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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

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      Turkey’s Next President Will Win an Economy in Peril

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      A surge in government spending before the election this month and pressure on the country’s currency could hit the economy in coming months, experts say.Inflation in Turkey remains stubborn at 44 percent. Consumers have watched their paychecks buy less and less food as the months tick by. And now, government largess and efforts to prop up the currency are threatening economic growth and could push the country into recession.It’s a tough challenge for whoever wins the runoff election for the presidency on Sunday. And it’s an especially complicated one if President Recep Tayyip Erdogan remains in power because his policies, including some aimed at securing his re-election, have exacerbated the problems.“The relatively strong economy of the past several quarters has been the product of unsustainable policies, so there will most likely be a contraction or recession,” said Brad W. Setser, an expert in global trade and finance at the Council on Foreign Relations.“Working Turks will feel poorer when the lira falls in value,” he said of the local currency. “People will find it harder to find a job and harder to get a salary that covers the cost of living.”In the run-up to the election, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan rolled out a range of policies aimed at blunting the immediate effects of inflation on voters. Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesEconomic turmoil in Turkey, one of the world’s 20 largest economies, could echo internationally because of the country’s broad network of global trade ties. It will also likely dominate the immediate agenda of whichever candidate prevails in the runoff election on May 28.During Mr. Erdogan’s first 10 years in power, he oversaw dramatic economic growth that transformed Turkish cities and lifted millions of people out of poverty. But some of those gains have been eroded in recent years. The national currency has lost 80 percent of its value against the dollar since 2018. And annual inflation, which reached more than 80 percent at its peak last year, has come down but was still 44 percent last month, leaving many feeling poorer.While economic orthodoxy usually calls for raising interest rates to combat inflation, Mr. Erdogan has insisted on doing the opposite, repeatedly reducing them, which economists say has exacerbated the problem.During his election campaign, Mr. Erdogan showed no intention of changing his policies, doubling down on his belief that low interest rates would help the economy grow by providing cheap credit to increase Turkish manufacturing and exports.“We will work relentlessly until we make Turkey one of the 10 largest economies in the world,” he said at an election rally this month. “If today there is a reality in Turkey that does not allow its pensioners, workers and civil servants to be crushed under inflation, we succeeded by standing back to back with you.”In other rallies, he vowed to continue lowering interest rates and to bring down inflation.“You will see as the interest rates go down, so will inflation” he told supporters in Istanbul in April.In the run-up to the election, with the cost-of-living crisis on many voters’ minds, Mr. Erdogan launched a range of expensive policies aimed at blunting the immediate effects of inflation on voters. He repeatedly raised the minimum wage, increased civil servant salaries and changed regulations to allow millions of Turks to receive early government pensions. All of those commitments must be honored by whomever wins the election, meaning greater government spending into the future.Exacerbating the economic stress is the vast damage caused by the powerful earthquakes that destroyed large parts of southern Turkey in February. In March, a government assessment put the damage at $103 billion, or about 9 percent of this year’s gross domestic product.Rubble of buildings destroyed in Kahramanmaras, Turkey, by the earthquakes that struck in March.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesAt the same time, the government has heavily intervened to slow the decline of the Turkish lira, mostly by selling foreign currency reserves. During one week in early May, the reserves declined by $7.6 billion to $60.8 billion, according to central bank data, the largest such decline in more than two decades.To address that, Mr. Erdogan has reached agreements with countries including Qatar, Russia and Saudi Arabia that would help shore up reserves in Turkey’s central bank. Saudi Arabia announced a $5 billion deposit in March, and Russia agreed to delay at least some of Turkey’s payment for natural gas imports until after the election.The terms of most of these agreements have not been made public, but economists said they were part of a short-term strategy by Mr. Erdogan more focused on winning the election than on ensuring the country’s long-term financial health.Should Mr. Erdogan win, as many analysts expect he will, few expect him to dramatically change course.“I don’t think the current government has a plan to fix this because they don’t admit that these problems are due to policy mistakes,” said Selva Demiralp, a professor of economics at Koc University in Istanbul. “I don’t see a way out for the current government.”A vegetable market in Kayseri, Turkey. Inflation has left many Turkish people feeling poorer.