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      Alberta’s Vote Will Test American-Style Far-Right Politics

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      An election in Alberta will be a test of a premier who has said that she models her politics after those of prominent right-wing U.S. politicians.The NewsVoters in Alberta, the epicenter of conservative politics in Canada, will select a new provincial government on Monday. Albertans will vote for local representatives in the provincial legislature and the party that wins the most seats will form the government, with its leader becoming premier. The election pits the United Conservative Party, led by the current premier, Danielle Smith, against a leftist party, the New Democratic Party, led by Rachel Notley, a lawyer. Before the pandemic, the governing United Conservative Party appeared to have a firm hold on power. But last year, large and angry demonstrations against pandemic restrictions and against vaccine mandates helped spark a trucker convoy in the province that eventually spread, paralyzing Ottawa, Canada’s capital, and blocking vital cross-border crossings.A small group of social conservatives within the United Conservatives ousted their leader, Jason Kenney, ending his premiership, after the government refused to lift pandemic measures. The party replaced him with Ms. Smith, a far-right former radio talk show host and newspaper columnist prone to incendiary comments; she compared people who were vaccinated against Covid-19 to supporters of Hitler. Danielle Smith, the leader of the United Conservative Party, while campaigning this month in Calgary.Amber Bracken for The New York TimesThe BackgroundMs. Smith likes to extol right-wing U.S. politicians, for example, calling Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a Republican running for president, her hero. She also has floated ideas that most Canadians would never support, like charging fees for public health care.Ms. Smith now finds herself, analysts say, far to the right of many conservative loyalists, turning what should been a near-certain victory for her party into a close race that has provided an opening for their opponents, the New Democratic Party, a leftist party.“This would not be a close race if anyone other than Danielle Smith was leading the U.C.P.,” said Janet Brown, who runs a polling firm based in Calgary, Alberta’s largest city. Ms. Notley is seeking to steer the labor-backed New Democrats to a second upset victory in the province in recent years. In 2015, she led the New Democrats to power for the first time in Alberta’s history, thanks in part to a fracturing of the conservative movement into two feuding parties. The stunning win broke a string of conservative governments dating to the Great Depression. But her victory coincided with a collapse in oil prices that cratered the province’s economy. Ms. Notley’s approval ratings plunged and the United Conservatives took over in 2019.Ms. Smith’s support is largely based in the province’s rural areas, surveys show, while Ms. Notley’s path to victory on Tuesday will likely be through Alberta’s urban centers, including its two largest cities, Edmonton and Calgary. Edmonton, the provincial capital and a city with a large union presence, is likely to back the New Democrats. That could make Calgary, which is generally more conservative leaning, a deciding factor. Calgary also has a growing ethnic population, particularly immigrants from South Asia, and Ms. Smith’s is unpopular with many of those voters because of some of her extreme statements.Why It MattersIf Ms. Smith’s brand of conservatism fails to return her party to office in Canada’s most conservative province, the federal Conservative Party of Canada may need to reconsider its strategy as it prepares to take on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party in the next national elections. The federal conservatives also replaced the party’s leader during the pandemic with a combative right-wing politician, Pierre Poilievre, who welcomed truck convoy protesters to Ottawa, the capital, with coffee and doughnuts. Mr. Poilievre shares Ms. Smith’s penchant for promoting provocative positions.Even a narrow victory for Ms. Smith could actually be a loss, if it means fewer conservative seats in the provincial legislature, said Duane Bratt, a political scientist at Mount Royal University in Calgary. In that scenario, Ms. Smith could find her position as premier and party leader tenuous and many of the policies she promotes could be cast aside, he said. “If she loses, she’s gone,” he said. “If she wins, I think she’s still gone.” More

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      Erdogan’s Victory in Turkey’s Presidential Election: Key Takeaways

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      Crises including earthquakes and inflation did not stop the re-election of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The vote was seen as free but not fair, as he used his power to tilt the playing field.President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s re-election grants him five more years to deepen his conservative imprint on Turkish society and to realize his ambition of increasing the country’s economic and geopolitical power.Turkey’s Supreme Election Council named Mr. Erdogan the victor after a runoff election on Sunday. He won 52.1 percent of the vote against the opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who had 47.9 percent with almost all votes counted, the council said.The election was closely followed by Turkey’s NATO allies, including the United States, who have often seen Mr. Erdogan as a frustrating partner because of his anti-Western rhetoric and close ties with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, which have grown since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Mr. Erdogan has given no indication that he plans to change his policies abroad, where he has sought to use Turkey’s place at the juncture of Europe, Asia and the Middle East to expand its influence, or at home, where has consolidated power in his hands and responded to an inflation crisis with unconventional measures that economists said exacerbated the problem.Challenging him in the election was a newly united opposition that billed the election as a make-it-or-break-it moment for Turkish democracy. The opposition’s candidate, Mr. Kilicdaroglu, ran as the anti-Erdogan, vowing to restore civil freedoms and improve ties with the West. He billed himself as more in touch with common people’s struggles.Here are some key takeaways:Crises damaged but did not break Erdogan.The opposition candidate, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, on the right of this banner in Istanbul, presented himself as an anti-Erdogan.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesThis was the most challenging election of Mr. Erdogan’s 20 years as Turkey’s most prominent politician, as prime minister since 2003 and as president since 2014. Before the initial vote, most polls suggested a tight race with Mr. Kilicdaroglu in the lead.Analysts cited several reasons Mr. Erdogan might struggle. Anger at a painful cost-of-living crisis turned some voters against him. Powerful earthquakes in February killed more than 50,000 people and damaged hundreds of buildings in southern Turkey. Many quake survivors complained about the government’s slow initial response while the destruction raised questions about whether Mr. Erdogan’s haste to develop the country had encouraged unsafe construction.Turkey’s historically fractious opposition set aside its differences to come together behind Mr. Kilicdaroglu and argued that change was needed to stop the country’s slide toward one-man rule.But Mr. Erdogan prevailed, thanks to fervent support from a significant portion of the population and his skills as a campaigner. Religiously conservative Turks who appreciate his expanding the role of Islam in public life stood by him, and even many of those angry about inflation said they did not have faith that the opposition could govern any better.The earthquake didn’t affect the election much.Lining up for supply distribution after earthquakes hit the city of Antakya, Turkey, in February. Turnout in quake-hit areas was surprisingly high.