Türkiye will mark the anniversary of the victory of the Democrat Party in the first multiparty elections on May 14, the same day it will host a critical election. On one side, seemingly invincible President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan carried his ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) to power in successive elections over two decades. But, on the other hand, he will face an opposition bloc that appears more united than ever in its bid to end AK Party dominance in Turkish politics.
For Erdoğan, it is a clear choice between what they’ve done in 21 years and what the opposition he branded as a “demolition alliance” pledges. Speaking to Kriter magazine, the president summed up his election campaign and goals and hit out at the opposition.
“This election is crucial for the direction of all the right moves we took in the past 20 years. We are on a course we cannot afford to deviate from, let alone halt. For instance, we reaped the first fruit of our massive investments in hydrocarbon resources in the western Black Sea. On April 20, we will have our national natural gas. Natural gas in the Black Sea was discovered in 1975, and corporate procedures (for extracting it) were completed in 1995. In 2005, the gas was brought to the shore. This timeline is among the indicators of the importance of the May 14 elections. This three decades of work was for gas just 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) from the shore. The gas finds we recently had were at a distance of 170 kilometers. In only 975 days, we brought gas from that distance to the land, from a depth of some 2,000 meters. Bringing gas from a short distance took 30 years in Türkiye, ruled by coalition governments. With the dynamism of the new presidential system, it took only about two and a half years. This example shows the importance of elections,” Erdoğan said in the interview published in the magazine’s April issue.
“We represent a political mindset working for the good of the nation by shortening such processes miraculously, unlike the illusion of shared governance through the parliamentary system. May 14 has been the date of a saga of democracy in the history of our republic, and on this date again, I believe our nation will side with development,” he added.
“It is safe to say that as AK Party, we started preparing our campaign strategy for the 2023 elections 21 years ago (when the AK Party won its first election) because we are aware of the importance of the centenary of our republic. Thank God we managed to fulfill all our promises to our nation. A century of Türkiye is a vision describing our perpetually refreshing motivation and accumulation of this work in this period. In this campaign process, our main goal was to remind our nation for 21 years of our policies based on providing good services and projects and seek their sincere acceptance. You should admit that this vision is the best guarantee against an ambiguous alliance that threatens the very existence of this country,” the president said.
The “table for six,” as it is called, converges parties with vastly different ideologies with the single goal of ending the AK Party’s lengthy tenure, mainly through landslide victories. But Erdoğan already foresees a divide in the bloc.
“The opposition came together by jockeying for positions, from the vice presidency to ministries and parliamentary seats. They showed that they were pursuing their interests and that they were not working to serve the nation. They promise chaos, not stability. They are pursuing seats for themselves and their supporters. They even plan to increase the number of ministries as they fear the current number will not be enough for all of them. They have no vision other than destroying everything done (during the AK Party government’s tenure). They are like an alliance of demolition,” Erdoğan said.
“They are so self-interested that they are unaware of the reality that our nation will not prefer such a policy. They don’t know a thing about this nation. They are giving promises they cannot keep; they resort to lies and defamation and hope this policy of escalating the tensions will help them. They are seeking to shatter the confidence our nation has in the politics, something that was boosted during our governments,” he added.
The president, who slammed U.S. Ambassador in Ankara Jeff Flake on Sunday for a meeting with the opposition bloc’s candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, told Kriter that the bloc was more “interested in drawing praise from international circles of power rather than our nation. So they salute the powers opposing Türkiye.”
“Have you ever seen them defending fighting against terrorism to maintain our country’s security and for safe zones beyond our borders? Have you ever seen them defending our rights in the Aegean, in our 'Blue Homeland'? Have you ever heard them giving a resolute pledge to fight against terrorist groups like (Gülenist Terror Group) FETÖ, the YPG/PKK? On the contrary, they are promising to remove the institution of trustees and give autonomy to municipalities in a bid to draw the support of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP). However, they cannot promise a fight against terrorism,” Erdoğan added.
“This mindset cannot govern Türkiye, cannot defend our country’s rights on international platforms, cannot stand behind our national projects, and cannot fight terrorism,” he said.
Erdoğan’s AK Party is allied with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the Great Unity Party (BBP). Recently, two more parties announced that they would endorse Erdoğan in presidential elections though they will nominate their candidates for parliamentary seats.
“The People’s Alliance is not an alliance for elections only. It brings together parties behind a national and moral stance against domestic and foreign hostile attempts towards Türkiye. Our alliance has no place for bargaining for seats for personal gains. Ours is the reflection of principles and an understanding putting Türkiye’s future and independence above all. This alliance earned our nation’s trust,” Erdoğan said in the interview. Indeed, the MHP faced a split after its leader Devlet Bahçeli became more aligned with AK Party, and his dissidents went on to create different political parties.
The AK Party government and presidency, which weathered multiple challenges over the years, from a bloody coup attempt to economic hardships, head to the elections in the aftermath of the Feb. 6 earthquakes, which killed thousands in the country’s southeast.
“We actually signaled our election campaign on Oct. 28, 2022, when we introduced the Century of Türkiye vision, but the earthquake disaster led us to change our campaign. People are mourning, people are worried and our cities struggle for recovery. In such a climate, nobody can conduct election campaigns as they did in the past; they should not do. So we decided to change our campaign with more respect to the suffering of earthquake victims but still highlight the importance of this election. It will be a quiet but influential campaign, and our main theme will be the Century of Türkiye,” Erdoğan said.
