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      U.S. Investigating Whether Adams Received Illegal Donations From Turkey

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      A raid at the home of Eric Adams’s chief fund-raiser was part of an inquiry into whether foreign money was funneled into his mayoral campaign, a search warrant shows.Federal prosecutors and the F.B.I. are conducting a broad public corruption investigation into whether Mayor Eric Adams’s 2021 election campaign conspired with the Turkish government to receive illegal foreign donations, according to a search warrant obtained by The New York Times.The investigation burst into public view on Thursday when federal agents conducted an early-morning raid at the Brooklyn home of the mayor’s chief fund-raiser, Brianna Suggs. Ms. Suggs is a campaign consultant who is deeply entwined with efforts to advance the mayor’s agenda.Investigators also sought to learn more about the potential involvement of a Brooklyn construction company with ties to Turkey, as well as a small university in Washington, D.C., that also has ties to the country and to Mr. Adams.According to the search warrant, investigators were also focused on whether the mayor’s campaign kicked back benefits to the construction company’s officials and employees, and to Turkish officials.The agents seized three iPhones and two laptop computers, along with papers and other evidence, including something agents identified as “manila folder labeled Eric Adams,” seven “contribution card binders” and other materials, according to the documents.There was no indication that the investigation was targeting the mayor, and he is not accused of wrongdoing. Yet the raid apparently prompted him to abruptly cancel several meetings scheduled for Thursday morning in Washington, D.C., where he planned to speak with White House officials and members of Congress about the migrant crisis.Instead, he hurriedly returned to New York “to deal with a matter,” a spokesman for the mayor said.Appearing at a Día de Muertos celebration at Gracie Mansion on Thursday night, Mr. Adams defended his campaign, saying that he held it “to the highest ethical standards.”He said he had not been contacted by any law enforcement officials, but pledged to cooperate in any inquiry. Mr. Adams said that he returned from Washington to be “on the ground” to “look at this inquiry” as it unfolded.The warrant suggested that some of the foreign campaign contributions were made as part of a straw donor scheme, where donations are made in the names of people who did not actually give money.Investigators sought evidence to support potential charges that included the theft of federal funds and conspiracy to steal federal funds, wire fraud and wire fraud conspiracy, as well as campaign contributions by foreign nationals and conspiracy to make such contributions.Mr. Adams has boasted of his ties to Turkey, most recently during a flag-raising he hosted for the country in Lower Manhattan last week. The mayor said that there were probably no other mayors in New York City history who had visited Turkey as frequently as he has.“I think I’m on my sixth or seventh visit,” he said. At least one of those visits happened while he was Brooklyn borough president, when the government of Turkey underwrote the excursion, The Daily News reported. Ms. Suggs, who could not be reached for comment, is an essential cog in Mr. Adams’s fund-raising machine, which has already raised more than $2.5 million for his 2025 re-election campaign.A person with knowledge of the raid said agents from one of the public corruption squads in the F.B.I.’s New York office questioned Ms. Suggs during the search of her home.An F.B.I. spokesman confirmed that “we are at that location carrying out law enforcement action,” referring to Ms. Suggs’s home in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. The raid of Brianna Suggs’s home, in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, occurred early on Thursday.Stephanie Keith for The New York TimesThe agents also served Ms. Suggs with a subpoena directing her to testify before a federal grand jury hearing evidence in Manhattan.Nicholas Biase, a spokesman for the federal prosecutor’s office in Manhattan, declined to comment.The construction company was identified in the warrant, portions of which were obtained by The Times, as KSK Construction Group in Brooklyn. Individuals who listed their employer as KSK donated nearly $14,000 to Mr. Adams’s 2021 campaign, according to campaign finance records. A person who answered the telephone at the company declined to comment.Charles Kretchmer Lutvak, a spokesman for Mr. Adams, said Ms. Suggs was not an employee of City Hall and referred calls to the mayor’s campaign team.“The campaign has always held itself to the highest standards,” said Vito Pitta, a lawyer for Mr. Adams’s 2021 and 2025 campaigns. “The campaign will of course comply with any inquiries, as appropriate.”Mr. Pitta added: “Mayor Adams has not been contacted as part of this inquiry.”The search warrant sought financial records for Ms. Suggs and any entity controlled or associated with her; documents related to contributions to the mayor’s 2021 campaign; records of travel to Turkey by any employee, officer or associate of the campaign; and documents related to interactions between the campaign and the government of Turkey, “including persons acting at the behest of the Turkish government.”Investigators specified documents relating to Bay Atlantic University, a tiny Turkish-owned institution that opened in Washington, D.C., in 2014. The following year, Mr. Adams visited one of the school’s sister universities in Istanbul, where he was given various certificates and was told that a scholarship would be created in his name.The warrant also sought electronic devices, including cellphones, laptops or tablets used by Ms. Suggs.Ms. Suggs, 25, is the latest in a series of individuals tied to Mr. Adams who have attracted interest from law enforcement, including several connected to the mayor’s fund-raising efforts.In September, Eric Ulrich, Mr. Adams’s