Türkiye managed well without coalition governments typical in its brief democratic history for over two decades. The Justice and Development Party (AK Party) under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has yet to taste defeat so far. The May 14 elections will either change it or cement Erdoğan’s place in the history of the Republic of Türkiye as one of the longest-serving politicians holding high offices.
This is also the first election since Türkiye held its first multiparty elections (again on another May 14, some 73 years ago) in which such a high number of alliances will compete. Although the partnerships were born out of necessity for the opposition, which repeatedly failed against Erdoğan and the AK Party, the AK Party has also found new allies in its People’s Alliance over the years. Unlike the opposition alliance, whose sole aim is to end the lengthy AK Party governance, the People’s Alliance claims its unity is for the sake of unity itself for Türkiye’s interests.
Erdoğan is running as the presidential candidate for the People’s Alliance, or “Cumhur İttifakı” as it is known in Turkish. “Cumhur” here is derived from “cumhurbaşkanı,” or "president of people" in Turkish, and refers to the formal title of the president.
The 69-year-old leader, hailing from a family originally from the Black Sea region in the north, was born in Istanbul, where he grew up in a working-class neighborhood, the son of parents with modest means. Drawn to politics in his formative years, Erdoğan was an active member of a nationalist students’ union. His oratory skills and devotion endeared Erdoğan to the National View movement of Necmettin Erbakan, a politician who served as prime minister in coalition governments and leader of different parties with a conservative base.
The charismatic local politician was picked as a candidate to run the municipality of the city. He was supported by Erbakan’s Welfare Party (RP) in 1994. An unprecedented victory in which he won over 25% of the vote against candidates of left-wing and right-wing parties, which long dominated Istanbul politics, was the first step to making Erdoğan a household name. However, his job was difficult: improving the state of Türkiye’s most populated city, which faced myriad problems from the legacy of past administrations, such as chronic water shortages. His accomplishments in the office helped his popularity rise but Erdoğan, for his opponents, was still an “Islamist with a hidden agenda.” At a time the government faced a coup by a powerful military irked by Erbakan’s “reactionary” ideology, an innocuous poem with such “reactionary” undertones landed Erdoğan in jail in 1999, two years after he recited “Soldier’s Prayer” by prominent Turkish nationalist Ziya Gökalp to an emotional crowd. He served a four-month stint in prison but lost his job as Istanbul’s mayor.
Undaunted, Erdoğan continued his political career in a post-coup environment, joining fellow politicians planning to establish a new “conservative democracy” movement. The movement, the brainchild of Erdoğan and others from National View and Erbakan’s parties and people alienated by post-coup politics, evolved into the AK Party.
Under Erdoğan, the AK Party gained a parliamentary majority in the 2002 elections by winning more than 34% of the vote, a surprising result for a party new to the political scene. Erdoğan was subject to a political ban due to his past prison sentence and handed over the duty of founding the government to Abdullah Gül, who later would be his predecessor as president. An amendment in legal regulations that enforced his political ban paved the way for Erdoğan to be elected to Parliament. In 2003, Gül handed over the post of prime minister to Erdoğan, initiating the lengthy tenure of Erdoğan in the top offices of the state of Türkiye.
Erdoğan led the AK Party to more victories in local and general elections in the ensuing years. He also has the coveted title of becoming the first president directly elected by the public in 2014. Previously, the post of the Presidency has been largely ceremonial. Erdoğan’s Presidency was still ceremonial, but this also changed after a 2017 referendum saw Erdoğan winning public approval for a switch to an executive presidency. In 2018, he added another title ahead of his name: the first president of the administrative presidency system.
He is a formidable rival to presidential contenders who are not as seasoned as Erdoğan, who survived a coup attempt, and multiple attempts to close down his party. He now hopes to succeed again against opposition as united as ever.
Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu is the main challenger of Erdoğan. The 74-year-old leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) is the oldest candidate and desperately seeks to draw younger votes with his social media videos. A former bureaucrat who is mocked by Erdoğan for ruining the social security agency he headed for years, Kılıçdaroğlu did not see any success at all in politics, except for succeeding the late Deniz Baykal in 2010 as leader of the CHP. He is relatively new to the upper echelons of politics and was elected lawmaker the same year the AK Party thrust into the political scene. Carving out a public image of a man of modest means, Kılıçdaroğlu is credited with transforming the CHP from a conventional secular party with Kemalist ideology into a more “left-wing” party, alienating old supporters and finding new company and support from more far-left elements in Turkish politics. His attempt to draw the support of the pro-PKK Peoples’ Democratic Party for elections angered voters. Still, thanks to the support of the opposition bloc, Kılıçdaroğlu appears closest to victory for the first time.
Muharrem Ince trails behind Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu in opinion polls, but he boasts of winning more votes against Erdoğan, unlike Kılıçdaroğlu in the past election. İnce, a physics teacher and a veteran CHP member, was nominated by Kılıçdaroğlu to run against Erdoğan in the 2018 election. After the election defeat, his fallout with Kılıçdaroğlu, who he challenged multiple times for top office of the CHP, became more apparent. As a result, Ince parted ways with the CHP and established the Homeland Party (MP) in 2021.
Kılıçdaroğlu once courted Ince to convince him to join the opposition alliance though Ince implied that the party was reluctant to seek his support.
Ince is the only candidate without an alliance backing him and relies on his supporters, who collected the more than 100,000 signatures required to nominate him. For members of the CHP and most other members of the opposition bloc, he is a “traitor,” betraying the cause of the opposition bloc to defeat Erdoğan. İnce rejects this (along with conspiracy theories that he is, in fact, secretly funded by the AK Party to divide the opposition vote) and seeks support among old-school CHP members and first-time young voters who seem to enjoy his social media antics, like the dance fad he started.
Sinan Oğan represents the Ancestral Alliance of several small parties whose names were not well known among the public, which has had a profound enthusiasm in politics since the early days of democracy. The Victory or Zafer Party is the most prominent among the alliance, founded by Ümit Özdağ, a former lawmaker from the current AK Party ally Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). Özdağ initially sought to nominate Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavaş (who now sides with Kılıçdaroğlu and the Nation Alliance) before rallying other parties to endorse Oğan.
An academic interested in the Turkic world, Oğan founded a nationalist think-tank and was elected to Parliament from the MHP in 2011. Four years later, he fell out with the MHP and was expelled from the party when he became more vocal against the MHP’s alliance with the AK Party. Their “nationalist” opposition to the MHP’s stance ended up with his expulsion and resignation of several lawmakers, including Meral Akşener, who went on to establish the Good Party (IP), Kılıçdaroğlu’s number one ally in the Nation Alliance. Oğan represents a hardline far-right mindset, particularly of Özdağ, whose sole policy appears to staunch opposition to refugees and migration, a notion that curried support of some far-right elements at a time of increase in the number of refugees.
