Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will offer Saturday prayers at Istanbul’s iconic Hagia Sophia mosque ahead of the fight of his political life against a powerful secular rival.
The 69-year-old will emulate a ritual that Ottoman sultans performed before leading their men to battle as they prepared for Sunday’s parliamentary and presidential elections.
Erdogan has never faced a more energetic or united opposition than retired civil servant Kemal Kilikdaroglu and his disparate coalition of six parties.
Turkey’s leader excelled at forging unlikely unions while dividing his rivals and winning a national election after 21 years.
But his Islamist-rooted party is battling anger over Turkey’s economic downturn and attacks on civil liberties during Erdogan’s second decade of rule.
Six opposition parties have put aside their political and cultural differences and joined forces for the sole task of ousting Erdogan.
They are officially supported by Turkey’s main pro-Kurdish party – a group that accounts for at least 10 percent of the vote.
‘Very stupid question’
The math is not adding up in Erdogan’s favor and most polls show him trailing his secular rival by a few points.
Kilicdaroglu is now desperately trying to break the 50 percent threshold and avoid a May 28 runoff that could give Erdogan a chance to regroup and restart the debate.
Are you ready to bring democracy to this country? To bring peace to this country? I promise, I am ready too,” Kilikdaroglu told a rally in Ankara.
Erdogan was put in an uncomfortable position on television Friday night when he was asked what he would do if he lost.
The veteran leader bowed down and resolved to respect the vote.
He said, ‘This is a very absurd question.
“We came to power in Turkey through democratic means with the approval of our people. If our people have to change their minds, we will do what democracy requires.”
His campaign path for re-election will take him to the scene on Saturday of one of the more controversial decisions of his recent administration.
‘West gone mad’
The Hagia Sophia was built as a Byzantine cathedral – once the world’s largest – before being converted into a mosque by the Ottomans.
It was converted into a museum in 1923 when Mustafa Kemal Atatürk created a secular post-Ottoman Turkey.
Erdogan’s decision to convert it back into a mosque in 2020 cemented his hero status among his religious supporters and contributed to growing Western discomfort with his rule.
“The whole West went mad – but I did it,” Erdogan told an Istanbul rally on Saturday.
Erdogan played up religious themes and used the culture wars to try and energize his conservative and nationalist base.
He brands the opposition as a “pro-LGBT” lobby that takes orders from banned Kurdish militants and is bankrolled by the West.
The dire messaging appears to be aimed at taking voters’ minds off Turkey’s most serious economic crisis of its entire rule.
The official annual inflation rate reached 85 percent last year. Economists believe the real figure could have been much higher and they blame the crisis on Erdogan’s unorthodox financial principles.
Kilicdaroglu vows to eliminate them immediately after taking office.
‘We are not happy’
But Turkey’s 64 million voters face the rigors of an election as well as rising tensions and fears of what Erdogan will do if he loses a narrow vote.
Kilicdaroglu wore a bulletproof vest to two of his rallies on Friday after what his party described as a credible threat on his life.
He gave an unusually brief evening speech in Ankara that was originally played by his campaign.
Kilicdaroglu’s running mate Ekrem Imamoglu – a popular figure who defeated Erdogan’s ally in the controversial 2019 Istanbul mayoral elections – was pelted with rocks while visiting Turkey’s conservative heartland a few days ago.
Turkish authorities launched a formal investigation and made some arrests.
But several senior officials from Erdogan’s ruling party accused the mayor of Istanbul of instigating the incident.
Voting will cover the southeastern region that was left in ruins in the wake of February’s earthquake that killed more than 50,000 people.
The level of anger in these traditionally pro-Erdogan areas could also help swing Sunday’s outcome.
“We are not happy to vote in the midst of the rubble, but we want the government to change,” said Diber Simcek, a resident of the city of Antakya, which suffered major damage in the disaster.
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)