Elections in Pakistan have been made a matter of life and death. According to the constitution, new elections should be held within ninety days after the dissolution of the elected assemblies and elected governments of the two provinces, but the heat of political disagreement between the government and the opposition has turned into enmity. And then, as the interests of defense agencies have also joined the fray, it has made a simple issue of elections so complicated that there seems to be no end in sight.
Seeing the continuous delay tactics of the government and the Election Commission on the issue of elections, the Supreme Court had set the date of May 14 for the new general elections of the Provincial Assembly in Punjab with an affirmative order. Far away, signs of the provincial election and the order of the Supreme Court are not being followed in Punjab. But contrary to this, presidential and parliamentary elections are going to be held on Sunday, May 14 in the brotherly Muslim country of Turkey as per schedule despite devastation earthquake a few months back.
These elections are of great importance because this time the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has been in power for 21 years, is facing a major challenge in his political career for the first time. The May 14 election will set a clear direction as to what role and place Erdogan will play in Turkey’s future political landscape, whether he will be out of the game altogether. Or his role will remain to some extent in the future too.
Turkey has a proportional representation system for elections. Under which any candidate must get fifty percent or more votes to win the presidential election, if a candidate succeeds in getting more than fifty percent votes, then his victory is declared. But if no candidate gets 50% of the votes, then the first and second ranked candidates compete in the second phase of the election. This time, the date for the expected second phase is May 28. If no candidate gets fifty percent or more votes in the first phase on May 14, then the first and second candidates will contest in the second phase on May 28.
The preparations for the elections are complete and the election campaign is also reaching its climax, while 1.76 Turkish citizens living in different countries of the world have also cast their votes through postal ballots, whose ballot papers have been delivered to Turkey under the relevant protocol.This time About two dozen parties are participating in this election, but the real competition in the presidential election is expected between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the joint candidate of the six-party alliance, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is a visionary, resourceful and well-organized leader of modern Turkey. He is not only popular in Turkey, but Muslims around the world also hold him dearly for raising his voice on the common problems of the Muslim Ummah according to the aspirations of a common Muslim. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan entered Turkish politics in the 1980s when Turkey was among the third world countries suffering from indebtedness, economic depression and political instability. Not only this, Turkey was also largely cut off from the Muslim world under the rule of the Turkish army, which was the guardian of Kemalism constitutionally.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan entered the political arena under the tutelage of his political guru and the main leader of the Islamist movement in Turkey, Najmuddin Erbakan. Erbakan’s party won the elections in the nineties and established a coalition government, but the Turkish army ended his government after a year. Even before this, Arbakan had faced many restrictions and difficulties in his political career.
In the year 2001, after learning from the previous bitter experiences, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan separated from Najmuddin Erbakan and formed his own party with the name of Adl and Development Party (the Turkish abbreviation of which is Aq Party) along with his colleague Abdullah Gul. He turned the political struggle towards development and justice only.
In 1994, Erdoğan was elected as the mayor of Istanbul. Before his mayorship, the historical city like Istanbul, which is called the cultural capital of the international and Islamic world, was suffering from municipal problems such as sanitation and water shortage, but despite all the difficulties, Erdoğan managed to make Istanbul such a city with his good tact as a mayor. This performance made Erdoğan popular all over the country, but in 1997, he was disqualified and thrown in jail for reciting an Islamic poem in a rally and was also deposed from the mayorship.
In 2001, Erdoğan, with his new party, participated in election but he himself could not be a candidate due to the same poem case. However, in this election, the AQ Party gained a clear majority and paved the way for Erdoğan to reach the parliament. In 2003, Erdogan was elected Prime Minister of Turkey. Since then, in a period of nearly twenty years, Erdoğan has lifted Turkey from the level of the country suffering from the worst recession to one of the most important and stable economies in the world with continuous hard work and prudence. Apart from this, the religious restrictions that were imposed under the oppression and Kemalism, Erdoğan clearly reduced them with great wisdom. And at the same time, the constitutional role of the army in power and politics was also put to end. Today, Turkey’s defense production ranges from tanks to drones and holds an important position in the world.
Despite all these achievements of Erdoğan, his popularity graph in Turkey is continuously decreasing and he is facing the toughest challenge to win the trust of the voters and win over the hard-liner Kemalist opposition candidate Kamal Qalishdar Olu. The question is, why is this and why do Turkish voters want ‘change’? A clear majority of those who want change are the young generation. 60 million young people registered in this election, who will cast their first vote for the first time, and all such young people have slogans of change on their lips.
So far, the pre-poll polls and the surveys of various organizations show the superiority of the opposition alliance over Erdoğan. The situation is that it looks like the President will be decided in the first phase and the matter will not go to the second phase as a result of the clear lead of the candidate of the opposition alliance. Turkish sources even say that Erdoğan’s victory can only be achieved through a miracle, other than that the scope of his victory is very narrow.
Why are the Turkish people so fed up with Erdoğan? In response to this question, what has emerged in the light of the statements and accusations of the leaders of the opposition coalition is that the majority of the Turkish people are against Erdogan’s policy of pro-immigration and granting Turkish citizenship to foreigners on a large scale. According to them, due to this policy, Turkish citizens are facing various social problems and employment problems have also arisen for Turkish citizens, which is why one of the big promises of the opposition coalition is that they will enforce strict laws against immigrants and foreigners.
In addition, a large number of Turkish people are not liking Erdoğan’s confrontation with Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran. A major problem that the opposition has also highlighted is that Erdoğan has established a dictatorship and is on the path of suppressing every dissenting voice with state power. There are some other problems too, but the biggest problem is actually that the large number of people who want change, i.e., the youth, are comparing Erdogan to Erdogan himself. They have not seen the conditions of Turkey before Erdoğan.In front of them, Erdoğan is the reference to the identity of Turkey, so they see Erdoğan’s performance in the mirror of his first period’s performance, then they see economic deterioration, devaluation of the lira, dictatorship, etc., so they Now have decided to bring change.
Pre-poll predictions so far are going against Recep Tayyip Erdogan. But finally, it will be known on the evening of Sunday, May 14th that where Turkey is going. If Erdogan is removed from the game, the unstable Turkey of 21 years ago comes to the fore. In the case of Erdoğan’s defeat, will Turkey go back to the position of twenty-one years ago in terms of ideology and politics? There’s only a short time left to see it!