former buildings commissioner and senior adviser, was indicted by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, on 16 felony charges, including counts of conspiracy and bribetaking. Mr. Ulrich, as well as three others indicted at the time, helped organize a 2021 fund-raiser for Mr. Adams.In July, Mr. Bragg indicted six individuals, including a retired police inspector who once worked and socialized with Mr. Adams, on charges of conspiring to funnel illegal donations to the mayor’s 2021 campaign.The Department of Investigation is also investigating the role of one of the mayor’s top aides in a violent altercation last month at a migrant center in Manhattan.Mr. Adams has tried to distance himself from these inquiries, arguing that he had limited insight into the events that precipitated them. But the investigation of such a close and longtime adviser might be harder to keep at arm’s length.In the past two years, Mr. Adams’s re-election campaign has paid Ms. Suggs nearly $100,000 for fund-raising and campaign consulting services via her company, Suggs Solutions, according to city records.His first mayoral campaign paid her more than $50,000.Ms. Suggs has also registered as a lobbyist. State records indicate that the East Broadway Mall, a Chinatown real estate concern, hired Ms. Suggs, via an intermediary, to lobby the mayor’s office and the City Council on its behalf in 2022.Ms. Suggs worked as an aide to Mr. Adams when he was Brooklyn borough president, and is particularly close with Ingrid Lewis-Martin, who was his deputy at the time and is currently his top adviser.Ms. Suggs is deeply embedded in outside efforts to advance the mayor’s agenda. A key ally’s political action committee, Striving for a Better New York, which promised to support state candidates aligned with Mr. Adams on policy matters, has paid Ms. Suggs roughly $100,000.Ms. Suggs also lists the Brooklyn Democratic Party, with which Mr. Adams has close ties, as a client on her LinkedIn page.Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, the assemblywoman who leads the Brooklyn party, said Ms. Suggs was a volunteer fund-raiser who mainly handled logistics. She said she was surprised to learn of the F.B.I. raid.“What I know of Brianna Suggs, she’s a bright young lady. I think she’s a very honest person, organized. She’s very mild-mannered, a very professional person,” Ms. Bichotte Hermelyn said. “She knows the rules.”Mr. Adams’s decision to cancel high-level meetings with senior White House officials about an issue that he has warned will hollow out New York’s budget and destroy the city suggested an unusual level of urgency.The White House appeared to have been taken by surprise. The mayor’s office called Thursday morning to inform them of the cancellation, a White House aide said.“I can’t speak to his schedule and why he had to, he could not attend,” said Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary.The mayor was scheduled to meet with representatives from Congress along with the mayor of Chicago, Brandon Johnson, and the mayor of Denver, Mike Johnston.At 7:41 a.m. Thursday, Mr. Adams posted a video on X, formerly known as Twitter, of himself sitting aboard an airplane. He said he was heading to Washington to meet with White House officials and members of the congressional delegation about the migrant crisis, which he described as a “real issue.”The mayor promised to keep the public updated throughout the day, but after he canceled the meetings, officials at City Hall would not explain why. They said the meetings would be rescheduled.By 8 a.m. Thursday, around 10 agents could be seen standing on Ms. Suggs’s block, according to a video of the scene taken by a neighbor and viewed by The New York Times. One agent wore a light green tactical vest with the letters “F.B.I.” stamped on the back. Another official could be seen leaving the apartment with a cardboard box.Ms. Suggs was standing on the stoop with her father as the agents searched her home, according to the neighbor, Christopher Burwell.“Whatever it is, she must have been tricked into it, because she’s a great woman,” Mr. Burwell said. “I’ve known her all my life.”Reporting was contributed by More

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      For Turkey, Erdogan Victory Brings More Risky Economic Policy

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      The Turkish lira has hit a new low, and analysts see few improvements ahead as re-elected President Erdogan pursues unconventional economic policies.Since winning re-election, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey has publicly doubled down on his idiosyncratic economic policies.“If anyone can do this, I can do it,” he declared in a victory speech last Sunday, referring to his ability to solve the country’s calamitous economic problems.His brash confidence is not widely shared by most analysts and economists.The Turkish lira dropped to a record low against the dollar this week, and foreign investors have been disheartened by the president’s refusal to stray from what is widely considered to be an eccentric economic course.Instead of combating dizzying inflation by raising interest rates and making borrowing more expensive — as most economists recommend — Mr. Erdogan has repeatedly lowered rates. He argues that cheap credit will boost manufacturing and exports.But his strategy is also fueling inflation, now running at an annual rate of 44 percent, and eroding the value of the Turkish lira. Attempts by the government to prop up the faltering currency have drained the dwindling pool of foreign reserves.As the lira’s value drops, the price of imported goods — like medicine, energy, fertilizer and automobile parts — rises, making it more expensive for consumers to afford daily costs. And it raises the size of debt payments for businesses and households that have borrowed money from foreign lenders.The national budget is also coming under increasing strains. The destructive earthquakes in February that ripped up swaths of southern Turkey are estimated to have caused more than a billion dollars in damage, roughly 9 percent of the country’s annual economic output.At the same time, Mr. Erdogan went on a pre-election spending spree to attract voters, increasing salaries for public sector workers and payouts for retirees and offering households a month of free natural gas. The expenditures pushed up growth, but economists fear that such outlays will feed inflation.President Erdogan in Istanbul last month. Foreign investors have been disheartened by his refusal to stray from what is widely considered to be an eccentric economic course.