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesMr. Erdogan came to power 20 years ago amid anger at the government’s disastrous response to an earthquake near Istanbul in 1999 that killed more than 17,000 people. So many expected this year’s quake to hurt his standing as well.But there few indications that it did.Mr. Erdogan came out ahead in eight of the 11 provinces affected by February’s earthquake. His governing Justice and Development Party and its political allies fared even better, winning a majority of votes in the simultaneous parliamentary elections in all but one of the quake-stricken provinces.Participation in the earthquake zone was also high, despite worries that many voters displaced by the destruction would struggle to return home to cast their ballots as is required. Although participation in the 11 quake-affected provinces was lower than the 88.9 percent of eligible voters who cast ballots nationally, in none of those provinces did turnout dip below 80 percent.Interviews with quake survivors indicated many reasons that the disaster had not changed their political outlook. Some described the quake as an act of God that any government would have struggled to respond to. Others whose homes were destroyed said they had more faith in Mr. Erdogan to rebuild the affected areas than they had in his challenger.Terrorism warnings resonated with voters.Supporters of Mr. Erdogan in Istanbul on Sunday. He made opposition to Kurdish militants a key campaign issue. Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesMr. Erdogan undermined the opposition by portraying its leaders as weak and incompetent, but one line of attack proved to be especially potent: accusations that they would be soft on terrorism.The president repeatedly made this argument to voters, based on the opposition’s having received the support of Turkey’s main pro-Kurdish party. The government often accuses that party of collaboration with militants from Turkey’s Kurdish minority who have been at war with the Turkish state for decades, seeking autonomy.Mr. Erdogan even went so far as to air videos at his rallies that had been doctored to show militant leaders singing along to Mr. Kilicdaroglu’s campaign song. Many voters believed him, saying in interviews that they did not trust the opposition to keep the country safe.The vote was free but not fair.Counting ballots in Istanbul on Sunday. The opposition challenger did not contest the count, but said the election overall was unfair.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesInternational observers reported no large-scale problems with the process of collecting and counting votes during the first round, deeming the process free.But they noted the tremendous advantages Mr. Erdogan had before voting began, including his ability to unleash billions of dollars in state spending to try to offset the negative effects of inflation and other economic strains and the abundant, positive media coverage he received from the state-funded broadcaster.Late on Sunday, Mr. Mr. Kilicdaroglu did not contest the vote count, but told his supporters that the overall election had been “one of the most unfair election processes in recent years.”Many in the political opposition fear that the closeness of the race will lead Mr. Erdogan to crack down on his political opponents more aggressively to prevent such a stiff challenge in the future.Mr. Erdogan must now confront economic problems.Turkey has drawn on its foreign currency reserves while trying to stabilize its own currency.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesEconomists warn that Mr. Erdogan resorted to expensive short-term tactics to insulate voters from inflation and prevent the value of the national currency from sinking further. But he can’t keep it up forever.Turkey’s foreign currency reserves have declined steeply, meaning the country could lose its ability to pay back foreign creditors. And because much of that money has been spent to keep the currency stable, its value could dive once that spending stops.Mr. Erdogan gave no indication during his campaign that he planned to modify his economic policies, despite stubbornly high, double-digit inflation that economists say has been exacerbated by his insistence on lowering interest rates instead of raising them to combat inflation, as orthodox economics recommends.So regardless of what moves Mr. Erdogan would like to prioritize at the start of his new term, the risks of a currency crisis or recession are likely to demand his attention.Gulsin Harman More

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      How Hard Will It Be for DeSantis to Beat Trump? Nixon vs. Reagan in 1968 Offers a Clue.

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      Ron DeSantis, the 44-year-old governor of Florida, has entered the presidential race, establishing himself as the most formidable Republican rival to Donald Trump.Mr. Trump, an inveterate liar who tried to overturn the last election, is alienating to a wide swath of voters, and many establishment Republicans have been happy to hunt out alternatives, particularly in Mr. DeSantis. After a rough midterm for Republicans that included the defeat of several Senate candidates endorsed by Mr. Trump, the former president appeared vulnerable.But since then, it has grown clear that counting him out as the likely Republican presidential nominee is foolhardy. Several factors — among them, the intense support he draws from a sizable chunk of the Republican base and his singular talent for commanding media attention — help explain why Mr. Trump holds a commanding position in the primary. History offers at least one parallel for why it will be so difficult for Mr. DeSantis and other G.O.P. contenders, like Nikki Haley, 51, the Trump administration’s ambassador to the United Nations, and Senator Tim Scott, 57, Ms. Haley’s fellow South Carolinian, to take him down.There was, more than a half century ago, another de facto leader of the Republican Party who reeked of failure. Pundits mocked and dismissed him as a has-been. Rivals across the ideological spectrum no longer feared him and cheered on his slide into irrelevancy.By the end of 1962, few believed there was a future for Richard Nixon, the former vice president. In 1960, he lost one of the closest-ever presidential races to John F. Kennedy, and members of the liberal Republican establishment, including Dwight Eisenhower, were glad to see him fall.After losing to Kennedy, Nixon tried to regroup, entering the 1962 California governor’s race against the well-liked Democratic incumbent, Pat Brown. Nixon, who had served as a representative and senator from the state, was initially expected to triumph and use the governorship as a steppingstone to the presidency. Instead, Brown swatted Nixon away after the former vice president had to endure a bruising primary battle against a Republican who was popular with the sort of movement conservatives who would, in the coming years, seize control of the party.On the morning after his loss to Brown, Nixon famously told the assembled press at the Beverly Hilton Hotel they wouldn’t have him to “kick around anymore.” That November, the journalist Howard K. Smith titled a television segment “The Political Obituary of Richard M. Nixon.”In the wake of these humiliations, Nixon’s tenuous comeback hinged on persuading both Republican voters, who