The Turkish president amassed power. He could still lose this election.

ISTANBUL, Turkey — As Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan approaches the toughest election of his career on Sunday, he has deployed many of the state’s resources to tilt the playing field in his favor.

Mr Erdogan, who has increasingly come to dominate the country over the past two decades, tapped the Treasury for populist spending programs and has raised the minimum wage three times in the past year and a half. His challenger barely appears on the state broadcaster while Erdogan’s speeches are broadcast in full. And this weekend’s vote will be overseen by an election commission that has made questionable calls that favored the president during recent ballots.

And yet Mr. Erdogan can still lose.

Recent polls show him trailing the main challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, in a tight race that could lead to a runoff later this month. But Mr Erdogan’s grip on the country could also contribute to his downfall, if voters drop him because of his strong manners and continued high inflation that leaves Turks feeling poorer.

“The elections are not fair, but nevertheless free, which is why there is always the prospect of political change in Turkey,” said Sinan Ulgen, director of the Istanbul-based research group EDAM. “The prospect exists and is palpable now.”

Mr Erdogan has eroded democratic institutions, filled the judiciary with loyalists and restricted freedom of speech. His main challenger, Mr Kilicdaroglu, has vowed to restore democracy if he wins.

The tight race appeals to Turkey’s complicated nature. Political scientists say it is neither a full democracy nor a full autocracy, but rather a mix of the two in which the leader has too much power, but where elections can still bring about change.

Turkey has never fallen into full autocracy because electoral politics retains a sacred place in national identity, a place revered by Mr. Erdogan himself. He and his ruling Justice and Development Party have regularly thrashed their opponents at the polls over the years with no evidence of foul play, giving Erdogan a mandate.

Turkey’s political ambiguity is also reflected in its global position.

During Erdogan’s tenure, much of Turkey’s foreign policy has been personally associated with him, as he has proven to be a necessary but problematic – and at times puzzling – partner of the West. He condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine and sent aid to the Ukrainian government while not only refusing to join the Western sanctions against Russia, but also expanding trade relations with and drawing closer to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

He has discussed Syria policy with the United States and denigrates Washington in his speeches. He heads a NATO member state but has hindered the alliance’s expansion, delaying Finland’s ability to join and Sweden still being denied.

All this makes Western leaders occasionally wonder whose side he is actually on.

A change of leadership in Turkey would resonate around the world, given the country’s unique position as a predominantly Muslim society with an unwaveringly secular state and an extensive network of economic and diplomatic ties in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East .

Mr Kilicdaroglu has promised that if he wins, he will improve relations with the West and make Turkish foreign policy less personal. But exactly what that will look like is hard to predict: he represents a coalition of six political parties with widely differing ideologies and his track record gives few clues. Before entering politics, he was a civil servant who ran the Turkish social security administration.

After Mr. Erdogan rose to the national stage as prime minister in 2003, he was widely seen as a new model of an Islamist democrat, pro-business and interesting in strong ties to the West. During its first decade, Turkey’s economy boomed, moving millions into the middle class.

But more recently – after facing massive street protests against his style of government, becoming president in 2014 and surviving a failed coup in 2016 – he purged his enemies of state bureaucracy, limited civil liberties and centralized power in his hands.

Mr Erdogan still has a fervent following, especially among working-class, rural and more religious voters, who love his rhetoric about standing up for Turkey against a range of domestic and foreign enemies. He opposed the secularism of the Turkish state, expanded Islamic education and changed regulations to allow women in government positions to wear headscarves.

The political opposition says its consolidation of power has gone too far, describing Sunday’s vote as a make-it-or-break-it moment for Turkish democracy that could inspire other states grappling with would-be autocrats.

Erdogan’s benefits are clear, starting with the benefits citizens can get through ties to his political party, including state jobs, social support or local services such as new roads, analysts said.

The president’s use of power for electoral gain has raised questions about how fair these elections really are.

“It’s more of a hybrid regime, where you have multi-party elections, but where the opposition doesn’t have the same opportunities as the government to present their ideas and policies to voters,” said Ersin Kalaycioglu, a political science professor at Sabanci University. in İstanbul.

Mr Erdogan has expanded his rule over the news media. Major news networks are owned by businessmen close to Erdogan, while media outlets criticizing his policies are often hounded with fines and lawsuits.

A recent analysis by state-funded broadcaster TRT found that Mr Kilicdaroglu only got 32 minutes of airtime in April. Mr. Erdogan got 32 hours.

“TRT is acting like a public relations firm appointed to manage the election campaign of the ruling party and its presidential candidate,” Ilhan Tasci, an opposition party member of the state broadcaster’s regulator, said in a statement released on Friday. of the data.

Overseeing Sunday’s vote is the Supreme Electoral Council, a panel of judges. For decades it was widely regarded as independent and trustworthy, but two recent decisions have tarnished its reputation in the eyes of opposition supporters.

In 2017, while counting votes in a referendum on Turkey’s change from a parliamentary to a presidential system, the board decided to override the electoral law and include ballots that had no official stamp proving their authenticity. The referendum passed by a slim margin, allowing Mr Erdogan, the then president, to vastly expand his powers.

In 2019, after an opposition candidate defeated Mr Erdogan’s candidate in the mayoral race for Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, the council declared the results invalid, citing irregularities, and called for a new result. The same opposition candidate also won it by an even larger margin.

Those decisions raised questions about the election commission’s willingness to rule against Erdogan’s desired outcome, said Hasan Sinar, an associate professor of criminal law at Altinbas University in Istanbul.

“On paper they are neutral,” he said. “But if the government stays in power that long, no one in that position can be neutral anymore.” Any doubts about the electoral council’s neutrality were detrimental to Turkish democracy, he added. “This should never be poisoned by doubt,” he said.

In recent weeks, Mr Erdogan has used his pulpit as a bully to bludgeon the opposition, warning that the country would suffer under their leadership and accusing them of colluding with terrorists. Mr Erdogan’s interior minister, Suleyman Soylu, who oversees the security forces, has gone further and cast doubt on the results before the vote even begins.

The election amounted to “an attempted political coup by the West,” Soylu said during a campaign stop last month. “It is a coup attempt formed by bringing together all the preparations to purge Turkey.”

A few days later, Mr. Soylu that Mr. Kilicdaroglu “was always open to cheating”.

Despite the problems, Turks remain hopeful that Sunday’s poll will express the will of the people. This week, after Mr. Soylu had asked the Election Commission to share detailed data on polling places and voter registrations so that his ministry could set up its own system to count the votes, the Election Commission stepped back and said that only it was authorized to count the votes. .

Others noted Erdogan’s long-standing commitment to electoral politics, hoping he would accept his own loss if it happened.

“Turkey has a long tradition of multi-party democracy and is very committed to the integrity of the vote,” said Mr. Ulgen, the director of EDAM. If a clean vote is held, it would likely be respected even by Mr Erdogan, he added.

But problems can arise if the results are very close, causing the candidates to dispute them or question the process.

If the spread is very thin, Mr Ulgen said, “all options are on the table.”

Gulsin Harman reporting contributed.