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesAn effort to encourage Turks to keep their savings in lira by guaranteeing their balances against currency depreciations further adds to the government’s potential liabilities.Critics of the president’s economic approach were somewhat heartened by reports that Mr. Erdogan is expected this weekend to appoint Mehmet Simsek, a former finance minister and deputy prime minister, to the cabinet. Mr. Simsek is well thought of in financial circles and has previously supported a tighter monetary policy.“What Turkey really needs now is more exports and more foreign direct investment, and for that you have to send a signal,” said Henri Barkey, an international relations professor at Lehigh University. One signal could be Mr. Simsek’s appointment, he said.Mr. Barkey argues that Mr. Erdogan will have no choice but to make a U-turn on policy by winter, when energy import costs rise and some debt payments are due.Others are more skeptical that Mr. Erdogan will back down from his insistence that high interest rates fuel inflation. Kadri Tastan, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund, a public policy think tank based in Brussels, said that regardless of the cabinet’s makeup, he didn’t believe a policy turnaround was imminent.“I’m quite pessimistic about an enormous change, of course,” he said.To deal with the large external deficit and depleted central bank reserves, Mr. Erdogan has been relying on allies like Russia, Qatar and Saudi Arabia to help bolster its reserves by depositing dollars with the central bank or extending payment deadlines and discounts for imported goods like natural gas.In a note to investors this week, Capital Economics wrote that any optimism about a policy shift is likely to be short-lived: “While policymakers like Simsek would probably pursue more restrained fiscal policy than we had envisaged, we doubt Erdogan would give the central bank license to hike policy rates to restore balance to the economy.”Turkey’s more than $900 billion economy makes it the eighth largest in Europe. And Mr. Erdogan’s efforts to position himself as a power broker between Russia and the European allies since the war in Ukraine began has further underscored Turkey’s geopolitical influence.Mr. Erdogan, who has been in power for two decades, built his electoral success on growth-oriented policies that lifted millions of Turks into the middle class. But the pumped-up expansion wasn’t sustainable.As the lira’s value drops, the price of imported goods rises.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesThe borrowing frenzy drove up prices, spurring a cost-of-living crisis. Still, Mr. Erdogan persisted in lowering interest rates and fired central bank chiefs who disagreed with him. The pandemic exacerbated problems by reducing demand for Turkish exports and limiting tourism, a large source of income.Mr. Erdogan is likely to keep up his expansionary policies until the next local elections take place next year. Until then, Hakan Kara, the former chief economist of the Central Bank of Turkey, said the country would probably just “muddle through.”“Turkish authorities will have to make tough decisions after the local elections, as something has to give in eventually,” Mr. Kara said. “Turkey has to either switch back to conventional policies, or further deviate from the free market economy where the central authority manages the economy through micro-control measures.”“In either case,” he added, “the adjustment is likely to be painful.” More

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      Fear Sets In Among Turkey’s L.G.B.T. Community After Erdogan’s Attacks

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      When Yasemin Oz, a lesbian lawyer in Istanbul, heard President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claiming victory after a runoff election on Sunday, she said she feared for the future. In his speech, he declared “family is sacred for us” and insisted that L.G.B.T.Q. people would never “infiltrate” his governing party.They were familiar themes, heard often throughout Mr. Erdogan’s campaign for re-election: He frequently attacked L.G.B.T.Q. people, referring to them as “deviants” and saying they were “spreading like the plague.” But Ms. Oz said she had hoped it was just electioneering to rally the president’s conservative base.“I was already worried about what was to come for us,” said Ms. Oz, 49. But after the speech, she thought, “it will get harsher.”The rights and freedoms of L.G.B.T.Q. citizens became a lightning-rod issue during this year’s election campaign. Mr. Erdogan, facing the greatest political threat of his two decades as the country’s dominant leader and seeking to woo conservatives, repeatedly attacked his opponents for supposedly supporting gay rights. The anti-Erdogan opposition mostly avoided the topic for fear of alienating some of its own voters.That left many L.G.B.T.Q. people fearing that the discrimination they have long faced by the government and conservative parts of society could worsen — and feeling that no one in the country had their backs.