President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s rhetoric, more rancorous than any he has used in the past, reflects the pressures and peril of an election unlike any other he has faced during his two decades at Turkey’s helm, observers said.
His rhetoric, more rancorous than any he has used in the past, reflects the pressures and peril of an election unlike any other he has faced during his two decades at Turkey’s helm, observers said.Kemal Kilicdaroglu
It ensured that Erdogan received the lion’s share of blame for national crises, including a years-long economic downturn that voters now say is their primary concern. And it helped unite a previously divided and moribund opposition movement that banded together in alarm at Erdogan’s accumulation of power.“He changed the nature of the political regime,” said Mesut Yegen, a researcher at the Reform Institute, an Istanbul think tank.
Erdogan has seized on the HDP’s support for his challenger, which could deliver millions of votes to Kilicdaroglu, to accuse the opposition of links to a banned Kurdish group. Erdogan has ruled Turkey since 2003, first as prime minister and later as president. Until a little more than a decade ago, his campaign rhetoric was
Erdogan has tried to address such concerns with a wave of public spending in the months before the election and the announcement of populist measures in recent weeks, including significant pay raises for public workers and the provision of free gas.
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