ISTANBUL (Reuters) – President Tayyip Erdogan has defied forecasts of his political demise in Turkey’s elections, rallying voters with a potent mix of religious conservatism and nationalism that looks set to propel his rule into a third decade on Sunday.
Though he has yet to clinch victory - Erdogan must first beat Kemal Kilicdaroglu in Sunday’s runoff - his momentum has only grown since he emerged with a solid lead in the first round on May 14, and analysts fully expect him to win.
Victory would entrench the rule of a leader who has transformed Turkey, reshaping the state founded 100 years ago.
On the global stage, Erdogan has pivoted the NATO member away from its traditional Western allies, forged ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and turned Turkey into an assertive regional power.
Critics say he has increasingly polarized the nation during his 20-year rule, including in this election campaign. But he argued the contrary ahead of Sunday’s vote and said his opponents were “poisoning political discourse”.
“We will continue to embrace our nation, which is a way of thinking that comes from our culture,” he told CNN Turk in an interview on Thursday. “If we win on May 28, with God’s permission, every one of our 85 million people will win.”
The vote has been seen as one of the most consequential since the modern Turkish state was founded 100 years ago.
Critics and earthquake survivors had expressed anger over a slow initial quake response by the government and lax enforcement of building rules - failures they said cost lives.
But his AK Party emerged top in 10 of the 11 provinces hit by the earthquakes, helping it secure along with its allies a parliamentary majority in the May 14 vote.
Seeking to tap Turkey’s deep-running nationalism, he also seized on Kurdish support for Kilicdaroglu to accuse his rival of siding with terrorism and ties to the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) - a claim Kilicdaroglu called slanderous.
Erdogan repeatedly drew attention to a doctored video to accuse Kilicdaroglu of ties to the PKK, which has been waging an insurgency in which more than 40,000 people have been killed.
The economy was one of Erdogan’s main strengths in the first decade of his rule, when Turkey enjoyed a protracted boom with new roads, hospitals and schools and rising living standards.
But it became a political problem as the government embarked on an unorthodox policy of slashing interest rates in the face of soaring inflation. Aimed at boosting growth, the policy crashed the currency in late 2021 and worsened inflation.