The government responded quickly to the disaster, unlike in the 1999 earthquake, though Erdoğan has acknowledged some shortcomings in the initial response. Nevertheless, he reiterated his pledge to support earthquake victims, particularly the quick completion of new, safe homes for those who lost their residences.
“We have gone through the disaster of the century on Feb. 6 and lost more than 50,000 citizens. The state has been mobilized in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake disaster with all its resources and will continue to do so. For my part, I constantly visit the cities affected by the earthquakes to meet with citizens over iftar dinners and for groundbreaking ceremonies for new houses (for earthquake victims). We will never leave earthquake victims alone. Our current priority is the full recovery of the earthquake-hit region. We strive to address all needs of our citizens there,” he said.
“We laid the foundation of new residences and will break ground for more homes in the coming days. New settlements are planned in places with stable ground and nearer to the mountains rather than plains (against possible future earthquake disasters). We laid the foundation for 4,431 homes in Adıyaman, 7,353 in Kahramanmaraş, 6,815 in Gaziantep, 3,122 in Hatay, and 6,238 in Malatya so far. So far, we have started construction of 27,949 residences. We aim to build 650,000 residences within one year for citizens who lost their homes,” Erdoğan added.
The president says replacing old buildings that are not very resistant to disasters with sturdy ones, known as “urban transformation,” is vital to prevent losses in future disasters.
“I repeatedly highlighted the importance of urban transformation. We have legal regulations in place for construction (of buildings resistant to disasters), but we decided to organize a National Risk Shield meeting after the earthquakes. This helps us to assess all dangers and threats in a disaster risk category. We met experts, engineers, architects, geophysicists and scientists from different fields. If our citizens elect us for this duty again, we plan to continue our work with our scientists to take new steps (to reduce risks from disasters). In our new term, we will give a more comprehensive, detailed look into the issue and implement new legal regulations to that extent,” he said.
On a question about changes in AK Party candidates for Parliament, Erdoğan thanked current lawmakers and hinted at more new names. “AK Party has the most transparent democratic manner in handling the party’s internal affairs. More than 6,000 people applied for candidacy in the elections. Our committees in the party interview them, and we will prepare a final list of candidates through a meeting of our highest committee in the party I will chair. Like every election period, we will definitely have new names on our lists. Our ministers will serve in Parliament, where they will bring their experience and enthusiasm as ministers to Parliament. Each of our current ministers will be nominated for parliamentary seats,” he said.
On Türkiye’s growing role in international affairs, Erdoğan said Türkiye was “a name that cannot be ignored anymore.”
“We are talking about a country that dug up resources from 2,500 meters below the sea, a country which is now reaching out to space. We are one of the five countries with domestically made fighter jets. We gave the world an inspiring national paradigm with our local and national ships, cars, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), electric trains, tanks and satellites in the past 20 years,” he said.
On Türkiye’s foreign policy, Erdoğan stated they had “a holistic planning.”
“We strengthened Türkiye’s international position, pursued a multidimensional approach in foreign policy and brought Türkiye to a global league. Türkiye is now an influential country, a country which is heeded by the international community. We ensured stability in our country and became a stabilizing power in our region and the world. Certainly, we are going through a period of turbulence in the world with plenty of challenges. Since the AK Party first came to power, major developments have occurred, from the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq to the 2008 global economic crisis, the conflict in Georgia, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. The region is changing; the international system is changing. Amidst all these, we try to write our own stories. We are a strong, influential country contributing to international peace and stability through its humane foreign policy,” he said.
The president pointed out objections to its role in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict and how it overcame it.
“During the Russia-Ukraine conflict, we ignored the fait accompli they tried to impose on us domestically and internationally and charted our path. Thus, we protected ourselves from problems caused by the conflict and, at the same time, undertook successful initiatives like mediating grain corridor and prisoner exchanges in critical stages of the conflict. Thus, Türkiye became the most talked-about country for its efforts for peace. This is not an easy task. You can only take such steps through experience, planning and moves at the right time,” he said.
But still, there is a long way to go in the era of challenges. Erdoğan adopted the mantra of “the world is bigger than five” to advocate United Nations reforms and touched upon the issue again in the interview.
“We are entering a new era where the international system is transforming. We have to be prepared for this new era, and we should lead it. We repeatedly said that the current system is not working and needs reform. Our priority should be reforming it, and Türkiye is prepared for this. We will be more vocal and have more concrete proposals for this reform,” he said.
As the times are changing, Türkiye’s foreign policy shifts. “We are integrating our foreign policy with our policies on defense, security, energy, transportation, tourism, etc. At this point, we will improve our defense industry and our national technology capacity to increase our competitive force and welfare. We are now in a stage of normalization in our region after a tiring period. We need peace, stability and security. We have common problems, so we should have common solutions. Therefore, we need to bolster the normalization steps we took in our region. We are at a good spot now, but we need to do better and maintain a sustainable order in the region,” Erdoğan said.
“Uncertainties abound in international politics, especially after the pandemic. The Russia-Ukraine conflict sparked debate on change in the international system again. Global competition is increasingly affecting the system. Economic, political and military developments are tangled with each other. We believe the tensions between the United States and China do not benefit any side. We don’t need a new Cold War. We have emergencies and challenges like climate change, terrorism and new global governance. Political and military tensions between the U.S. and China are destabilizing in the face of such challenges,” Erdoğan also said.