“People are scared and having dystopian thoughts like, ‘Are we going to be slashed or violently attacked in the middle of the street?’” said Ogulcan Yediveren, a coordinator at SPoD, an L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy group in Istanbul. “What will happen is that people will hide their identities, and that is bad enough.”Turkey, a predominantly Muslim society with a secular state, does not criminalize homosexuality and has laws against discrimination. But in recent conversations, more than a dozen L.G.B.T.Q. people said they often struggled to find jobs, secure housing and get quality health care as well as to be accepted by their friends, relatives, neighbors and co-workers.Supporters of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan celebrating his victory in Istanbul on Sunday.An aerial view of a mosque and an election poster for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Kayseri, Turkey in April. Turkey is a predominantly Muslim society with a secular state.In recent years, they said, they have encountered new restrictions on their visibility in society. Universities have shut down L.G.B.T.Q. student clubs. And since 2014, the authorities have banned Pride parades in major cities, including in Istanbul, where crowds in the tens of thousands used to participate.That tracks with Mr. Erdogan’s vision for Turkey.Since the start of his national political career in 2003, he has increased his own power while promoting a conservative Muslim view of society. He insists that marriage can only be between a man and a woman, and encourages women to have three children to build the nation.Rights advocates say that as Mr. Erdogan has gained power, his conservative outlook has filtered down, encouraging local authorities to restrict L.G.B.T.Q. activities and pushing the security forces to crack down on gay rights activism.Anti-L.G.B.T.Q. rhetoric was more prominent during this election than in past cycles, even though there are no looming legal changes that would expand or limit rights. No political party is trying to legalize same-sex marriage or adoption, for example, or expand medical care for transgender youth.Instead, Mr. Erdogan and his allies use the issue to galvanize conservatives.“What they want to impose on society in terms of other values is full of hatred and violence toward us,” said Nazlican Dogan, 26, who is facing legal charges related to participation in pro-L.G.B.T.Q. protests at Bogazici University in Istanbul. “It was really ugly and it made us feel that we can’t exist in this country, like I should just leave.”Bambi Ceren, right, and other members of a Pride week organizing committee gather in an apartment in Istanbul.Nazlican Dogan, who is facing legal charges related to pro-L.G.B.T.Q. protests at a university, in Istanbul last week.During his campaign, Mr. Erdogan characterized L.G.B.T.Q. people as a threat to society.“If the concept of family is not strong, the destruction of the nation happens quickly,” he told young people during a televised meeting in early May. “L.G.B.T. is a poison injected into the institution of the family. It is not possible for us to accept that poison as a country whose people are 99 percent Muslim.”In April, his interior minister, Suleyman Soylu, went even further, falsely claiming that gay rights would allow humans to marry animals.SPoD, the advocacy group, asked parliamentary candidates during the campaign to sign a contract to protect L.G.B.T.Q. rights. Fifty-eight candidates signed, and 11 of them won seats in the 600-member legislature, said Mr. Yediveren, the coordinator.His group has also tried to expand legal protections for L.G.B.T.Q. people.While certain laws prohibit discrimination, they do not specifically mention sexual identity or orientation, he said. At the same time, the authorities often cite vague concepts like “general morals” and “public order” to act against activities they don’t like, such as Pride week events.“This week is very important because we don’t have physical locations we can come together as a community to support each other,” said Bambi Ceren, 34, a member of a committee planning events for this year’s Pride week, which begins on June 19.A drag performer who uses the stage name Florence Konstantina Delight at a club in Istanbul.People socialize at Ziba, a gay-friendly bar in Istanbul.Last year, the police prevented Pride events and arrested people who gathered to take part, committee members said.SPoD runs a national hotline to field queries about sexual orientation, legal protections or how to access medical care or other services. The group can solve most issues related to services, Mr. Yediveren said, but most callers’ problems are social and emotional.“People are feeling very lonely and isolated,” he said.Transgender individuals struggle to find jobs, housing and proper medication and care. And gay men and lesbians are sometimes forced into heterosexual marriages and fear coming out to their families and co-workers.Worrying about, “‘Will I be caught one day?’ causes a lot of stress for them,” Mr. Yediveren said.And the threat of violence is real.Some L.G.B.T.Q. people said they had been beaten by the security forces during protests or met with indifference from the police while being harassed on the street.A survey last year by ILGA-Europe, a rights organization, ranked Turkey second-to-last out of 49 European countries on L.G.B.T.Q. rights. Another group, Transgender Europe, said that 62 transgender people had been killed in Turkey between 2008 and 2022.Many L.G.B.T.Q. people fear that the demonization during the campaign will make that threat more acute.A queer university student from Turkey’s Kurdish minority, who grew up in a smaller city with no significant L.G.B.T.Q. presence, said she feared that bad days were ahead.Members of a Pride week organizing committee spraying graffiti in Istanbul.Berat, an openly gay architecture student, works as a hairdresser in Istanbul.People who would not normally commit violence might feel empowered to do so because the government had spread hatred for people like her, she said, claiming they were sick, dangerous or a threat to the family. She spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of being attacked.Despite the increased danger, many L.G.B.T.Q. people vowed to keep fighting for their rights and maintaining their visibility in society. To deal with the fear of random attacks, they plan to look out for each other more to ensure they are safe.In Istanbul, a 25-year-old drag performer who goes by the stage name Florence Konstantina Delight and uses gender-neutral pronouns called the new attention unsettling.