharrem Ince (this year vying for the presidency with the Homeland Party), slightly exceeded 30%. In 2016, he escaped unharmed after the car in which he was traveling in the Black Sea province of Artvin ended up in the middle of a clash between gunmen and soldiers. In the clash, according to the Sabah newspaper, two soldiers were killed. An adviser to him explained that it had not been an attack on him.
In 2017 he made the international media talk again by leading a peaceful march from Ankara to Istanbul to demand a reform of the judicial system. Kilicdaroglu’s protest was triggered by the 25-year prison sentence of the CHP journalist and parliamentarian, Enis Berberoglu, accused of espionage and of having provided the Cumhuriyet newspaper with information for a scoop that put the government in a bad light. The march ended in Istanbul with a great rally in front of a huge crowd.
In case of victory, he has promised, repeating it like a mantra in the various appointments that have punctuated his electoral campaign, he will govern Turkey in a more democratic way than Erdogan did. “I will free the country from an authoritarian leadership”, he explained in an interview with the German media in which he confirmed that he wants to fully respect ”all the democratic standards of the European Union”.
One of the highlights of his campaign was certainly when, breaking a taboo, he revealed that he was an Alevi. This minority, which observes rites and rules different from those of traditional Islam, has been the victim of discrimination and massacres in Turkey. Some Sunni extremists still consider the Alevis as heretics and even refuse to eat a dish cooked by them considering it “impure”. If he were to be elected, Kilicdaroglu has promised to put an end to discrimination and “sectarian disputes that have caused suffering”.
On his side, he is convinced, he also has the support of young people who “want democracy and don’t want the police showing up at their door early in the morning just because they tweeted,” he recently told the BBC. Currently, in fact, the Turks can go to prison for “insulting the president”. In foreign policy, his goal is to shift Ankara’s focus by giving priority to relations with the West rather than the Kremlin. “We want to become part of the civilized world – he explained – We want free media and a totally independent judiciary. Erdogan doesn’t think so. He wants to be authoritarian. The difference between us and Erdogan is like between black and white”.
His campaign will be remembered for the commercials shot around his kitchen table, with the tea towels hung neatly in the background. In one of these videos he appeared with an onion in his hand, warning that prices will continue to rise if Erdogan remains in power. “Now, a kilo costs 30 lire. If it stays, it will cost 100 lire”.
