Big blows to Erdogan, a “thin” one for Kilicdaroglu

TURKEY - In Brief 21 Mar 2023 by Atilla Yesilada

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BAD PUN WARNING: “İnce” is the Turkish word for “thin”, which also happens to be the surname of former CHP member and presidential candidate Mr. Muharrem Ince. Get it? Turkey’s competing political alliances; the governing Republican and main opposition Nation; are facing hurdles in their sweat-soaked drive to recruit members to get an edge in the upcoming elections. Republican chieftain Erdogan has suffered two big blows in this regard, but these by no means make Kilicdaroglu’s job easier. I’ve hastily heralded that the recruitment of ultra-Islamist New Welfare Party to the ranks of the Republican Alliance in our recent weekly. In an 11th hour turn-around, its chairman Fatih Erbakan announced the party’s decision to contest presidential and parliamentary elections solo. Rumors vary as to why the deal collapsed in the last second, but two have credibility. First, AKP’s female members objected to the blatant misogyny of Erbakan, which may reduce support from educated, urban conservative female voters for the party. Secondly, Erdogan might have been unwilling to pay the steep price in number of Grand Assembly seats (20) Erbakan had demanded. Erdogan had an unannounced summit with his nationalist ally Devlet Bahceli on Tuesday, where according to Murat Yetkin the latter may have expressed his objection to the addition of fundamentalist-Kurdish separatist HUDA-PAR to AKP rosters (link here). The final blow to Erdogan came from former economy czar and darling of the financial community, Mr. Mehmet Simsek, who did pay a visit to him, only to reject his offer to return to the helm of the economy. A famous economist turned YouTuber Mr. Tunc Satiroglu quipped on Twitter: “At thi...