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesMr. Erdogan came out ahead in the first round of elections on May 14 with 49.2 percent of the vote but fell short of the majority needed to win outright. The main opposition candidate, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, won 45 percent, and a third candidate, Sinan Ogan, won 5.2 percent. Mr. Erdogan and Mr. Kilicdaroglu will compete in the runoff.Most analysts give Mr. Erdogan an edge because of his strong showing in the first round and the likelihood that he will inherit significant votes from Mr. Ogan, who formally endorsed Mr. Erdogan on Monday. Mr. Erdogan’s political party and its allies also maintained their majority in Parliament, allowing Mr. Erdogan to argue that voters should choose him to avoid a divided government.If Mr. Erdogan sticks to the status quo, economists expect the currency to sink further, the government to impose restrictions on foreign-currency withdrawals and the state to run short of foreign currency to pay its bills.In its campaign, the political opposition promised to follow more orthodox economic policies, including raising interest rates to bring down inflation and restoring the independence of the central bank, whose policies are widely believed to be overseen by Mr. Erdogan himself.A market in Istanbul. Whichever candidate wins Turkey’s runoff election will face a significant economic crisis.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesBut if he becomes president, Mr. Kilicdaroglu will inherit a financial situation that will require immediate attention, economic advisers to opposition parties have said.In addition to honoring the additional spending added by Mr. Erdogan in recent months, a new administration would need to respect his financial arrangements with other countries, the terms of many of which are not clear.“What are the political terms? What are the financial terms?” said Kerim Rota, who is in charge of economic policy for Gelecek Party, a member of the opposition coalition. “Unfortunately, none of those numbers are reflected in the Turkish statistics.”If it came to power, the opposition would need both short- and medium-term plans to bolster the government’s finances and restore the confidence of investors, he said. But restricting its ability to maneuver would be the majority in parliament led by Mr. Erdogan’s party and its allies.“We need a very credible medium-term program, but the question is if the majority of the parliament is on the A.K.P. side, how can you manage a five-year program?” he said, using another name for Mr. Erdogan’s party.Gulsin Harman More

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      Erdogan Is Endorsed by Sinan Ogan

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      The support of Sinan Ogan gives the Turkish president a boost as he takes on the opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu.The candidate who came in third in Turkey’s presidential election last week announced on Monday that he was endorsing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the runoff vote on Sunday, granting Mr. Erdogan an additional boost against his remaining challenger.Mr. Erdogan, the dominant figure in Turkish politics for 20 years, appears to have an edge in the runoff, whose victor will shape Turkey’s domestic and foreign policies for the next five years. Throughout the campaign, Mr. Erdogan aimed to link himself in voters’ minds with the image of a strong Turkey, with expanding military might and geopolitical clout.Although most polls in the run-up to the initial vote on May 14 showed Mr. Erdogan trailing his main challenger, the opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the president overcame voter anger at high inflation and frustration with the government’s initially slow response to catastrophic earthquakes in February to win 49.5 percent of the vote.Mr. Kilicdaroglu, the joint candidate of a coalition of six opposition parties that came together to try to unseat Mr. Erdogan, won 44.9 percent.In his campaign, Mr. Kilicdaroglu vowed to undo Mr. Erdogan’s legacy, which he said had damaged the economy and pushed the country away from democracy and toward one-man rule.The third-place candidate, Sinan Ogan, is a far-right nationalist who defied expectations to win 5.2 percent of the vote, preventing either of the top contenders from winning the simple majority that would have granted instant victory.In an interview with The New York Times after the first-round results were released last week, Mr. Ogan said he was negotiating with figures on both sides of the political divide to decide whom to endorse for the runoff.Sinan Ogan, who came in third in the first round of presidential voting in Turkey, with supporters in Ankara this month.Burhan Ozbilici/Associated PressHe said he was seeking to ensure that the winning candidate adopts nationalist causes, including a scheduled plan to deport millions of refugees and a refusal to cooperate with pro-Kurdish and hard-line Islamist parties that he considers connected to terrorism.In exchange for his endorsement, Mr. Ogan said he wanted a senior post in the new administration, such as vice president.But it remains unclear whether his support will deliver many voters. Mr. Ogan has no significant party apparatus to mobilize his backers, and in the eight days since the election, his hard-right electoral alliance has broken apart.Political analysts said that many voters who chose him in the first round probably did so to protest the top two contenders and so might not vote at all in the runoff.Mr. Erdogan met with Mr. Ogan on Friday, but neither man released details of what was discussed. That same day, Mr. Erdogan said in an interview with CNN that he did not want to bargain with Mr. Ogan.