could find more attractive warriors for their cause, and influential party and media elites that he in fact wasn’t completely finished. In 1964, Nixon flirted with running for president but backed away. (Mr. Trump, of course, did not feel chastened for supporting weak and beatable candidates in the midterms last year, and instead waited roughly a week to announce another presidential run.)Nixon decided to support Barry Goldwater, the far-right Arizona senator who lost in a landslide to Lyndon Johnson, the Democratic president. Nixon’s attachment to Goldwater won him some plaudits with the base of the party — he had been one of the few prominent Republicans to stick with the senator — but didn’t help alter the perception that he was a serial loser. To complete his rehabilitation, in the 1966 midterms, he strategically stumped for anti-Johnson Republicans who were poised to ride the white backlash to the Great Society and civil rights programs.By 1968, Nixon had established himself as a foreign policy maven, having undertaken many world tours in the 1960s, and cast himself as an arch, erudite critic of the Johnson administration.His period of vulnerability was briefer, but Mr. Trump today, like mid-’60s Nixon, has reasserted himself as a party kingpin. Now he, too, is contending with a popular governor from a large swing state.In the 1968 G.O.P. primary, Nixon actually had to outflank three prominent Republican governors — George Romney of Michigan, Nelson Rockefeller of New York and Ronald Reagan of California — who could offer, in the immediate term at least, more allure.Reagan, who had defeated the formidable California Governor Brown in 1966, was actually older than Nixon but had the swagger and ease of a much younger man, marrying the sort of sunny optimism Nixon could never muster with the raw appeal to a growing reactionary vote that Nixon craved.Just as Mr. DeSantis, with his wars on critical race theory, “woke” Disney and Covid restrictions, is trying to outmaneuver Mr. Trump on the cultural terrain that’s always been so vital in Republican primaries, Reagan outshone Nixon with his open disdain for Johnson’s landmark civil rights agenda, the burgeoning antiwar movement and the emerging hippie counterculture. He railed against the “small minority of beatniks, radicals, and filthy-speech advocates” upending California and successfully demoralized Brown, who remarked, shellshocked, after Reagan’s triumph that “whether we like it or not, the people want separation of the races.”Nixon rebuffed Reagan and the others in one of the last primaries where delegates and party insiders, rather than the will of voters, played a significant role in determining the nomination.Here the present diverges from history. Nixon was far more introspective, methodical and policy-minded than Trump. He was, by 1968, a significantly stronger general election candidate, winning the most votes — Trump has twice lost the popular vote — despite the segregationist George Wallace’s third-party bid, which ate into Nixon’s support.But just as a divided primary field worked to Nixon’s advantage, so it may for Mr. Trump, especially if several other candidates become viable. In such a scenario, Mr. Trump may need only pluralities in pivotal early states to take the nomination. His core fan base might be enough. Though Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign was often shambolic, it managed a finely tuned nativist, anti-free trade and anti-globalization message that cut through the noise of a chaotic primary season. In Nixonian fashion, Mr. Trump tapped into his party’s reactionaries and delighted the grass roots.The question is whether Mr. Trump can do it again. One of Nixon’s great political strengths was to assume, even at the height of his powers, the position of the aggrieved — to convince a palpable mass of voters that they, and he, were the outsiders. Genuinely self-made, this posture came naturally to Nixon. Mr. Trump, though the son of a millionaire real estate developer, has nevertheless effectively adopted it throughout his political career, once boasting of his love for the “poorly educated.”Mr. DeSantis enters the fray hoping that Mr. Trump’s many flaws, continuing legal troubles and political baggage ultimately render him weaker than he appears today. But looking at the historical parallel, even Reagan, a once-in-a-generation political talent, could not dislodge Nixon. As Mr. DeSantis’s Twitter-launch debacle suggests, he will need to quickly, and considerably, improve his standing. Perhaps then, with the help of a Trump implosion, can he hold out hope for 2024 — or even, as Reagan’s example suggests, a future presidential run.If 1968 is any guide, Mr. Trump will be tough to beat. In a crowded field, among a hungry younger generation of contenders like Mr. DeSantis, he will have to manufacture anew this kind of populism. He might just do it.Ross Barkan is an author and a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Texas Passes Bills Targeting Elections in Democratic Stronghold

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      The bills’ passage was the culmination of a Republican effort to increase oversight of voting in Harris County, which includes Houston.The LatestThe Texas Legislature gave final approval on Sunday to a new round of voting bills to increase penalties for illegal voting and expand state oversight of local elections specifically in Harris County, which includes Houston, where Democrats have become dominant.The measures, which now head to Gov. Greg Abbott to sign, include a bill that would upend elections in Houston a few months before the city’s mayoral race in November by forcing the county to change how it runs elections and return to a previous system.That bill, known as Senate Bill 1750, was crafted so that it applies only to Harris County. So was another bill, Senate Bill 1933, that would give broad new powers to the secretary of state, appointed by the governor, to direct how elections are run in the county if there are complaints and to petition a court to replace the top election officials when deemed necessary.Election workers organized paperwork from each polling location at NRG Arena in Houston, Texas, in November.Annie Mulligan for The New York TimesWhy It Matters: Harris County could tilt the power balance in Texas.Harris County, the state’s most populous county, has become a reliable Democratic stronghold.The passage of the bills marked the culmination of a monthslong effort by Texas Republicans to contest some of that dominance. They highlighted Election Day problems last November in Harris County as justification for challenging results that favored Democrats and call into question the way the Democratic-led county runs its elections.“It was a stated intention of some of the folks in the Legislature to take action against Harris County election administration,” said Daniel Griffith, the senior policy director at Secure Democracy USA, a nonpartisan organization focused on elections and voter access.Senate Bill 1750 eliminates the appointed position of elections administrator, which has been in place in Harris County only since late 2020. If the bill becomes law with the governor’s signature, the county must return to its previous system of running elections, in which the county clerk and the county tax collector-assessor split responsibilities. Both positions are currently occupied by elected Democrats.