With an election ahead, democracy in Turkey is under threat

The conviction of a potential contender for president highlights a ruthlessness within the palace that portends an ominous few months ahead of the vote, writes Borzou Daragahi

State television has failed to cover pro-opposition rallies. Government-allied media outlets have focused on perceived splits within the opposition coalition (EPA)

At a dinner some weeks ago, Turkish opposition leader Ali Babacan sketched out for me and a small group of other international journalists the plan to keep president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his supporters honest on election day 2023.

The vote, likely to be held in May or June but possibly sooner, promises to be a milestone for the country, coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Turkish Republic by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and the 20th anniversary of the Erdogan era. The opposition coalition of six parties is taking the election very seriously.

But none of it may be enough, and Turkey’s opposition likely need a better plan if they are to keep the country from careening further off the democratic path.

Babacan, an American-educated former banker, is leader of the Democratic and Progress Party (Deva). He said that the opposition coalition of six parties has already begun to recruit tens of thousands of volunteers to keep an eye on as many as 200,000 ballot boxes around the country on election day, which could happen as early as March next year.

“There’s an election security system,” he said. “We have to have 1 million people to keep an eye on all the ballot boxes. We will pool our resources and lawyers to make sure the result of every box will be cross-checked in a reliable way. We need human power to work with legal power to kick in when there’s a dispute.”

But none of the opposition’s election day strategies can counter Erdogan and his allies’ attempts to shape the playing field. He and his allies dominate broadcast and major print media, flooding the airwaves and newsstands with information favourable to the presidency.

As shown last week, they also dominate the courts, which were used to convict Ekrem Imamoglu, the popular mayor of Istanbul and a potential contender for the presidency, on a laughable charge of calling election officials “fools” back in 2019 when they annulled his first victory. He was sentenced to 31 and a half months in prison and barred from political activities, a sentence that will be carried out if it is approved on appeal.

The ruling on Wednesday startled Turkey, prompting two days of huge opposition rallies that seemed to reinvigorate Erdogan’s recently somnolent and feckless political rivals. But it also hinted at an ominous picture of what’s to come in the following months.

Turkey’s inner workings have become increasingly inscrutable. It remains unclear whether the prosecution and conviction were masterminded by Erdogan himself or by overzealous allies he has placed in the country’s institutions. Regardless, Imamoglu’s conviction highlights a ruthlessness within the palace that portends an ominous few months ahead of the vote.

Most doubt that Imamoglu will do actual jail time, but he could. The prosecutor in the case, who was wed by a top official of Erdogan’s party, has vowed to appeal the sentence and ask for even greater punishment. The threat of jail and political banishment for one of its top stars will serve as yet another obstacle for the opposition.

The government and its supporters want to effectively have their cake and eat it too. They have downplayed the case and accused Imamoglu – the victim of a reckless and politically motivated prosecution – of exploiting his conviction to hurt Erdogan. State television has failed to cover pro-opposition rallies. Pro-government media outlets have focused on perceived splits within the opposition coalition.

Some opposition figures say none of the efforts by Erdogan and his allies will amount to much. Inflation is running above 80 per cent and unemployment higher than 10 per cent. Official statistics show that the country’s economic growth, the lynchpin of Erdogan’s claims of success, is slowing. Amid widespread discontent with the government, shown in multiple polls, the president is sure to lose and will have to bow out, they say, just as he did after insisting on losing a rerun of Imamoglu’s 2019 mayoral election.

“There’s nothing he can do,” Gulcin Avsar, one of Babacan’s advisers, told me in an interview. “In Turkey, there’s a tradition of respecting the vote.”

But that era could also be coming to an end. Babacan served for years as a member of Erdogan’s inner circle as a finance minister and foreign minister. He told us that the president about a decade ago stopped listening to all but a small circle of loyalists and became impervious to criticism or input. He said he knew the fight ahead would be hard. “We have to win this election by a wide margin, not 50.1 per cent, and in the first round,” he said.

To win that margin, the Turkish opposition needs to do more than count on preventing election shenanigans. They need to reach out to marginalised groups, including the crucial ethnic Kurds, to surmount efforts at cheating in a close race.

Turnout in Turkish elections is high by international standards, but that still means one out of every four or five voters does not cast their ballot. Who are those holdouts, and how to reach them? Turkey’s opposition also needs to settle on a candidate and begin promoting him or her. That they have not yet decided has given Erdogan the aura of inevitability as well as allowing divisions within the opposition camp to widen.

The US Department of State and the EU have all condemned the ruling against Imamoglu, though the UK has remained curiously silent. Turks warn that sanctions or other harsh actions could backfire, bolstering the argument by Erdogan and his allies that the opposition are backed by foreign or alien interests.

Turkey’s political struggle is for Turks to fight out. But Babacan said the vote next year has broader implications. “It’s a fight for democracy,” he said. “What we’re doing is valuable, and if we’re successful it will set an example for the rest of the world. It’s valuable for all of the countries fighting against the autocrats.”