“I am not a person who likes to negotiate in such a manner,” Mr. Erdogan said. “It will be the people who are the kingmakers.”In announcing his endorsement of Mr. Erdogan at a news conference on Monday, Mr. Ogan said nothing of any agreement the men had reached but characterized his impact on the election as a victory for far-right causes.“We uplifted Turkish nationalists to a key role,” he said, listing the major issues facing Turkey as refugees, earthquake preparedness, the economy and the fight against terrorism.“We recommend that those who belittle our voters watch our work more closely,” he said, apparently referring to a change in rhetoric by the opposition after far-right figures such as himself did better in the election than expected. More

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      Why the Leaders of Turkey and Thailand Have an Interest in Elections

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      Turkey and Thailand held two huge elections this week, both with uncertain outcomes. Each shows some of the benefits that elections can hold for leaders who have amassed power with the tools of the state.Two important elections happened this week. In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan failed to win an outright victory so he now faces a runoff election that could be the most significant political challenge of his career. And in Thailand, ruled by military leaders who took power in a 2014 coup, voters overwhelmingly backed opposition parties, delivering a stinging rebuke to the military establishment. It remains to be seen how much power the junta will actually hand over.Both countries have me thinking about the type of government that is sometimes called a “competitive authoritarian” regime. Their leaders use the tools of state, such as purging foes from the bureaucracy and curtailing civil liberties, to consolidate their own power. But they regularly hold elections, and when they do, the votes are not shams. Voters can cast ballots with the expectation that they will be fairly counted, and that leaders will abide by the result.And yet the fact that those governments embrace elections can tell us something important about the nature of democratic backsliding, and perhaps something even more important about its opposite. Most people call it democratization, but I prefer to think of it, for the sake of verbal and conceptual symmetry, as democratic forwardsliding.Turkey has for years been sliding into a competitive authoritarian government, analysts say. Thailand isn’t one, at least not yet — its military leaders came to power in a coup, not an election — but its vote provides a useful point of comparison.After all, at first blush it’s a little odd that competitive authoritarian leaders hold real elections! In the usual story we tell about democracy, one of elections’ chief virtues is that they allow the public to check leaders’ power. Too much repression, the theory goes, will lead to a reckoning at the ballot box.That doesn’t seem like a prospect that would be popular with leaders who otherwise go to remarkable lengths to dismantle checks and balances. Competitive authoritarians often stack courts with friendly judges, undermine judicial review of their power, weaken legislative branches, jail journalists and try in various ways to stifle opponents.But that view misses out something else that elections can do: validate an authoritarian leader’s power by showing that the public supports the regime. And that validation, it turns out, is valuable enough to outweigh the risks inherent in elections — especially when the incumbent can take steps to manipulate the contest in his favor.In Turkey, Erdogan draws his claim to power, and his justification for his harsh and repressive treatment of the opposition, from public approval, said Turkuler Isiksel, a Columbia University political scientist. Like other populists, he claims to represent the interests of the people. Elections, which provide hard numbers on public support, are a powerful tool to support that claim.And conversely, rejecting election results can damage public support for the regime. Milan Svolik, a Yale political scientist who studies authoritarianism and democratic backsliding, pointed to the example of Istanbul’s 2019 mayoral elections, which were seen as an important test of the popularity of Erdogan’s A.K.P. party. When that contest was initially held, the opposition candidate won by a narrow margin, but the race was invalidated by the courts, leading to public outrage at the perceived refusal to honor the results. When it was re-run a few months later, the opposition candidate won by a landslide — suggesting that for a substantial minority of voters, the failure to respect the initial result was enough to make them abandon Erdogan’s party.“They decided, ‘I’m changing my vote,’” Svolik said. “That suggests a high cost to being perceived as not abiding by the results of an election.” And while such precise natural experiments are rare, Svolik has found similar results when he ran experiments in other countries using hypothetical scenarios of candidates engaging in similar behavior.Which brings me to Thailand. At present, its leaders do not derive their legitimacy from public support — their 2014 coup ousted the democratically elected government by force after an extended period of political unrest.