“The Legislature’s support for S.B. 1750 and S.B. 1933 is because Harris County is not too big to fail, but too big to ignore,” State Senator Paul Bettencourt, a Houston Republican and sponsor of several election bills, said in a statement. “The public’s trust in elections in Harris County must be restored.”Another bill, Senate Bill 1070, removes Texas from an interstate system for crosschecking voter registration information run by a nonprofit, the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC. The system has been the target of conservative attacks in several states in part because it requires states using it to also conduct voter outreach when new voters move in from out of state. The Texas measure bars the state from entering into any crosschecking system that requires voter outreach.Yet another bill, House Bill 1243, increases the penalty for illegal voting from a misdemeanor to a felony.The measures that passed were opposed by Democratic representatives and voting rights groups. But advocates of greater access to the polls were relieved that other, more restrictive measures put forward and passed in the State Senate — including one that would have required voters to use their assigned polling place instead of being able to vote anywhere in the county, and another that would have created a system for the state to order new elections under certain circumstances in Harris County — failed in the Texas House.“Those haven’t moved and that’s definitely a good thing,” Mr. Griffith said.What’s Next: a lawsuit and a microscope on upcoming elections.The bills invite new scrutiny of elections, especially in Harris County, where officials would be expected to revamp their system just months before important elections.Under the new legislation, future complaints about the functioning of elections in the Democratic-run county could create the real possibility that the secretary of state, a former Republican state senator, could step in and oversee elections as early as next year, as the county votes for president.The bills, said Mayor Sylvester Turner of Houston, “create more problems than they allegedly solve.”Top officials in Harris County have vowed to go to court to challenge both measures aimed at the county once the laws go into effect (Sept. 1, if the governor signs), meaning the fight over elections in the county remains far from over. More

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      Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey Is Re-elected

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      President Recep Tayyip Erdogan beat back the greatest political challenge of his career on Sunday, securing victory in a presidential runoff that granted five more years to a mercurial leader who has vexed his Western allies while tightening his grip on the Turkish state.His victory means Mr. Erdogan could remain in power for at least a quarter-century, deepening his conservative imprint on Turkish society while pursuing his vision of a country with increasing economic and geopolitical might. He will be ensconced as the driving force of a NATO ally of the United States, a position he has leveraged to become a key broker in the war in Ukraine and to enhance Turkey’s status as a Muslim power with 85 million people and critical ties across continents.Turkey’s Supreme Election Council declared Mr. Erdogan the victor late Sunday. He won 52.1 percent of the vote; the opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu got 47.9 percent with almost all votes counted, the council said.Mr. Erdogan’s supporters shrugged off Turkey’s challenges, including a looming economic crisis, and lauded him for developing the country and supporting conservative Islamic values.In many Turkish cities on Sunday night, they honked car horns, cheered and gathered in public squares to watch the results roll in and await his victory speech. Thousands gathered outside the presidential palace in Ankara, waiving red and white Turkish flags.“It is not only us who won, it is Turkey,” Mr. Erdogan said, to raucous applause. “It is our nation that won with all its elements. It is our democracy.”Mr. Kilicdaroglu told his supporters that he did not contest the vote count but that the election overall had been unfair, nevertheless. In the run-up to the vote, Mr. Erdogan tapped state resources to tilt the playing field in his favor.During his 20 years as the country’s most prominent politician — as prime minister beginning in 2003 and as president since 2014 — Mr. Erdogan has sidelined the country’s traditional political and military elites and expanded the role of Islam in public life.Along the way, he has used crises to expand his power, centering major decision making about domestic, foreign and economic policy inside the walls of his sprawling presidential palace. His political opponents fear that five more years at the helm will allow him to consolidate power even further.Mr. Erdogan has offered few indications that he intends to change course in either domestic affairs or in foreign policy.A currency exchange office in Istanbul. Mr. Erdogan’s most immediate domestic challenge is likely to be the economy.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesMr. Erdogan’s unpredictability and frequent tirades against the West left officials in some Western capitals wondering whose side he was on in the war in Ukraine and privately hoping he would lose.The Turkish leader condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year, but refused to join Western sanctions to isolate President Vladimir V. Putin and instead increased Turkish trade with Moscow. He calls Mr. Putin “my friend” and has hampered NATO efforts to expand by delaying the admission of Finland and still refusing to admit Sweden.During his campaign, Mr. Erdogan indicated that he was comfortable with his stance on Ukraine. He described Turkey’s mediation at times between the conflict’s warring parties as “not an ordinary deed.” And he said he was not “working just to receive a ‘well done’ from the West,” making clear that the desires of his allies will not trump his pursuit of Turkey’s interests.Mr. Erdogan operates on the understanding that “the world has entered the stage where Western predominance is no longer a given,” said Galip Dalay, a Turkey analyst at Chatham House, a London-based research group.That view has led regional powers like Turkey to benefit from ties with the West even while engaging with American rivals like Russia and China. The idea is that “Turkey is better served by engaging in a geopolitical balance between them,” Mr. Dalay said.Critics accuse Mr. Erdogan of pushing Turkey toward one-man rule. Election observers said that while this month’s voting was largely free, he used state resources and his sway over the news media to gain advantage, making the wider competition unfair.Voting on Sunday at a polling station in Istanbul.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesStill, his opponents came closer to unseating him than ever before, and many expect he will try to prevent them from ever being able to do so again.“Winning this election will give him ultimate confidence in himself, and I think he will see himself as undefeatable from now on,” said Gulfem Saydan Sanver, a political consultant who has advised members of the opposition. “I think he will be more harsh on the opposition.”Mr. Erdogan’s victory did not come easy.Heading into the first round of voting on May 14, he faced a new coalition set on unseating him by backing a single challenger, Mr. Kilicdaroglu. Most polls suggested that the president’s popularity had been eroded by a painful cost-of-living crisis that had shrunk the budgets of Turkish families and that he could even lose.Mr. Erdogan’s government also faced criticism that it had failed to respond quickly after powerful earthquakes in February killed more than 50,000 people in southern Turkey. But in the end, the disaster did not effect the election much.Mr. Erdogan campaigned fiercely, meeting with earthquake victims, unleashing billions of dollars in government spending to insulate voters from double-digit inflation and dismissing Mr. Kilicdaroglu as unfit to herd sheep, much less run the nation.In fiery speeches, Mr. Erdogan charmed his supporters with songs and poetry and painted his opponents as soft on terrorism.Destroyed buildings in Antakya, Turkey, after powerful earthquakes in February.