“In the whole history of queer life in Turkey, we could never be that visible,” they said in an interview. “But because of the election, everyone was talking about us.”They described growing up in Turkey as “full of abuse, full of denial, full of teachers ignoring your existence and what happened to you, like your pals bullying you.”At age 16, Florence accepted their sexual identity, attended a Pride parade and set up a Facebook account with a fake name to contact L.G.B.T.Q. organizations and make friends, eventually stumbling upon someone at the same high school.They later moved to Istanbul, where they perform weekly at a rare L.G.B.T.Q.-friendly bar.Mr. Erdogan’s win on Sunday caused Florence despair.“I stared into space for a while,” they said.A woman dancing at a lesbian bar in Istanbul in front of an image of Kemal Kılıcdaroglu, who lost to Mr. Erdogan in the presidential election. 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      Las elecciones presidenciales de Turquía en cinco puntos clave

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      Las crisis, incluidos los terremotos y la inflación, no impidieron la reelección de Recep Tayyip Erdogan. La votación se consideró libre, pero no justa, ya que Erdogan utilizó su poder para inclinar la balanza.ESTAMBUL — La reelección del presidente Recep Tayyip Erdogan le ha otorgado cinco años más para profundizar su impronta conservadora en la sociedad turca y hacer realidad su ambición de aumentar el poder económico y geopolítico del país.El Consejo Supremo Electoral de Turquía nombró a Erdogan vencedor después de una segunda vuelta electoral el domingo 28 de mayo. Ganó el 52,1 por ciento de los votos contra el candidato de la oposición, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, quien obtuvo el 47,9 por ciento con casi todos los votos escrutados, dijo el consejo.Las elecciones fueron seguidas de cerca por los aliados de Turquía en la OTAN, incluido Estados Unidos, que a menudo ha visto a Erdogan como un socio frustrante debido a su retórica antioccidental y sus estrechos vínculos con el presidente de Rusia, Vladimir Putin, los cuales han crecido desde la invasión rusa a Ucrania.Erdogan no ha dado indicios de que planee cambiar su política exterior, en la que ha buscado utilizar la ubicación de Turquía en la confluencia de Europa, Asia y Medio Oriente para expandir su influencia, o a nivel nacional, donde ha consolidado el poder en sus manos y respondió a una crisis inflacionaria con medidas poco convencionales que, según los economistas, exacerbaron el problema.En las elecciones lo desafió una oposición recientemente unida que calificó la votación como un momento decisivo para la democracia turca. El candidato de la oposición, Kilicdaroglu, se postuló como una figura anti-Erdogan y prometió restaurar las libertades civiles y mejorar los vínculos con Occidente. Se presentó a sí mismo como un candidato más en contacto con las luchas del ciudadano común.A continuación, algunas conclusiones:Las crisis perjudicaron, pero no abatieron a ErdoganEl candidato de la oposición, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a la derecha en esta pancarta en Estambul, se presentó como una figura anti-Erdogan.Sergey Ponomarev para The New York TimesEstas fueron las elecciones más desafiantes de los 20 años de Erdogan como el político más prominente de Turquía, como primer ministro desde 2003 y como presidente desde 2014. Antes de la votación, la mayoría de las encuestas apuntaban a una contienda reñida con Kilicdaroglu a la cabeza.Los analistas citaron varias razones por las que Erdogan podría tener problemas. La indignación por una dolorosa crisis del costo de vida puso a algunos votantes en su contra. Los fuertes terremotos de febrero acabaron con la vida de más de 50.000 personas y dañaron cientos de edificios en el sur de Turquía. Muchos sobrevivientes del terremoto se quejaron de la lenta respuesta inicial del gobierno, mientras que la destrucción planteó dudas sobre si la prisa de Erdogan por desarrollar el país había fomentado una construcción insegura.La oposición históricamente dividida de Turquía dejó de lado sus diferencias para unirse en apoyo a Kilicdaroglu y alegó que se requería un cambio para detener la caída del país hacia la autocracia.Pero Erdogan prevaleció, gracias al ferviente apoyo de una parte importante de la población y sus habilidades como político en campaña. Los conservadores religiosos que aprecian su expansión del papel del islam en la vida pública lo apoyaron e incluso muchos de los turcos indignados por la inflación afirmaron que no creían que la oposición pudiera gobernar mejor.El terremoto no tuvo un gran impacto sobre las eleccionesPersonas haciendo fila para la distribución de suministros tras los terremotos que sacudieron la ciudad de Antioquía, en febrero. La participación en las elecciones en las zonas afectadas por el sismo fue sorprendentemente alta.Sergey Ponomarev para The New York TimesErdogan llegó al poder hace 20 años en medio de la indignación por la desastrosa respuesta del gobierno a un terremoto cerca de Estambul en 1999 en el que murieron más de 17.000 personas. Es por eso que muchos esperaban que el terremoto de este año también perjudicara sus posibilidades.Pero hay pocos indicios de que eso haya sucedido.Erdogan salió victorioso en ocho de las 11 provincias afectadas por el terremoto de febrero. A su partido, el gobernante Partido de la Justicia y el Desarrollo, y a sus aliados políticos les fue incluso mejor, pues ganaron la mayoría de los votos en las elecciones parlamentarias simultáneas en todas menos una de las provincias afectadas por el terremoto.La participación en la zona del terremoto también fue alta, a pesar de las preocupaciones de que muchos votantes desplazados por la destrucción tendrían dificultades para regresar a casa, como se requería, para emitir sus votos. Aunque la participación en las 11 provincias afectadas por el terremoto fue inferior al 88,9 por ciento de los votantes aptos que emitieron su voto a nivel nacional, en ninguna de esas provincias