“Thailand is a very divided country that has a conservative establishment that keeps trying to find a way to write a constitution that allows it to win, but can’t do it because it’s not that popular,” said Tom Pepinsky, a Cornell political scientist who studies authoritarianism and democratization with a focus on Southeast Asia. The current government has tried to hedge the results of last weekend’s election by granting Thailand’s military-appointed Senate one-third of the votes to select the prime minister, effectively reserving veto power over any government that doesn’t win a supermajority. But, as Svolik’s research shows, overriding the results of the election risks public backlash.So why hold elections at all?It’s impossible to be sure of the junta members’ true motivations — such personal decisions are, ultimately, unknowable. It may be that the junta members see the risk of losing power in an election as less damaging than what could happen if they held onto power without one.There are real costs to holding power by force, for leaders themselves and their countries. If public outrage has no outlet in elections, that increases the likelihood of mass protests, uprisings, and violence. For years, Thailand has been trapped in a cycle of “protests and putsches,” as my Times colleagues Sui-Lee Wee and Muktita Suhartono memorably described it — a loop that has only increased voters’ anger and support for opposition parties.Such cycles can be difficult to break. In Thailand, “they’re sort of in a coup trap, where the existence of a precedent for military intervention in politics makes people act as if that’s going to be possible, which makes it then possible,” Pepinsky said. “It’s a very bad equilibrium to be in.” Holding an election isn’t always a solution to that problem. Svolik pointed to the example of Myanmar, whose ruling junta cautiously handed over some power after semi-democratic elections in 2015 and 2020, but staged another coup in 2021. But it can still be a way to shift political disputes away from costly and damaging political violence. “Why don’t we just have a battle that’s called an election? It is much less costly,” Svolik said.That has benefits for the public as well as for leaders. Even though the legitimacy conferred by elections can help authoritarian leaders in the short term, Isiksel said, in the longer term it can aid democratization by strengthening democratic institutions, political parties, and the “civic habits” of voting and campaigning.Over time, those can build and reinforce on each other in ways that go beyond elections — a slow and incremental process of forwardsliding toward a more secure democracy.Thank you for being a subscriberRead past editions of the newsletter here.If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Browse all of our subscriber-only newsletters here.I’d love your feedback on this newsletter. Please email thoughts and suggestions to interpreter@nytimes.com. You can also follow me on Twitter. More

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      He Lost Turkey’s Presidential Election, but Could Swing the Runoff

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      Seen by some as spoiler but by others as a kingmaker, Sinan Ogan, the far-right candidate who came in third in the vote, says he is being courted by the two finalists: the sitting president and his challenger.ANKARA — As Sinan Ogan tells it, he has suddenly become the most sought-after man in Turkey.The hard-right nationalist and third-place finisher in presidential elections last weekend, Mr. Ogan told The New York Times that he has been fielding calls all week, from cabinet members to opposition leaders and even the office of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. They all want the same thing — help wooing his critical swing voters one way or the other in the May 28 runoff between the two front-runners.“Very busy,” Mr. Ogan said at his office in the capital, Ankara, on Tuesday afternoon. “I spent my last three or four days negotiating issues with such high-level people.”Mr. Ogan and other hard-right nationalists made a strong showing in Sunday’s presidential and parliamentary elections, prioritizing national security and the defense of what they consider Turkish identity. In particular, they advocate tough stances on the more than 3.3 million Syrian refugees in Turkey.Since the vote, Mr. Ogan’s has been called everything from a spoiler, who blocked the top presidential contenders from an outright victory, to a kingmaker whose supporters may play a role in deciding the runoff. That has given him a sudden clout, evidenced by the flood of calls he says he has received this week.The strong performance of nationalists in these elections will likely pull Turkish government policy further to the right in the years to come, particularly with regards to the country’s Kurdish minority and Syrian refugees.People walking past a banner of Sinan Ogan, who came in third in presidential elections over the weekend, in Istanbul, Turkey on Thursday.Khalil Hamra/Associated PressIn the vote on May 14, Mr. Erdogan won 49.5 percent while his main challenger, the opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, took about 44.8 percent. Mr. Ogan won a surprising 5.2 percent.With his comfortable lead in the first round, Mr. Erdogan