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesAlthough he fell short of the majority required to win outright in the first round, Mr. Erdogan came out in the lead with 49.5 percent of the vote to Mr. Kilicdaroglu’s 44.9 percent, sending them to a runoff.Over the years, Mr. Erdogan has merged himself with the image of the state, and he is likely to keep leveraging Turkey’s position between the West, Russia and other countries to enhance his geopolitical clout.His relations with Washington remain prickly.The United States removed Turkey from a program to receive F-35 fighter jets in 2019 after Turkey bought an air-defense system from Russia.And during the long war in neighboring Syria, Mr. Erdogan criticized the United States for working with a Syrian Kurdish militia that Turkey says is an extension of a Kurdish militant group that has fought the Turkish government for decades to demand autonomy.Mr. Erdogan’s interior minister, Suleyman Soylu, accused the United States of a “political coup attempt” to unseat Mr. Erdogan during the campaign. As evidence, Mr. Soylu cited comments from President Biden’s own campaign, in which he criticized Mr. Erdogan as an “autocrat” and said the United States should support Turkey’s opposition.Diplomats acknowledge that Mr. Erdogan’s ties to both Russia and Ukraine allowed him to mediate an agreement on the export of Ukrainian grain via the Black Sea as well as prisoner swaps between the warring parties.Mr. Erdogan meeting President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in October in Kazakhstan.Vyacheslav Prokofyev/Sputnik, via Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesRecently, Mr. Erdogan has worked to patch up relations with former regional foes, including Israel, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, in order to cool tensions and stimulate trade. After conciliatory moves by Turkey, Saudi Arabia deposited $5 billion in Turkey’s central bank in March, helping shore up its sagging foreign currency reserves.The Turkish leader has said he might meet with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria after years of supporting anti-Assad rebels. The goal: speeding the return of some of the millions of Syrian refugees in Turkey, a key demand of Turkish voters.Mr. Erdogan, the son of a ferry captain who grew up in a tough Istanbul neighborhood and dreamed of playing professional soccer, retains the deep devotion of many Turks, who credit him with developing the country. Swift economic growth in the 2000s lifted millions of Turks out of poverty and transformed Turkish cities with new highways, airports and rail lines.Mr. Erdogan also expanded the space for Islam in public life.Turkey is a predominantly Muslim society with a secular state, and for decades women who wore head scarves were barred from universities and government jobs. Mr. Erdogan loosened those rules, and conservative women vote for him in large numbers.He also has a habit of making smokers he encounters promise to quit — and getting it in writing. In March, his office displayed hundreds of cigarette packs signed by the people Mr. Erdogan had taken them from, including his own brother and a former foreign minister of Bulgaria.He has also expanded religious education and transformed the Hagia Sophia, Turkey’s most famous historic landmark, from a museum into a mosque.Musa Aslantas, a bakery owner, listed what he considered Mr. Erdogan’s most recent accomplishments: a natural gas discovery in the Black Sea, Turkey’s first electric car and a nuclear power plant being built by Russia.“Our country is stronger thanks to Erdogan,” said Mr. Aslantas, 28. “He can stand up to foreign leaders. He makes us feel safe and powerful. They can’t play with us like they used to.”Praying at the Hagia Sophia mosque in Istanbul.Bradley Secker for The New York TimesOver the past decade, Mr. Erdogan has deftly used crises to expand his authority.He responded to street protests against his rule in 2013 by restricting freedom of expression and assembly and jailing organizers. After surviving a coup attempt in 2016, he purged the civil service and judiciary, creating openings for his loyalists. The next year, Mr. Erdogan pushed for a referendum that moved much of the state’s power from the Parliament to the president — meaning him.Over time, he has extended his sway over the news media. The state broadcaster gives him extensive positive coverage, and critical private outlets have been shuttered or fined, leading others to self-censor.Mr. Erdogan’s critics worry that he will find new ways to weaken democracy from within.“The judiciary is controlled by the state, Parliament is controlled by the state and the executive is controlled by Erdogan,” said Ilhan Uzgel, a former professor of international relations at Ankara University who was fired by presidential decree. “That means there is no separation of powers, which is the ABCs of a democratic society.”But Mr. Erdogan’s most immediate challenge could be the economy.Istanbul this month.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesHis insistence on lowering interest rates has exacerbated inflation that peaked at more than 80 percent annually last year, economists say, and expensive moves he made before the election added to the state’s bills and depleted the central bank’s foreign currency reserves. Without a swift change of course, Turkey could soon face a currency crisis or recession.Economic trouble could lead more voters to seek change in the future, assuming Mr. Erdogan’s foes can overcome their disappointment and mount another challenge.“Erdogan has clear vision of what he wants for the country, and he has had that vision since he was very young,” said Selim Koru, an analyst at the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey. “What people like about him is that he has not really compromised on that.”Safak Timur More

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      Meet the New Mayor: How a Refugee Won Over a Conservative German Town

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      The election of Ryyan Alshebl, a young man who fled Syria, offers surprising lessons for a Germany wrestling with its multicultural identity after an influx of refugees in 2015.The beer was flowing, the bratwurst were sizzling and the brass band at the village May Day festival led the crowd in ever tipsier renditions of the local drinking song.Clinking glasses all around was Ryyan Alshebl, a lanky, bearded 29-year-old from Syria.Eight years ago, Mr. Alshebl was part of the historic influx of refugees who crossed the Mediterranean Sea by dinghy and trekked the continent on foot, seeking asylum in Germany and other countries.Now he is the new mayor of Ostelsheim, a village of 2,700 people and tidily kept streets nestled in the rolling hills near the Black Forest in southwestern Germany.Ostelsheim appears to be the first German town to elect a mayor from the nearly one million Syrian refugees who reached the country in 2015, a wave that provoked a right-wing backlash and upended the political landscape. And the story of how this small, tight-knit village chose a refugee as mayor holds clues for a nation wrestling with an ever more multicultural identity.“If you look at our state elections, Ostelsheim is the kind of place that votes so conservatively. I thought it was going to be very, very tough for him,” said Yvonne Boeckh, a tax accountant, shouting over a rowdy polka number at the festival. “It’s just remarkable.”When Mr. Alshebl reached Germany with a college degree in banking, politics was hardly on his mind. Alone without his parents, who stayed behind in Syria, he threw himself into his new world and its traditions.Yet like many of the 2015 refugees, now gaining citizenship and building new lives, he never wanted to hide where he came from or apologize for it. And he rejected Germany’s old notions of integration.