Five members of the Bundestag with Turkish roots see Sunday’s election as a “hour of fate” for Turkey – and great opportunities for the opposition.
The most important and most exciting election in decades will take place in Turkey next Sunday: Five members of the Bundestag, three of them with Turkish roots, agree.
Will President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s term of office end on Sunday, or maybe 14 days later in the possible runoff election?
Who behaves more and more as an autocrat who is accused of human rights violations, arbitrariness and corruption?
“Hope has never been so great”
Yes, that seems possible, and that is why the parliamentarians have chosen an unusual step: On this Monday before the election, the representatives of all parliamentary groups with the exception of the “Alternative for Germany” (AfD) appear before the press in Berlin.
In an interview with DW, Ates Gürpinar, deputy leader of the Left Party, summarizes what all five representatives think: “The hope has never been so great that the Erdogan era is coming to an end. But we are also afraid: there have already been arrests and attacks, and there are also fears of electoral fraud and manipulation. But we also have the hope that major changes could be forthcoming in Turkey.”
Will it be head-to-head?
If it happens, as many polls say, then a possible new Turkey will have a name: Erdogan’s challenger is Kemal Kilicdaroglu. The 74-year-old has long been seen as yesterday’s politician who has never won an important election. But now he has managed to form an electoral alliance of six very different parties.
And it has a chance of winning the parallel parliamentary and presidential elections. The popular mayors of Istanbul and Ankara, Ekrem İmamoğlu and Mansur Yavaş, also support Kilicdaroglu. At least a head-to-head race seems likely.
Main topic in Turkey: economy and inflation
What are the reasons for that? The economy in Turkey is doing badly, inflation, which has now reached 80 percent, has leveled off at 50 percent, according to official figures, a staggering figure. More than anything else, this topic is the reason for the bad mood, for Erdogan’s bad values.
In Germany and other countries, however, the disappointment of the people in Turkey about the sluggish aid for the victims of the severe earthquake on February 6 is often cited.
“Many see the earthquake aid differently”
Serap Güler, for the conservative CDU in the Bundestag, has visited the earthquake areas and cannot agree with that in general. She tells DW that the Turkish Red Crescent alone, the counterpart to the German Red Cross (but unlike in Germany, a government organization), distributes 900,000 meals a day in one of the earthquake-affected provinces.
And the government has announced that it intends to rebuild many buildings within a year. Güler on her visit to the disaster area: “I had the idea that I would only meet angry people there, but I can’t confirm that. Many say: This is a major crisis and we cannot let anyone inexperienced take the helm.”
Election campaign in Germany “a little under the radar”
What remains at least is the economic downturn after many years of growth. Above all, young Turks between the ages of 18 and 25 have apparently given up hope of improvement. In the polls, only between 17 and 20 percent of them say they want to vote for Erdogan. And the approximately 1.5 million Turkish people who are entitled to vote and who live in Germany? How do MEPs think they will decide?
All five experience the election campaign in Germany as less loud and shrill than during Erdogan’s last victory in 2018, when there were numerous mass events, especially by Erdogan’s ruling AKP, also in Germany. Because the German authorities have now issued stricter requirements.
Max Lucks from the Greens, chairman of the German-Turkish parliamentary group, is experiencing the Turkish election campaign in Germany “a bit under the radar this time”.
Can the opposition mobilize in Germany?
What is new is that people with a Turkish passport can already vote in Germany until the middle of the week. Gürpinar voted in Frankfurt and reports long queues in front of the consulate there. Voter turnout is already almost 23 percentage points higher than in 2018, when just under half of those entitled even voted.
At that time, more than 60 percent of the Turks living in Germany opted for Erdogan. Has the opposition now mobilized more than it did last time, is that the reason for the higher turnout? MEPs hope so.
“People should vote for democracy”
There are different views among the parties as to whether German politicians should openly call for the election of the opposition alliance. Green Party leader Ricarda Lang has done so, but according to Serap Güler, German politicians should behave cautiously and not give Erdogan an opportunity to portray himself as a victim of opponents abroad.
Güler: “It’s enough that people should decide in favor of democracy in Turkey.” All five then agree that Germany should react quickly if the opposition in Turkey actually wins.
Hope for visa facilitation
When asked by DW, the lawyer and SPD member of the Bundestag Macit Karaahmetoğlu, who came to Germany from Turkey as an eleven-year-old boy, lists some of the measures he envisages within the first 100 days of office of a new government in Turkey: “Visa facilitation would be insanely important. As a lawyer, I met a lot of people, such as artists who wanted to come to Germany for a concert, or people who just wanted to come visit their friends.
It is a harassment when people have to wait weeks and months in the German consulates in Turkey. The expansion of the customs union between Germany and Turkey must also be tackled quickly.
“And signals are important: Chancellor Olaf Scholz could travel to Turkey in the first hundred days to back the possible new government.”
But now the five MPs are waiting for the election on Sunday. Some of them will experience the day as election observers, for example for the Council of Europe. And, according to Jens Teutrine from the FDP: Whatever the outcome of the election, Turkey remains a polarized country with major problems. But it is now important that Ankara turns back to the West and democracy. And all five hope that Erdogan will not oppose a possible peaceful change of power.
Author: Jens Thurau