now looks poised to win the runoff, especially if a good number of Mr. Ogan’s voters throw their support to him. Analysts said they expected more of those voters to choose Mr. Erdogan than his challenger.Mr. Ogan, 55, is a former parliament member and expert on the Caucasus who speaks Russian and earned a doctorate in politics and international relations from a Moscow university.He said he expects to announce his endorsement around Thursday, and assumes that 70 percent of his supporters would follow his recommendation. But political analysts are less sure, noting that Mr. Ogan lacks a powerful party apparatus to corral voters. And many of his supporters may have chosen him to protest the top contenders, and could skip the runoff.Mr. Ogan said he has demands in exchange for throwing his support to a candidate, all of them aimed at promoting nationalist causes. For one, he wants a scheduled plan to deport the refugees from many countries, including Syria and Afghanistan. And in exchange for endorsing a candidate, he also wants a very senior post in the new administration to see his demands through.“Why would I be a minister when I can be vice president?” he said.He declined to say whether he was leaning toward a particular candidate.He said he admired Mr. Erdogan’s work ethic, but also criticized him for not consulting enough with others before making decisions. Mr. Kilicdarolu, he said, was not as hard working but widely solicited others’ opinions.The opposition camp, overlapping with the far right on some issues, including the desire to send the Syrian refugees home, could step up efforts to sway nationalist voters before the runoff.Idris Sahin, an official with DEVA, one of the opposition parties backing Mr. Kilicdaroglu, said his party had done a “sociological study” of Mr. Ogan’s voters and would soon launch a campaign targeting them.On Wednesday, Mr. Kilicdaroglu released a campaign video attacking Mr. Erdogan and his party with harsh nationalist rhetoric.“The border is honor,” Mr. Kilicdaroglu said, referring to the president’s allowing millions of refugees from Syria and elsewhere to settle in Turkey. He called the refugees an “unruly flood of people flowing into our veins every day” and warned that their number would increase and “threaten our survival!”Mr. Ogan would not answer directly when asked whether he had spoken with Mr. Erdogan about a possible endorsement. Officials from Mr. Erdogan’s party and the opposition have not spoken publicly about any negotiations with Mr. Ogan.“I talk to everyone,” he said.Among Mr. Ogan’s other demands, he said he doesn’t want any political party that he considers connected to terrorism — a term the government often uses to refer to Kurdish militants — to have any role in the government.He mentioned two parties specifically: the Free Cause Party, a hard-line Islamist party allied with Mr. Erdogan, and the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, or H.D.P., which supported Mr. Kilicdaroglu.The first grew out of an underground Islamist organization known for murdering journalists, intellectuals and others in previous decades. The party’s current leaders say they reject violence.Turkey has fought a yearslong and deadly battle against Kurdish militants and the government often accuses the H.D.P. of cooperation with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which Turkey, the United States and the European Union all consider a terrorist organization. H.D.P. leaders deny that accusation and say they condemn violence.Mr. Ogan credited his campaign with elevating nationalist causes during the election and hard-right factions also fared well in parliamentary elections. In particular, Mr. Erdogan’s strongest allies in Parliament, the Nationalist Movement Party, performed better than expected.“We blew a very nationalist wind into the field,” Mr. Ogan said.But analysts said it was more likely that such sentiments were already rising among the electorate and Mr. Ogan just happened to catch the wave.Gulsin Harman More

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      Turkey’s President Fights for Political Survival

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      Rob Szypko, Rachelle Bonja, Michael Simon Johnson and Lisa Chow and Diane Wong and For two decades, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has loomed large over Turkish politics. But skyrocketing inflation and a devastating earthquake have eroded his power and, in a presidential election over the weekend, he was forced into a runoff.Ben Hubbard, The Times’s Istanbul bureau chief, discusses how Turkey’s troubles have made Mr. Erdogan politically vulnerable.On today’s episodeBen Hubbard, the Istanbul bureau chief for The New York Times.A crowd with a banner of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, the Turkish capital, on Monday. Mr. Erdogan still leads his closest challenger by a comfortable margin heading into the runoff.Necati Savas/EPA, via ShutterstockBackground readingDespite the headwinds, Mr. Erdogan appears to be in a strong position to emerge with another five-year term. Here’s what to know.The election suggested that even if Mr. Erdogan’s grip on power has been loosened, it has not yet broken.There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.Ben Hubbard More

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      Turkey’s Opposition Struggles to Make Up Ground as Runoff Nears