“Integration​ ​was a term that meant: We have a group of people that we need to find a way to teach some of the language and get them working,” he said. “And what kind of jobs? To work for the baker, the butcher, the shoemaker. But not to become mayor.”An aerial view of Ostelsheim, which dates to the fourth century and is nestled in rolling hills near the Black Forest.Ingmar Nolting for The New York TimesThe 2015 refugees were welcomed at first with an exuberant “Wilkommenskultur” — and former chancellor Angela Merkel’s famous line, “we can do it.” But wariness among parts of the population was leveraged by the far right, who became a force in German politics. That trend has regained momentum — even pushing mainstream politicians into harsher positions — as the numbers of people seeking asylum are again rising.A leader of Germany’s center-right Christian Democrats recently argued for removing Germany’s constitutional commitments to offer asylum. Today, over half of Germans polled believe the disadvantages of immigration outweigh advantages.Yet a majority of 2015 refugees have successfully found jobs and learned the language. And some have not simply integrated, but become leaders. For these newcomers, however, electoral success has been more elusive — even in large, multicultural cities like Berlin.Another Syrian refugee ran in the capital as a Green Party candidate for the federal parliament in the autumn of 2021. He faced death threats, was attacked at a subway stop and ultimately withdrew his candidacy.Mr. Alshebl, meeting with Franziska Binczik, the head of the kindergarten, in Althengstett, Germany, a village near Ostelsheim, in May.Ingmar Nolting for The New York TimesMr. Alshebl’s journey from Syria began in Sweida Province, where his middle-class family was passionate about politics, but kept their conversations secret. When President Bashar al-Assad’s authoritarian government drafted him into the army, he fled the country.Joining him was a friend, Ghaith Akel, a jovial tech engineer. The two 21-year-olds escaped to Turkey and spent eight nerve-racking hours on a rubber boat in the Mediterranean. They journeyed by train, bus and on foot across Europe to reach Germany.German officials sent the pair to the town of Althengstett, next door to Ostelsheim, in the rural Swabia region, where many people work in agriculture or the region’s famous auto industry. At first, they found the locals — mostly white Germans, with heavy regional dialects — daunting.“They put up boundaries,” Mr. Akel recalled. “You have to get past each and every one of those barriers to reach them. Anything new or strange, they find worrisome — ‘he’s not blonde, he doesn’t speak Swabian dialect.’”Eventually, they discovered the key to gaining acceptance by the community. They joined the local clubs.Mr. Alshebl volunteered at the recreation center. When a leadership position organizing games opened up, he ran. “People could have said, ‘No, we can’t have this Syrian guy who doesn’t know anything about this place,’” he said. “But they gave me a chance.”Ostelsheim’s town hall. Ingmar Nolting for The New York TimesThat experience rekindled his interest in politics. He vowed to perfect his German, enrolled in a vocational program for government administration and applied for an internship at the Althengstett town council. Eventually, the Althengstett mayor, Clemens Götz, hired him.Mr. Alshebl also learned to appreciate the local food.Ulrich Gellar, an Ostelsheim retiree, beamed at Mr. Alshebl’s enjoyment of spaetzle, a cheesy noodle dish, and maultaschen, the local dumplings. “And he drinks beer with us,” he said. “Little things like that have a big impact.”When Mr. Alshebl heard about Ostelsheim’s mayoral race last winter, Mr. Götz encouraged him to run.The main rival was a wealthy Ostelsheimer, with three children and a large family home.His friend, Mr. Akel, was nervous for him. “It’s a small village,’” he said, adding, “Their views on refugees are not always the nicest.”But Mr. Akel helped his friend campaign, with a simple strategy: Talk to everyone.Mr. Alshebl not only went door to door, he put up advertisements offering house calls on request.The May Day festivities were held at the local soccer club.Ingmar Nolting for The New York TimesSipping beers at the May Day celebration, locals recalled how intently he listened. Mothers unburdened complaints about day care shortages. Seniors were impressed by his familiarity with their retirement home grievances. For the first time since anyone could remember, a mayoral campaign energized the village.Not everyone was friendly. On local news websites, some readers posted comments asking how anyone could vote for a refugee. One family confronted Mr. Alshebl with news reports of refugees committing vandalism elsewhere in Germany. Others spread rumors he would impose Islamic sharia law.Friends in Ostelsheim urged Mr. Alshebl to advertise he was not Muslim; he is from Syria’s minority Druze sect. But he refused: “I didn’t want to stigmatize Muslims.” On election night, he won decisively — with his biggest support from Ostelsheim’s oldest, most conservative residents.Rainer Sixt, head of the band playing the May Day festival, insisted the surprise victory made sense. “The values in some places abroad, like tradition and home, are more like here in the countryside than in our own big cities,” he said.After the celebration, Mr. Alshebl visited his mentor, Mr. Götz. and his wife, Isabel. It was funny, they agreed, how long it has taken Germany to embrace an identity as a country of immigrants; since the 1950s, it has taken in Turkish guest workers, Balkan civil war refugees and Eastern Bloc exiles.A children’s soccer game at the local club, in May. Ingmar Nolting for The New York Times“This was long the reality in Germany,” Ms. Götz said. “Only now, the public finally became aware that Germany is not the same thing it was before.”Sipping his coffee, Mr. Alshebl grinned mischievously: “Or, at least, not since the election in Ostelsheim.”Mr. Alshebl, who officially starts his new job next month, now straddles two worlds — a comfortable one in Germany, and his family’s life in Syria, where they struggle to survive in a country ravaged by 12 years of war.“Everything OK?” he asked his mother recently, quickly picking up her call in his office.“We’re all fine — just waiting for the electricity, like always,” she said. Their diverging paths are palpable. Mr. Alshebl throws German words into the conversation, often oblivious to his family’s confusion.He compares his life to that of Syrian friends who have resettled in cosmopolitan German cities. There, they can create a small community, set up shops to buy familiar foods and speak Arabic together.But driving past Ostelsheim’s charming stone buildings, Mr. Alshebl mused that he was elected mayor not in spite of his l community — but because of it.“Maybe the only place you can become a mayor as a refugee is actually in a conservative country town,” he said. “Because to live here, you have to be a part of them.”“Maybe the only place you can become a mayor as a refugee is actually in a conservative country town,” Mr. Alshebl said. “Because to live here, you have to be a part of them.”Ingmar Nolting for The New York Times More

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      How Turkey’s Erdogan Rose to Power

