Over 59 million Turkish citizens are eligible to vote in today’s presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkey. The results will either tighten President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s control or cut short his political career. Erdogan is hoping to win a new five-year term with increased political power under a new political system, and he has campaigned on the basis that the new system will help correct the country’s struggling economy and bring new political stability to Turkey. Erdogan and his supporters are hoping that his ruling AKP (Justice and Development Party) will maintain its parliamentary majority.
Erdogan’s detractors, however, have campaigned on the premise that Erdogan’s political leadership since 2003 has been a form of dictatorship, and that change is necessary to restore Turkey to its former glory. Erdogan is facing off against five other candidates and he must earn 50 percent of the vote for an obvious victory. If a 50 percent victory is not achieved there will be another election between Erdogan and the candidate that earns the second-most votes in early July.
The man who poses the strongest challenge to Erdogan is Muharrem Ince, a former physics teacher who has the support of the center-left Republican People’s Party (CHP), and has gained remarkable popularity during the campaign. The only female candidate is Meral Aksener, a former interior minister who broke away from Turkey’s main party because it supported Erdogan. She founded the center-right and nationalist Good Party. Several other candidates each have a bit of clout but are seen as unlikely to emerge victorious.
Turkey is currently struggling with 12 percent inflation and a currency that has fallen nearly 40 percent since July 2016. The Turkish lira is now trading near 4.6775 against the dollar. Turkey’s central bank has raised interest rates to nearly 18 percent to help keep the economy under control, but this move has just caused a different type of pain for Turkey’s citizens. Still, Turkey’s economy grew 7.4 percent in the first quarter of 2018 compared to Q1 2017, a point that Erdogan is hoping to use as a cornerstone of his campaign, but one that his opponents claim is giving false hope because the growth is based on easy money and unsustainable real estate investments. Additionally, the Turkish lira has crashed considerably in the second quarter, prompting arguments that voters should look at the recent past, not the previous quarter.
Turkey is also facing struggles from the Federal Reserve’s recent interest rate hikes. As an emerging market country that imports more than it exports, Turkey needs external financing to make up its GDP deficit. In addition to electing a new leader for their country, Turkish voters will be electing 600 lawmakers to parliament which can pose its own challenges for the country moving forward as the new lawmakers learn how to work together.