On Erdogan campaign track, invoke God, recite poetry, bash enemies
ISTANBUL — His campaign speeches begin softly and draw the audience in. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a devout Muslim, often says that he wants to please not only the Turkish people, but also God. He plays for the crowd, sings folk songs, recites lines from local poets or drapes the sash of the local football team over his shoulders.
He sometimes wades through crowds of supporters for photos or greets children who kiss his hand. Then he takes the stage to speak, dressed in a suit or a plaid sport coat.
To the cheers and whistles of hundreds of transport workers at a campaign rally last week, he explained why they should keep him in power in a runoff election on Sunday. He boasted that he had improved the country’s roads and bridges, raised wages, and offered tax breaks to small businesses.
He also vowed to keep forces he considered enemies of the nation, including gay rights activists, to make Turkey “stronger in the world”. And he slammed the opposition leaders who wanted to remove him from office, accusing them of “going into dark rooms to negotiate with terrorists” for winning the support of Turkey’s main pro-Kurdish party.
“We seek refuge only with our God and we follow our orders from our nation,” the president said. The crowd roared and men jumped to their feet chanting, “Turkey is proud of you!”
Mr Erdogan, 69, came out on top on May 14 in the toughest political battle of his career – the first round of the presidential election. Since then he has had a busy schedule leading up to the final vote.
In several appearances a day and in speeches that sometimes lasted 40 minutes, he stuck to themes that served him well during his two decades as Turkey’s leading politician. He bills himself on the campaign trail as the leader needed to lead an emerging country struggling to confront multiple threats so it can claim its rightful place as a world power.
In the first round of voting, Erdogan failed to secure the majority he needed for an outright victory. But with 49.5 percent of the vote, he defeated his main challenger, opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who received 44.9 percent.
Many analysts predict that Erdogan will win on Sunday, given his strong showing in the first round and his subsequent endorsement by third-place candidate Sinan Ogan, who received 5.2 percent of the vote and was eliminated from the race.
In broad terms, the president casts Turkey as a country in great struggle to rise, despite forces conspiring to control it, and invites voters to join him in this heroic national case.
He vows to fight “imperialists,” a code word for the West that recalls the struggle for independence from European powers that led to Turkey’s founding 100 years ago. He warns of “traps” and “plots” against the nation, such as the 2016 coup attempt against him. He speaks out against “economic hitmen” and “London loan sharks”, referring to foreign hands behind the economic struggle from Turkey. And he is targeting terrorist organizations, pointing to decades of bloody fighting between the government and militants of Turkey’s Kurdish minority.
Tout his administration’s achievements, he lauds infrastructure, names airports, tunnels and bridges, and reminds voters how new highways have reduced driving times between cities. Other frequently mentioned points of pride are the drones, warships and satellites produced by Turkey’s growing defense industry.
Mr Erdogan spends little time on the country’s economic problems, including annual inflation that topped 80 percent last year and remained stubbornly high at 44 percent last month, sharply reducing the purchasing power of ordinary citizens. Nor has he hinted that, in victory, he would revise policies that some economists say have left the economy vulnerable to a possible currency crisis or recession.
The president particularly enjoys belittling his challenger, Mr. Kilicdaroglu, who presented himself to voters as less imperious and more in touch with the concerns of ordinary people. Mr Kilicdaroglu pledged to strengthen Turkish democracy after years of drift into autocracy and to restore relations with the West.
In almost every speech, Mr. Erdogan dismisses his rival as incompetent and a servant of the Western powers. But his strongest line of attack was to associate the opposition, in the minds of voters, with terrorism.
Turkey has fought for decades with Kurdish militants seeking autonomy from the state. Turkey, the United States and the European Union consider them terrorists. The Turkish government has also frequently accused the country’s main pro-Kurdish party of collaborating with the militants, and many party members and leaders have been jailed or removed from elected posts in parliament or municipal councils.
In the run-up to the election, the pro-Kurdish party supported Mr Kilicdaroglu, and Mr Erdogan came down, making accusations of terrorism and even showing videos at campaign rallies that falsely showed militant leaders singing along to a campaign song of the opposition.
“Can my country derive any benefit from those who go hand-in-hand with terrorists?” Erdogan said this at a rally in Hatay province, one of the areas hardest hit by the earthquakes in February that killed more than 50,000 people in southern Turkey.
For his staunchest supporters, who are mostly working class, rural, religious or from smaller towns far from the coast, Erdogan has a rock star appeal.
His campaign chants blared as his supporters thronged stadiums to await his performance. The orange and blue flags of his ruling Justice and Development Party often hang above their heads.
During performances in the quake-hit area, campaign organizers showered audiences with Turkish flags, turning otherwise drab sprawling temporary shelters into seas of red and white.
Mr Erdogan acknowledged some criticisms that his government was initially slow to respond. He called the earthquakes the “disaster of the century,” and spoke of a newly built hospital and his government’s plans to build hundreds of thousands of homes in the area over the next year.
“With your support and your prayers, we will take you to your new home,” he told supporters in Hatay.
In recent appearances, Mr. Erdogan has expressed his connection with the electorate in almost romantic terms.
“Remember, we are not together until Sunday, but to the grave,” he told supporters in central Sivas province, where he won more than two-thirds of the vote in the first round.
Even opposition supporters recognize Erdogan’s strong bond with his constituents.
“He has been in power for a long time and he is very good at getting a message across,” said Gulfem Saydan Sanver, a Turkish political adviser who has advised members of the opposition. “Over the years, he has built trust with his constituents, and they believe what he says.”