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      Turkey’s leader faced a criminal conviction, mass protests and a coup. Instead of hurting or ending his political career, they helped him accumulate ever more control.From mayor to lawmaker and prime minister to president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan rose through the ranks to Turkey’s highest positions and then made them his own, bringing the country over the course of 20 years closer to one-man rule.On Sunday, Mr. Erdogan will try to secure another term as president, although only after the opposition forced him into a runoff vote. That the election has gone to a second round is a sign that his grip on the country has slipped, if not been broken, amid a host of problems like economic turmoil, widespread corruption and his government’s handling of catastrophic earthquakes this spring.But Mr. Erdogan has navigated crises since the earliest days of his career, including a jail sentence, mass protests and an attempted coup. Several of those episodes illustrate how he not just survived crises, but found opportunities to consolidate power through them.A lifetime ban that lasted a few yearsIn 1998, Mr. Erdogan, then Istanbul’s 44-year-old mayor, was a rising star of Turkey’s Islamist political movement — which was the target of a crackdown by the military-backed authorities. That year, a court convicted him of having called for religious insurrection by quoting an Islamist poem from the 1920s. He was sentenced to 10 months in jail and handed a lifetime ban on political activity.Although predominantly Muslim, Turkey was founded as a secular republic and the traditional political elites felt the Islamists were anathema to those values.Mr. Erdogan when he was mayor of Istanbul in 1998.Murad Sezer/Associated PressMr. Erdogan spent four months in jail, making plans for a comeback despite the ban. In a general amnesty in 2001, Turkey’s Constitutional Court lifted the ban, and he soon assembled a new political party with other reformists from the Islamist movement who promised good governance and sought ties with the West.Allies who changed the rulesMr. Erdogan’s ascent was nearly stopped in 2002 by Turkey’s electoral board, which barred him from an election because of his criminal conviction. But his party colleagues, who had swept into Parliament, amended the Constitution to let him run. Mr. Erdogan won office and became prime minister in 2003.He governed piously at home and pragmatically abroad, winning allies with a mix of charisma and nationalistic fervor. He pushed to lift bans on women’s head scarves in state offices, promoted the construction of mosques, courted the E.U. market and fended off challenges from rivals among Turkey’s military and business elites.Mr. Erdogan promoted the construction of mosques in the country, such as the Taksim Square mosque in Istanbul.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesHis government also began prosecuting some of those figures, in 2008 accusing dozens of people, including retired army generals and journalists, of trying to stage a coup. Mr. Erdogan’s allies called the trial an attempt to reckon with Turkey’s history of violent power struggle. Critics called it an effort to silence the secular opposition.With voters’ approval in a referendum two years later, Mr. Erdogan reshaped the Constitution again. He said the 2010 overhaul brought Turkey closer to Europe’s democracies and broke from its military past, while his opponents said it gave his conservative government greater control over the military and the courts. He won a third term as prime minister in 2011.The mall that provoked protestsMr. Erdogan was not without significant, if disparate, opposition. In 2013, protests that erupted over a proposed mall to replace an Istanbul park morphed into a demonstration of discontent over many issues, including the drift toward Islamist policies and persistent corruption.Mr. Erdogan cracked down, not just on protesters but also on medics, journalists, activists, business owners and officials accused of sympathizing. Some cultural figures were imprisoned and others fled, and for many who remained, an atmosphere of self-censorship descended.People running away as Turkish riot police fire tear gas on Taksim Square during protests in 2013.Bulent Kilic/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAs his term neared its end, Mr. Erdogan faced a problem: His party’s rules prevented him from another turn as prime minister. In 2014, he instead ran for another office — becoming Turkey’s first popularly elected president, opening his term with words of rapprochement.“I want us to build a new future with an understanding of societal reconciliation, while considering our differences as our richnesses and bringing forward our common values,” he said in a victory speech.But rather than limit himself to the mostly ceremonial duties of the role, he moved to maximize its powers, which included a veto on legislation and the ability to appoint judges.The transformative aftermath of a coupMr. Erdogan’s rule nearly ended in 2016, as a chaotic insurrection by parts of the military and members of an Islamist group that had once been his political ally tried to oust him. But he skirted capture, called Turks to protest in the streets and soon re-emerged in Istanbul to reassert control.“What is being perpetrated is a rebellion,” he said. “They will pay a heavy price for their treason to Turkey.”Soldiers involved in a coup attempt surrendering in Istanbul in 2016.Gokhan Tan/Getty ImagesA purge that followed reshaped Turkey: Thousands accused of connections to the coup plot were arrested, tens of thousands lost jobs in schools, police departments and other institutions, and more than 100 media outlets were shuttered. Most of those caught up in the purge were accused of affiliations with the Gulen movement, the Islamist followers of Fethullah Gulen, the cleric accused by Mr. Erdogan of orchestrating the coup while living in exile in the United States.Within a year, Mr. Erdogan had arranged another referendum for voters, this one on whether to abolish the post of prime minister and move power to the president, as well as grant the role more abilities.With his opponents under pressure and his allies reinvigorated, he narrowly won the referendum, calling the changes necessary to make the government more efficient. The next year, he won re-election to another five-year term.A blitz of decrees and growing discontentHours before his inauguration in 2018, Mr. Erdogan published a 143-page decree that changed the way almost every government department operated. He fired another 18,000 state employees and made several major appointments, naming his son-in-law the new finance minister.The decree was just one sign of how far Mr. Erdogan has taken Turkey down the path toward strongman rule. The government announced new internet restrictions and started monumental projects — including soaring bridges, an enormous mosque and a plan for an “Istanbul Canal.”Many of Mr. Erdogan’s supporters hail efforts like these as visionary, but critics say they feed a construction industry that is plagued by corruption and which has wasted state funds.A poster featuring Mr. Erdogan during the election campaign this month in Istanbul.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesThose frustrations have spread among many Turks in recent years. While Mr. Erdogan has raised Turkey’s stature abroad and pursued major projects, his consolidation of power has left some uneasy, and the economy has suffered.That dissent has loosened Mr. Erdogan’s hold over the country.In 2019, his party lost control of some of Turkey’s largest cities — only to contest the results in Istanbul. Turkey’s High Election Council ordered a do-over election, a decision condemned by the opposition as a capitulation to Mr. Erdogan, but his party lost that second vote, too, ending 25 years of dominance in Turkey’s largest city.And now, with his government criticized for its preparation for earthquakes and its response to them, and Turkey’s economy teetering on the verge of crisis, Mr. Erdogan has persisted with major spending and lowering interest rates despite inflation, which has left many Turks feeling far poorer. More