la participación fue menor del 80 por ciento.Entrevistas con sobrevivientes del terremoto indicaron muchas razones por las que el desastre no había cambiado su perspectiva política. Algunos describieron el terremoto como un acto de Dios al que cualquier gobierno habría tenido problemas para responder. Otros cuyas casas fueron destruidas dijeron que tenían más fe en Erdogan para reconstruir las zonas afectadas que en su rival.Las advertencias sobre el terrorismo resonaron en los votantesSimpatizantes de Erdogan en Estambul el domingo. Erdogan hizo de la oposición a los militantes kurdos un tema clave de su campañaSergey Ponomarev para The New York TimesErdogan socavó a la oposición al retratar a sus líderes como débiles e incompetentes, pero una línea de ataque resultó ser especialmente potente: las acusaciones de que serían blandos con el terrorismo.El mandatario planteó esta idea a los votantes en diversas ocasiones, argumentando que la oposición había recibido el apoyo del principal partido prokurdo de Turquía. A menudo, el gobierno acusa a ese partido de colaborar con militantes de la minoría kurda de Turquía, quienes, buscando autonomía, han estado en guerra con el Estado turco por décadas.Erdogan llegó incluso a transmitir videos manipulados en sus mítines para mostrar a los líderes militantes cantando la canción de campaña de Kilicdaroglu. Muchos votantes le creyeron y dijeron en entrevistas que no confiaban en la oposición para mantener la seguridad del país.El voto fue libre pero no justoRecuento de votos en Estambul el domingo. El contrincante de la oposición no impugnó el recuento, pero dijo que la elección en general fue injusta.Sergey Ponomarev para The New York TimesLos observadores internacionales no reportaron problemas a gran escala con el proceso de recolección y conteo de votos, considerando el proceso libre.Sin embargo, señalaron las enormes ventajas que tenía Erdogan antes de que comenzara la votación, incluida su capacidad para liberar miles de millones de dólares en gastos estatales para tratar de compensar los efectos negativos de la inflación y otras tensiones económicas y la cobertura mediática abundante y positiva que recibió del canal financiado por el Estado.En las últimas horas del domingo, Kilicdaroglu no cuestionó el recuento de votos, pero les dijo a sus seguidores que las elecciones en general habían sido “uno de los procesos electorales más injustos de los últimos años”.Muchos en la oposición temen que la contienda reñida impulse a Erdogan a tomar medidas más agresivas contra sus oponentes políticos para evitar un reto así de difícil en el futuro.Erdogan ahora debe abordar los problemas económicosTurquía ha recurrido a sus reservas de divisas extranjeras mientras intenta estabilizar su propia moneda.Sergey Ponomarev para The New York TimesLos economistas advirtieron que Erdogan recurrió a tácticas costosas a corto plazo para aislar a los votantes de la inflación y evitar que el valor de la moneda nacional se hundiera aún más. Pero no puede seguir haciendo eso para siempre.Las reservas de divisas extranjeras han disminuido drásticamente, lo que significa que el país podría perder su capacidad para pagarles a los acreedores extranjeros. Y, debido a que gran parte de ese dinero se ha gastado para mantener estable la moneda turca, su valor podría desplomarse cuando se detenga ese gasto.Erdogan no dio indicios durante su campaña de que planeara modificar sus políticas económicas, a pesar de una inflación obstinadamente alta de dos dígitos que, según los economistas, se ha visto exacerbada por su insistencia en bajar las tasas de interés en lugar de incrementarlas para combatir la inflación, como recomienda la economía ortodoxa.Es por eso que, independientemente de las medidas que a Erdogan le gustaría priorizar al comienzo de su nuevo mandato, es probable que los riesgos de una crisis monetaria o una recesión exijan su atención.Gulsin Harman More

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      Turkey’s Election Is a Warning About Trump

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      “The totalitarian phenomenon,” the French philosopher Jean-François Revel once noted, “is not to be understood without making an allowance for the thesis that some important part of every society consists of people who actively want tyranny: either to exercise it themselves or — much more mysteriously — to submit to it.”It’s an observation that should help guide our thinking about the re-election this week of Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey. And it should serve as a warning about other places — including the Republican Party — where autocratic leaders, seemingly incompetent in many respects, are returning to power through democratic means.That’s not quite the way Erdogan’s close-but-comfortable victory in Sunday’s runoff over the former civil servant Kemal Kilicdaroglu is being described in many analyses. The president, they say, has spent 20 years in power tilting every conceivable scale in his favor.Erdogan has used regulatory means and abused the criminal-justice system to effectively control the news media. He has exercised his presidential power to deliver subsidies, tax cuts, cheap loans and other handouts to favored constituencies. He has sought to criminalize an opposition party on specious grounds of links to terrorist groups. In December, a Turkish court effectively barred Erdogan’s most serious prospective rival, Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu of Istanbul, from politics by sentencing him to prison on charges of insulting public officials.Then, too, Kilicdaroglu was widely seen as a colorless and inept politician, promising a return to a status quo ante that many Turks remember, with no fondness, as a time of regular economic crises and a kind of repressive secularism.All of this is true, as far as it goes, and it helps underscore the worldwide phenomenon of what Fareed Zakaria aptly calls “free and unfair elections.” But it doesn’t go far enough.Turkey under Erdogan is in a dreadful state and has been for a long time. Inflation last year hit 85 percent and