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      President Recep Tayyip Erdogan looks likely to take most of the votes that went to an ultranationalist candidate eliminated in the first round.After heading into elections with high hopes, Turkey’s political opposition is struggling to fight off despair and plot a course to give their candidate a fighting chance against the incumbent, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in a runoff later this month.While Mr. Erdogan, bidding for a third five-year presidential term, failed to win a simple majority in Sunday’s election, he still led the opposition by a margin of about five percentage points. That, and a number of other indications, point to a win for the president in the second round on May 28.Importantly, Mr. Erdogan looks likely to be the primary beneficiary of votes from supporters of an ultranationalist third candidate, Sinan Ogan, who has been eliminated despite a surprisingly strong showing over the weekend. The first-round results pointed to growing nationalist sentiment across the electorate that will probably boost the president.All of that amounts to an uphill battle for the challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who heads a six-party coalition that came together with the goals of unseating Mr. Erdogan, restoring Turkish democracy, righting the economy and smoothing over frazzled relations with the West.“Obviously, it is difficult,” said Can Selcuki, the director of the Turkey Report, which publishes polls and political analysis.Sinan Ogan, an ultranationalist candidate, in Ankara this month. Despite being eliminated after Sunday’s vote, he made a surprisingly strong showing.Burhan Ozbilici/Associated PressMr. Selcuki, who had predicted a stronger showing by the opposition, said that the coalition now appeared to have at least two options: find a way to increase turnout among supportive voters and adopt a more nationalist tone that might attract crossover votes.So far, opposition leaders have publicly said very little about how they might modify their campaign before the runoff.“I am here, I am here,” Mr. Kilicdaroglu, the opposition candidate, said in a video posted on Twitter on Monday that showed him uncharacteristically banging on a desk. “I swear I will fight to the end.”In another post on Tuesday, he tried to rally younger voters, cautioning that a win by his opponent would lead to “a bottomless darkness.”Still, the math does not appear to be in his favor.Mr. Erdogan won 49.5 percent of the vote, versus 44.9 percent for Mr. Kilicdaroglu, according to the Turkish electoral authority. The third candidate, Mr. Ogan, received 5.2 percent, and his right-wing supporters seem more likely to opt for Mr. Erdogan in the runoff.Going into the first round, most polls indicated a slight lead for Mr. Kilicdaroglu, but since the results came out, analysts have tried to explain why the opposition performed worse than expected.The six parties that backed Mr. Kilicdaroglu represent a disparate range of backgrounds and ideologies, including nationalists, staunch secularists and even Islamists who had defected from Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party.While their primary unifying goal was to unseat Mr. Erdogan, they tried to sell voters on a different vision for Turkey’s future. That included restoring the independence of state institutions such as the Foreign Ministry and the central bank; a return to orthodox financial policies aimed at taming painfully high inflation and enticing foreign investors; and the strengthening of civil liberties, including freedom of expression and of association, which Mr. Erdogan has limited.President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won 49.5 percent of the vote versus 44.9 percent for Mr. Kilicdaroglu, according to the Turkish electoral authority.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesMr. Erdogan mounted a campaign that linked him in voters’ minds to Turkey’s increasing military might and independence. In interviews, many pro-Erdogan voters expressed admiration for Turkey’s defense industry, particularly its drones, which have played key roles in a number of conflicts, including in Ukraine and in Ethiopia.He also demonized the opposition, associating them with terrorism. This line of attack capitalized on the support that Mr. Kilicdaroglu has received from Turkey’s pro-Kurdish party, the country’s third-largest. The government has accused that party’s officials and members of cooperation with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., which it has designated a terrorist organization.At campaign rallies, Mr. Erdogan even showed a video that had been manipulated to make it look as if a P.K.K. leader was clapping along with one of Mr. Kilicdaroglu’s campaign songs.Turkey has fought a long and deadly battle against Kurdish militants, and the government often accuses Kurdish politicians of cooperating with them. Many Kurdish politicians have been jailed, prosecuted or removed from office because of such allegations.The overall results of Sunday’s vote, including for the Turkish Parliament, amounted to a strong showing by right-wing nationalists. The Nationalist Movement Party, Mr. Erdogan’s strongest ally in Parliament, increased its share, and Mr. Ogan did much better than polls had predicted.Those candidates emphasize Turkish identity and national security, demonize the Kurds and call for the more than three million Syrian refugees in Turkey to be sent home. All appear to have benefited from Mr. Erdogan’s warnings about terrorism.In the runoff on May 28, Mr. Erdogan looks likely to be the primary beneficiary of votes from supporters of Mr. Ogan.