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      Turkey’s Erdogan Woos Voters in Re-Election Campaign

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      President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has rock star appeal at his election rallies, promising to lead Turkey to claim its rightful place as a global power if he is re-elected in a runoff on Sunday.ISTANBUL — His campaign addresses begin softly, drawing the audience in. A devout Muslim, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan frequently says he seeks to please not just the Turkish people, but also God. Playing to the crowds, he sings folk songs, recites lines from local poets or drapes the sash of the local soccer team over his shoulders.He sometimes wades into the throngs of supporters for photos or greets children, who kiss his hands. Then he takes the podium to speak, dressed in a suit or a plaid sports coat.To the cheers and whistles of hundreds of transportation workers at a campaign rally last week, he laid out why they should keep him in power in a runoff on Sunday. He boasted that he had improved the country’s roads and bridges, raised wages and offered tax breaks to small businesses.He also vowed to keep fighting forces that he deemed enemies of the nation, including gay rights activists, to make Turkey “stronger in the world.” And he bashed the leaders of the opposition who are seeking to unseat him, accusing them of having entered “dark rooms to sit and bargain” with terrorists because they won the support of Turkey’s main pro-Kurdish party.“We take refuge only in our God and we take our orders from our nation,” the president said. The crowd roared and men leaped to their feet, chanting, “Turkey is proud of you!”Mr. Erdogan, 69, came out ahead in the toughest political fight of his career on May 14 — the first round of the presidential election. Since then, he has kept a busy schedule in the run-up to final vote.In multiple appearances a day and in speeches that sometimes last 40 minutes, he has stuck to themes that have served him well during his two decades as Turkey’s leading politician. He bills himself on the campaign trail as the leader needed to shepherd a rising nation struggling to beat back multiple threats so it can claim its rightful place as a global power.Listening to Mr. Erdogan at the Justice and Development Party headquarters in Ankara, the day after the first round of voting.Necati Savas/EPA, via ShutterstockIn the first round of voting, Mr. Erdogan failed to win the majority he needed for an outright victory. But with 49.5 percent of the vote, he did beat his main challenger, the opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who got 44.9 percent.Many analysts predict Mr. Erdogan will win on Sunday given his strong showing in the first round and his subsequent endorsement by the third-place candidate, Sinan Ogan, who received 5.2 percent of the vote and was eliminated from the race.In grand terms, the president casts Turkey as being in a great struggle to rise in spite of forces conspiring to keep it down, and he invites voters to join him in this heroic national cause.He vows to fight “imperialists,” a code word for the West that recalls the fight for independence from European powers that led to Turkey’s founding 100 years ago. He warns of “traps” and “plots” against the nation, like the attempted coup against him in 2016. He speaks out against “economic hit men” and “loan sharks in London,” hinting at foreign hands behind Turkey’s economic struggles. And he blasts terrorist organizations, pointing to decades of bloody battles between the government and militants from Turkey’s Kurdish minority.To tout his government’s accomplishments, he lauds the infrastructure, calling out airports, tunnels and bridges by name and reminding voters how new highways have cut drive times between cities. Other oft-cited points of pride are the drones, warships and satellites produced by Turkey’s growing defense industry.Mr. Erdogan spends little time on the country’s economic woes, including annual inflation that peaked above 80 percent last year and remained stubbornly high at 44 percent last month, greatly reducing the purchasing power of ordinary citizens. Nor has he hinted that in victory he would revise policies that some economists say have left the economy vulnerable to a possible currency crisis or recession.The president particularly relishes belittling his challenger, Mr. Kilicdaroglu, who pitched himself to voters as less imperious and more in touch with the concerns of common people. Mr. Kilicdaroglu promised to strengthen Turkish democracy following years of a slide toward autocracy, and to repair relations with the West.A campaign poster for the Turkish opposition candidate, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, in Istanbul on Monday.Sedat Suna/EPA, via ShutterstockIn nearly every speech, Mr. Erdogan dismisses his rival as incompetent and as a servant of Western powers. But his most potent line of attack has been to link the opposition, in voters’ minds, with terrorism.Turkey has fought for decades with Kurdish militants seeking autonomy from the state. Turkey, the United States and the European Union consider them terrorists. The Turkish government has also often accused the country’s main pro-Kurdish party of collaborating with the militants, and many party members and leaders have been jailed or removed from elected posts in parliament or city councils.In the run-up to the election, the pro-Kurdish party endorsed Mr. Kilicdaroglu, and Mr. Erdogan pounced, leveling terrorism accusations and even showing videos at campaign rallies that falsely showed militant leaders singing along to an opposition campaign song.“Can any benefit come to my nation from those who are going around hand in hand with terrorists?” Mr. Erdogan said at one rally in Hatay Province, one of the areas hardest hit by the February earthquakes that killed more than 50,000 people in southern Turkey.For his staunchest supporters, who tend to be working class, rural, religious or from smaller cities away from the coasts, Mr. Erdogan has rock star appeal.His campaign anthems blare as his supporters crowd into stadiums to await his appearance. The orange and blue flags of his governing Justice and Development Party are often strung up overhead.During appearances in the quake-hit region, campaign organizers flooded audiences with Turkish flags, turning otherwise drab expanses of temporary shelters into seas of red and white.Mr. Erdogan addressing supporters at a hospital opening ceremony in Hatay Province. The photograph was released by the presidential press office.Murat Cetinmuhurdar/Turkish Presidency, via ReutersMr. Erdogan acknowledged some criticisms that his government was initially slow to respond. Calling the quakes the “disaster of the century,” he spoke of a newly built hospital and his government’s plans to build hundreds of thousands of homes in the area in the next year.“With your support and your prayers, we will bring you to your new homes,” he told supporters in Hatay.In recent appearances, Mr. Erdogan has put his connection with voters in almost romantic terms.“Don’t forget, we are together not until Sunday, but until the grave,” he told supporters in the central province of Sivas, where he won more than two-thirds of the vote in the first round.Even opposition supporters acknowledge Mr. Erdogan’s strong bond with his constituents.“He has been in power for a very long time and he is very good at delivering a message,” said Gulfem Saydan Sanver, a Turkish political consultant who has advised members of the opposition. “Over the years, he has built trust with his voters, and they believe whatever he says.” More