Millions of Turks will head to the polls on Sunday to cast their ballots for a new parliament and president. The twin elections are the most closely watched and consequential since the country voted for a new civilian government in 1983 after the generals decided to hand back power. Today, that picture has been turned on its head.
A democratically elected government led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has brought Turkey closer to the tightfisted rule of the junta than any of its predecessors in a downward spiral accelerated by the single-man system rammed through in a controversial referendum in 2017 that scrapped its parliamentary one.
The contest is being cast in apocalyptic terms as a fight between freedom and dictatorship, between recovery and economic ruin. As of today, some respectable pollsters show the main opposition’s presidential candidate, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leading Erdogan by as much as five percentage points. That is a broad enough margin to keep Erdogan from refusing to concede or resorting to fraud.
However, a third contender, Sinan Ogan, who remains in the contest even after fellow spoiler Muharrem Ince pulled out at the last minute, could force a runoff that would take place on May 28. What might happen in the interregnum? Will the Erdogan camp instigate the sort of violence that could cow voters into sticking with the devil they know? Will civil militias rumored to have been formed for just this moment step into the fray?
