Kilicdaroglu has wind in wings

TURKEY - In Brief 12 Mar 2023 by Atilla Yesilada

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Your beloved Politics Author a.k.a. Atilla Yesilada is still convalescing from gastric surgery, which is the reason for his absence from our Weekly Report. Since my work hours are still quite restricted, I shall instead analyze the developments after Kilicdaroglu’s nomination briefly, inviting our audience to shoot questions through the GSP platform, which shall henceforth be answered promptly. In the meantime, my colleague Murat Ucer has done a stellar job in the politics portion of the Weekly to cover my absence. I fully endorse his analysis, urging our audience to start with reading his section before moving to this Market Brief. It is now “law of the land” that elections will be held on 14 May, as per Erdogan’s executive decree dissolving the Grand Assembly, and a formal decision by the High Election Council (HEC) that elections can and indeed will be held on that date. There is very little if any wriggle room for Erdogan to postpone them at this juncture, even if he were to develop second thoughts about his re-electability during the campaign. An hour after Erdogan made the formal announcement about the election date, cheered by huge crowds, six Nation Alliance leaders, convening in front of the Saadet Party headquarters anointed Kilicdaroglu as their lead person to take on Erdogan. Let’s take a brief step back and ask the question: Why did IYIP leader Aksener stage 2 U-turns in the span of 72 hours to concede to Kilicdaroglu’s nomination? There is no consensus hypothesis, though the most likely one is her, as well as all the Nation Alliance (NA) suddenly been faced with a voter riot which forced them to scramble for a compromise. It appears that Ali Babacan and A...