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesAt the same time, some of the smaller parties that Mr. Kilicdaroglu brought into his coalition failed to mobilize significant numbers of voters.In his message aimed at Turkey’s younger voters on Tuesday, Mr. Kilicdaroglu returned to the state of the country’s economy, focusing on how inflation, which exceeded 80 percent last year, had eroded the value of people’s incomes.“You don’t have money for anything. You have to do calculations for a cup of coffee,” he wrote. “Yet youth means being carefree. They didn’t allow you to have that for even a day.”He also returned to the opposition’s central theme, the effort to remove Mr. Erdogan and reverse his tilt toward authoritarian rule.“Those who want change in this country are more than those who don’t want it,” he wrote. “But this is clear: we are the side that needs to fight harder to get rid of such a tyrant government.” More

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      Elección en Turquía: Erdogan podría volver a ganar

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      A pesar de una economía en dificultades, los terremotos de febrero y la deriva de Turquía hacia un gobierno unipersonal, el presidente Recep Tayyip Erdogan se situó en cabeza antes de la segunda vuelta.ANKARA, Turquía — El aumento de la inflación empobreció a su pueblo. Su gobierno fue acusado de negligencia en su respuesta a los catastróficos terremotos en los que murieron más de 50.000 personas hace solo tres meses. Y se enfrentaba a una oposición recientemente unificada que prometía abandonar su tendencia constante hacia el gobierno unipersonal.A pesar de todo eso, el presidente Recep Tayyip Erdogan se impuso a su principal rival en las elecciones turcas, según los resultados oficiales publicados el lunes. Aunque no alcanzó la mayoría absoluta, por lo que el país celebrará una segunda vuelta el 28 de mayo, hay indicios claros de que Erdogan volverá a ganar las elecciones.“Para Erdogan, este es su gran final”, dijo Mehmet Ali Kulat, un destacado encuestador turco que había previsto una victoria más contundente de la oposición.Con casi todas las papeletas escrutadas el lunes, los resultados preliminares oficiales le daban a Erdogan el 49,5 por ciento de los votos frente al 44,9 por ciento de Kemal Kilicdaroglu, su principal rival y líder de la oposición. Un tercer candidato, Sinan Ogan, obtuvo el 5,2 por ciento, y sus partidarios de derecha tienen más probabilidades de votar por Erdogan en la segunda vuelta, según los analistas. Por último, el partido de Erdogan y sus aliados preservaron su mayoría dominante en la votación parlamentaria, lo que probablemente aumenta sus posibilidades de ser reelegido.Pero el hecho de que Erdogan no haya podido obtener más del 50 por ciento de los votos —incluso después de haber utilizado muchos de los recursos del poder para inclinar la balanza de las elecciones a su favor— indica que algunos votantes se han cansado de su gestión financiera y de la drástica consolidación del poder en sus manos.Recuento de votos en Estambul, el domingoSergey Ponomarev para The New York TimesMuchos medios de comunicación turcos son propiedad de empresarios que apoyan a Erdogan, lo que le ha garantizado un flujo constante de cobertura positiva y poca atención a las acusaciones de corrupción o los errores de la gestión. El gobierno ha hecho que algunas organizaciones de noticias críticas tengan que cerrar, ha multado a otras por su cobertura y procesó a algunos periodistas. La organización Reporteros sin Fronteras clasifica a Turquía en el puesto 165 en cuanto a libertad de prensa, de los 180 países que califica.La oposición no reconoció oficialmente el liderazgo de Erdogan ni impugnó las cifras, pero afirmó que trabajará para ganar la segunda vuelta.“Nos levantaremos y ganaremos juntos estas elecciones”, escribió Kilicdaroglu en Twitter el lunes. “Al final solo será lo que diga nuestra nación”.En sus 20 años como líder político dominante de Turquía, primero como primer ministro y luego como presidente, Erdogan y su Partido de la Justicia y el Desarrollo han derrotado de manera regular a sus oponentes en las urnas. La última vez que Erdogan participó en las elecciones fue en 2018, y obtuvo el 52 por ciento de los votos en la primera vuelta, superando al más cercano de sus tres contrincantes por 22 puntos porcentuales. Esta vez le fue peor, lo que provocó la primera segunda vuelta presidencial en la historia de Turquía.El domingo, la participación electoral en todo el país fue de casi el 89 por ciento, lo que subraya la gran fe de los turcos en las elecciones.Erdogan enfrentó una considerable resistencia antes de la votación.Desde 2018, Turquía ha estado luchando con una moneda que se hunde y una dolorosa inflación que superó el 80 por ciento anual el año pasado y en abril se situó en el 44 por ciento.Las cifras publicadas en un local de cambio de divisas en Estambul reflejan la fuerte caída de la lira turca, lo que ha disparado la inflación.Sergey Ponomarev para The New York TimesSus oponentes se unieron en una coalición sin precedentes de seis partidos que respaldaron a Kilicdaroglu. A lo largo de la campaña, la oposición cortejó a los votantes prometiendo arreglar la economía, restablecer las libertades civiles y construir una sociedad más integradora, en marcado contraste con la retórica polarizante de Erdogan.Pero no fue suficiente.Los analistas describieron los resultados como el último ejemplo de las formidables habilidades de supervivencia de Erdogan.Kulat dijo que los terremotos del 6 de febrero ayudaron a Erdogan de forma inesperada. La vasta destrucción no solo dejó a un gran número de personas sin hogar, sino que presionó a las comunidades cercanas a la zona afectada al aumentar los precios de los alquileres. Esto aumentó el atractivo de las promesas electorales de Erdogan de construir nuevas viviendas en la zona afectada por el terremoto en el plazo de un año.