prijava
SARAJEVO, May 14 (FENA) - Connoisseur of the situation in the Middle East, journalist and former BiH diplomat Hajrudin Somun, in a brief review of the presidential elections that are held today in Turkey, believes that it will be a miracle if Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan doesn’t win another election like in the past two decades.
“For the first time, he could lose since he is being opposed by a candidate promoted by the broadest coalition of all secular, civic and social democratic affiliations. What is more, they are joined by Erdogan's former closest associates, not only associates but also friends with whom he founded the ruling AKP party, but who left him or were removed as opponents of authoritarian rule,” says Somun in a statement for FENA.
There are three candidates in the race for the presidential elections in Turkey. The main competitor to the current Turkish president is Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the joint candidate of the opposition alliance and the third candidate is Sinan Ogan, a far-right candidate who is called an election outsider.
Somun believes that the economy and the recent fatal earthquakes are two factors that could also come against Erdogan's intention to extend presidential mandates. Inflation dropped in April from around 80 percent in January to around 40 percent but Turkish lira, according to Somun, can hardly recover after the 91 percent drop in value, which it has lost since 2013.
As he further assesses, Erdogan, despite all the criticism he deserves, is still an undisputed leader of the nation, the greatest after Ataturk, among at least half of pious Turks. As an extremely skillful and pragmatic politician, despite his deep and sincere expression of faith, he offered a hand of cooperation with the ultra-nationalist party MHP in the previous elections, as well as in these.
“It may still happen that he loses the elections, if not on May 14, then in the second round. And in both rounds, the Turkish Kurds can win in Kilicdaroglu's favor. Although Erdogan himself is largely responsible for the fact that a fifth of the population of Turkey no longer has to be called "mountain Turks" but Kurds, that their language can be learned and listened to on radio and television stations, and that he was the first to initiate discussions on the solution of their other rights, the treatment of the pro-Kurdish leftist of the HDP party and its leader Salahettin Demirtas, who will follow these elections from prison, may contribute to his defeat. My Turkish friends are categorical regarding this issue, claiming that the Kurds will decide these elections,” said Somun.
He emphasizes that it is difficult to predict what kind of policy Turkey would pursue if Erdogan loses and how it would behave in its environment, Europe and the world.
Within the country, according to Somun, there would be major changes. Even though Erdogan did not essentially threaten them, pluralistic democratic values would be guaranteed and implemented in the judicial, representative and executive power. Outside of Turkey, there would be no significant changes except, as he states, the elimination of the wavering in the fundamental determination, even membership in NATO.
Many consider the elections in Turkey to be the most important in the country's history.
(FENA) A. B.
