Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned his conservative supporters yesterday that they could face reprisals should his secular rival rise to power in momentous weekend polls.
Erdogan has been trying to rally his base ahead of elections tomorrow that put his style of rule in the largest Muslim-majority member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) on the line.
Opinion surveys show challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu with a slight advantage and within a whisker of breaking the 50% threshold needed to avoid a runoff on May 28.
The opposition was helped by the withdrawal of a third-party candidate on Thursday who was hurting Kilicdaroglu’s efforts to hand the Turkish leader his first national electoral defeat.
Erdogan was uncharacteristically coy about making predictions about the outcome of Turkiye’s most consequential election of modern times.
“The ballot box will tell us (tomorrow),” he said in response to a direct question from a TV presenter about whether he will be victorious.
The 69-year-old tried to raise the stakes for his faithful during a rally in a conservative Istanbul district that forms one of the hotbeds of his support.
He warned that Kilicdaroglu’s opposition alliance was driven by “vengeance and greed”.
“Do not forget,” he told the crowd. “You may pay a heavy price if we lose.”
He later added that Western governments were using the opposition to impose their will on how Turkish society worked.
“Hey, the West, it’s my nation that decides!” he cried.
The message appeared to resonate with religious voters such as Sennur Henek.
“Erdogan is our chief and we are his soldiers,” the veiled 48-year-old said.
However, Erdogan’s other daily speeches hint at a growing realisation that he might not be able to pull out one of his trademark come-from-behind wins.
The Turkish leader has been slowly losing support from key segments of the population that rallied around him during a more prosperous decade that followed his rise in 2003.
Some polls show young people who have known no other leader supporting Erdogan’s rival by a two-to-one margin.
Kurds who once put trust in his efforts to end their cultural persecution are now also overwhelmingly backing Kilicdaroglu’s campaign. – AFP