“Los ciudadanos dijeron: ‘Si alguien puede construirme una casa, es Erdogan’”, dijo Kulat.Pero el mandatario también utilizó su poder para inclinar la campaña a su favor. Y como presidente en funciones en un sistema con pocos controles del poder presidencial, Erdogan utilizó de manera eficaz al Estado como parte de su campaña al repartir nuevos beneficios para los votantes usando los recursos de las arcas nacionales.Erdogan hizo campaña tachando a sus oponentes de incompetentes, diciendo que los apoya una conspiración occidental y que eran cómplices de terroristas. También buscó oportunidades para vincularse en la mente de los votantes con imágenes del creciente poderío e independencia turcos, aparcando un buque de guerra en el centro de Estambul para que lo visitaran las familias y convirtiéndose en el primer propietario de un coche eléctrico fabricado en Turquía.Rescatistas sobre los escombros dejados por los terremotos que mataron a decenas de miles de personas, en Kahramanmaras, Turquía, en febrero.Sergey Ponomarev para The New York TimesTanto él como sus ministros lo presentan como el defensor de los turcos religiosos, avivando sus temores al decirles que la oposición pretendía arrebatarles sus nuevas libertades y ampliar los derechos de las personas homosexuales. Aunque Turquía es una sociedad predominantemente musulmana, se fundó como un Estado firmemente laico que mantenía fuera de la vida pública a la mayoría de los signos externos de la religión. Erdogan flexibilizó algunas de esas normas, incluida la prohibición de que las mujeres que ocupan cargos públicos usen pañuelos en la cabeza.Parece que estos temas han convencido a un número suficiente de votantes como para que Erdogan lidere la contienda.“La identificación política es muy ‘pegajosa’ y no se deshace fácilmente debido a nueva información o experiencia”, escribió en un correo electrónico Howard Eissenstat, profesor asociado de historia en la Universidad de St. Lawrence. “El énfasis de Erdogan en el nacionalismo, el terrorismo y los nefastos complots occidentales no es algo menor para muchos votantes: es el núcleo de su visión del mundo”.En contraste con lo que Erdogan podía ofrecer a los votantes, la oposición solo podía ofrecer promesas.Para conseguir su apoyo, Kilicdaroglu reunió a seis partidos que incluían a nacionalistas de derecha, laicos acérrimos e islamistas, lo que es visto como una hazaña. Pero muchos votantes se preguntaron cómo una coalición tan amplia podría mantenerse unida, y mucho menos dirigir el país.“A pesar de la frustración por la economía y los efectos de los terremotos, mucha gente no creía que una coalición de la oposición —especialmente una con divisiones ideológicas internas y luchas personales por el poder— pudiera gobernar con eficacia”, dijo Lisel Hintz, profesora adjunta de relaciones internacionales en la Escuela de Estudios Internacionales Avanzados de la Universidad Johns Hopkins.Según Hintz, el hecho de que Kilicdaroglu pertenezca a una minoría religiosa probablemente también haya desanimado a algunos votantes. Es aleví, miembro de una secta musulmana heterodoxa que es mal vista por algunos miembros de la mayoría musulmana suní de Turquía.“Es probable que algunos suníes no quieran votar por un aleví”, dijo Hintz.El principal aspirante de la oposición, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, tras votar el domingo en la capital, Ankara.Bulent Kilic/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAunque ningún votante entrevistado en las últimas semanas expresó abiertamente esos sentimientos, muchos expresaron su preocupación por otro grupo minoritario, criticando a la oposición por trabajar con el principal partido a favor de los kurdos de Turquía y comparando esa decisión con establecer una alianza con terroristas.Turquía ha librado una larga y mortal batalla contra los militantes kurdos que son considerados terroristas por el gobierno turco, Estados Unidos y la Unión Europea. Además, las autoridades turcas suelen acusar a los políticos kurdos de cooperar con los militantes, y muchos de ellos han sido encarcelados, procesados o destituidos por esas acusaciones.Erdogan ha jugado con el temor sobre esos vínculos, y muchos votantes consideran que la oposición simpatiza con esa militancia.“Me preocupa que gane el otro bando y que eso sea malo para el país”, dijo Melike Kurt, recién licenciada, tras votar a Erdogan el domingo. En concreto, mencionó su preocupación porque se pusiera en libertad a personas encarceladas por cargos relacionados con el terrorismo.Como mujer devota que usa un pañuelo en la cabeza, también elogió a Erdogan por defender que las mujeres como ella pudieran vestir como quisieran, y le preocupaba que un gobierno de la oposición anulara esos derechos en nombre del laicismo estatal.“No puedo imaginarme en qué situación estaríamos si perdiéramos”, dijo Kurt, de 24 años. “Creo que nuestras libertades se verían limitadas si ganan, en lo que respecta a los pañuelos en la cabeza y otros temas”.Safak Timur More