is still running north of 40 percent, thanks to Erdogan’s insistence on cutting interest rates in the teeth of rising prices. He has used a series of show trials — some based in fact, others pure fantasy — to eviscerate civil freedoms. February’s earthquakes, which took an estimated 50,000 lives and injured twice as many, were badly handled by the government and exposed the corruption of a system that cared more for patronage networks than for well-built buildings.Under normal political expectations, Erdogan should have paid the political price with a crushing electoral defeat. Not only did he survive, he increased his vote share in some of the towns worst hit by, and most neglected after, the earthquakes. “We love him,” explained a resident quoted in The Economist. “For the call to prayer, for our homes, for our headscarves.”That last line is telling, and not just because it gets to the importance of Erdogan’s Islamism as the secret of his success. It’s a rebuke to James Carville’s parochially American slogan, “It’s the economy, stupid.” Actually, no: It’s also God, tradition, values, identity, culture and the resentments that go with each. Only a denuded secular imagination fails to notice that there are things people care about more than their paychecks.There is also the matter of power. The classically liberal political tradition is based on the suspicion of power. The illiberal tradition is based on the exaltation of it. Erdogan, as the tribune of the Turkish Everyman, built himself an aesthetically grotesque, 1,100-room presidential palace for $615 million. Far from scandalizing his supporters, it seems to have delighted them. In it, they see not a sign of extravagance or waste, but the importance of the man and the movement to which they attach themselves and submit.All this is a reminder that political signals are often transmitted at frequencies that liberal ears have trouble hearing, much less decoding. To wonder how Erdogan could possibly be re-elected after so thoroughly wrecking his country’s economy and its institutions is akin to wondering how Vladimir Putin appears to retain considerable domestic support in the wake of his Ukraine debacle. Maybe what some critical mass of ordinary Russians want, at least at some subconscious level, isn’t an easy victory. It’s a unifying ordeal.Which brings us to another would-be strongman in his palace in Palm Beach. In November, I was sure that Donald Trump was, as I wrote, “finally finished.” How could any but his most slavish followers continue to support him after he had once again cost Republicans the Senate? Wouldn’t this latest proof of losing be the last straw for devotees who had been promised “so much winning”?Silly me. The Trump movement isn’t built on the prospect of winning. It’s built on a sense of belonging: of being heard and seen; of being a thorn in the side to those you sense despise you and whom you despise in turn; of submission for the sake of representation. All the rest — victory or defeat, prosperity or misery — is details.Erdogan defied expectation because he understood this. He won’t be the last populist leader to do so.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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      Erdogan Pushed to Victory in Turkey by Conservative Women

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      In winning another term as Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan was propelled to victory in part by the fervent support of an often underappreciated constituency — conservative religious women.Ten years ago, Emine Kilic, was focused on raising her two children at home in Istanbul when she decided to set up her own clothing company to help support her family.Her business, started with an interest-free government-backed loan for female entrepreneurs, now employs 60 people and exports to 15 countries, said Ms. Kilic, who has an elementary-school education. She credited a powerful motivator who inspired her to transform her life — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — calling him a champion for women.“Thanks to my president, I became the boss of my own company,” said Ms. Kilic, 38. She said she had voted for him for years and did so again to help him secure another presidential term on Sunday.To beat back the most serious political threat to his two-decade tenure as Turkey’s dominant politician, Mr. Erdogan counted on the fervent support of an often underappreciated constituency: conservative religious women.Across Turkey, devout women, both professionals and those who don’t work outside the home, not only turned out to vote for Mr. Erdogan in large numbers, but also coaxed their friends and relatives to do the same. Women are also active across the country in his governing Justice and Development Party, ranging from activists who spread party messages among their neighbors over tea to the dozens of women who represent the party in Parliament.Since arriving on the national stage in 2003 as an ambitious Islamist politician, Mr. Erdogan has sidelined Turkey’s secular elites.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesUniting these women and Mr. Erdogan is a shared conservative Muslim view of female roles in Turkish society, first as mothers and wives, second as members of the work force. In a staunchly secular country where women who covered their hair were long barred from universities and government jobs, many devout women view Mr. Erdogan as their protector because he pushed to loosen those rules.“Voting in Turkey, especially for our community, is not only about electing someone. It is making a decision about your life,” said Ozlem Zengin, a lawmaker and senior female member of Mr. Erdogan’s party.For many conservative women, the bitterness of having their ambitions limited by public expressions of their faith runs deep, even affecting the children of those who lived through it, she said. That resentment also fuels the tremendous gratitude toward Mr. Erdogan.