ANKARA (AFP) – President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday signaled that he intended to bring the date of Turkey’s most consequential general election in generations forward by one month to May 14.
The announcement sets the stage for a vote that could either extend Erdogan’s rule into a third decade or turn the country on a sharply more secular -- and potentially predictable -- course.
The 68-year-old leader oversaw years of economic booms and busts as well wars and even a failed but bloody coup.
His supporters revere him for giving a voice to the marginalized and creating a thriving new middle class in the nation of 85 million people.
But his opponents highlight an authoritarian streak that emerged in the second decade of Erdogan’s rule.
The NATO member’s allies meanwhile remain uneasy about Erdogan’s mercurial foreign policies -- most recently exemplified by his refusal to accept Sweden and Finland’s bids to join the Western defence bloc.
Many analysts think the upcoming election is too close to call.
Erdogan’s opposition enters the campaign divided over everything from policy to strategy and has not agreed on a candidate to field against Erdogan.
Turkey’s next general election is officially due to be held on June 18.
But Erdogan’s allies have been hinting for weeks that they may bring the polls forward because of religious holidays and school exams.
Erdogan delivered a campaign-style speech to his ruling party Wednesday in which he recalled the day contemporary Turkey held its first free election in 1950.
That May 14 vote was won by Adnan Menderes -- a prime minister who was toppled by a military junta in 1960 and executed a year later.
Erdogan was himself deposed and briefly jailed when he was mayor of Istanbul in the 1990s and often compares himself to Menderes.
“The late Menderes said on May 14, 1950 ‘enough, the people will have their say’, and emerged victorious at the ballot box,” Erdogan said in televised remarks.
“Our people will give their answer to the (opposition) on the same day 73 years later.”