“Erdogan is loved that much, because he changed people’s lives,” Ms. Zengin said.The electricity between Mr. Erdogan and his female supporters coursed through an Istanbul conference hall during a women’s rally two days before the May 28 runoff. Thousands of women, some with babies or children in tow, packed the hall, clapping and waiving their arms to campaign anthems and holding up their cellphone flashlights to welcome him onstage.“Women are the most important heroes in our struggle to serve the country,” Mr. Erdogan said, to rapturous applause.“Women are with you!” the crowd at a campaign rally chanted to Mr. Erdogan.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesHe reminded his audience that he had delivered on conservative causes, lifting head scarf bans and turning the Hagia Sofia, one of Turkey’s architectural treasures, from a museum into a mosque. And he made a new promise to seek retirement pay for women who do not work outside the home, garnering more cheers.“We will burst the ballot boxes,” Mr. Erdogan said. “Don’t just go by yourself. You must make sure your families, neighbors and distant relatives also go to the ballot box.”“The women are with you!” the crowd chanted.Mr. Erdogan’s loyal following among conservatives is rooted in Turkey’s history.Though a predominantly Muslim society, the country was founded in 1923 as a secular state. That gave the government oversight of religious institutions and the power to keep open displays of religiosity out of the public sphere.Some Turks treasure that secularism as a founding pillar of the republic. But it rankled many devout people, including women who felt that it made them second-class citizens. Some women had to remove their veils to attend university. Others wore wigs.In a staunchly secular country where women who covered their hair were long barred from universities and government jobs, many devout women view Mr. Erdogan as their protector.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesMs. Zengin, the lawmaker, said she had worked as a lawyer for 20 years without being allowed to even enter the courtroom because she covered her hair.“If you were a defendant or an aggrieved party, you could enter the courtroom, but not as a lawyer,” she said. “It was incomprehensible.”Since Mr. Erdogan arrived on the national stage in 2003 as an ambitious Islamist politician, he has sidelined Turkey’s secular elites and consolidated more power in his own hands. Along the way, he pushed to loosen head scarf restrictions.The restrictions were lifted on university campuses in 2008, and in 2013 four veiled women from Mr. Erdogan’s party became Parliament members, a first. Now, there are many more, and conservatives still thank Mr. Erdogan with their votes.“I feel like I have a debt to him,” said Eda Yurtseven, a kindergarten teacher. “I owe him a lot because now I can live freely.”Mr. Erdogan’s vision of the family remains conservative, holding sacrosanct the notion of marriage being only between a man and a woman, preferably with three children. His idea of personal freedom leaves little room for L.G.B.T.Q. people in Turkey.“We believe the family is sacred,” he said during the women’s rally. “We must take precautions now against these trends that are spreading like the plague.”Turkey’s Constitution grants equal rights to men and women, and its labor code bars gender-based discrimination. But women still earn 15.6 percent less than men on average, according to a United Nations report last year.Mr. Erdogan’s foes say he has acquired too much power and accuse him of pushing the country toward one-man rule.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesIn 2021, Mr. Erdogan shocked rights groups by withdrawing Turkey from an international treaty on preventing violence against women that he had signed in 2011. Women’s advocates consider the country’s domestic violence laws strong but say that physical and sexual abuse against women remains common and often goes unreported or is not properly investigated by the authorities.Female political representation has increased during Mr. Erdogan’s tenure, and women won about 120 seats in the 600-member Parliament in this month’s election. Still, the United Nations report said, most women work in campaigning, communications or support roles, not in high-level decision making.Mr. Erdogan has been a pioneer in tapping the power of devout, conservative women in grass-roots politics in Turkey, said Nur Sinem Kourou, a professor at Istanbul Kultur University who has studied his party’s women’s groups. Many work in their neighborhoods, she said, spreading party views through informal meetings or religious activities while gathering information to feed back to the party.“The fact that the women’s branches are on the ground every week, every day means that they analyze society very well,” Ms. Kourou said. “That data leads back to Erdogan’s speeches on TV.”Those activists remain fiercely loyal to Mr. Erdogan and consider him key to Turkey’s future, she added.“We have to protect him,” Ms. Kourou said, summarizing their views. “Erdogan protects us.”That bond means that Mr. Erdogan’s staunchest female supporters tend to give him a pass on the country’s problems, including a painful cost-of-living crisis, blaming instead other members of his party or foreign powers.Woman at a meeting of Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party in Istanbul. He pushed to loosen head scarf restrictions.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesMr. Erdogan’s foes say he has acquired too much power and accuse him of pushing the country toward one-man rule. But his vast control does not bother his loyalists. On the contrary, they say he needs it to do his job.Mina Murat, 26, said she voted for Mr. Erdogan and his party because they protected her right to cover her hair.“My teacher used to wear a wig over her head scarf in school,” she recalled. “Women couldn’t attend college and couldn’t get government jobs because of their head scarves.”Now, Ms. Murat works in a clothing store geared toward conservative women, with head scarves in a vast array of colors and patterns.“Now we can dress fashionably and conservatively,” she said. 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