On the Turkish election campaign trail in an outlying district of the beach town of Antalya, Uğur Poyraz kissed the head of a small child before speaking to local restaurant owners about the economy.
The general secretary of the technocratic and nationalist İyi party (Good party), a broad-shouldered lawyer with a shaved head and tattoos hidden under his shirt, was in full campaign mode, holding voters close, tilting his head to show he was listening, and clapping the men on the shoulders. His security detail – in full suit and aviators despite the heat of Turkey’s Mediterranean coast – clasped a handful of campaign leaflets.
“Save your time, you have our vote,” said one man, directing him towards another who offered Poyraz tea. “How do people pay rent, or school fees – how do they even stock their fridges or buy a packet of cigarettes at these prices?” he complained to Poyraz.
When Turks go to the polls in simultaneous parliamentary and presidential elections on Sunday, the choice will be stark: a complete overhaul of a system that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development party (AKP) have spent 20 years constructing, or re-electing a president seeking to further concentrate power around his office.
Showing voters what Turkey could look like without Erdoğan remains a challenge. The president has spent two decades shaping the country to his vision of a conservative society and an assertive regional player, replacing Turkey’s parliamentary democracy with a presidential system that vastly expanded his powers, and using the courts to crack down on dissent in the aftermath of a failed coup attempt in 2016.
From the perspective of Turkey’s opposition, a biting economic crisis and a lacklustre response to twin earthquakes that killed more than 50,000 people should suffice to convince the public to vote Erdoğan out. Yet in an increasingly polarised climate, the president’s supporters believe he bears limited responsibility.
Some polls suggest that Erdoğan’s governing coalition could lose its majority in parliament, but that is only half the battle, as the six-party opposition coalition – which includes the İyi party – needs to win both parliament and the presidency to enact its pledge to convert Turkey back to a parliamentary democracy.
The presidential election pits Erdoğan against Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, of the main opposition Republican People’s party (CHP), in what polls indicate is a tight race. For the opposition, the fight is now one of survival: Erdoğan’s coalition partner recently declared that opposition politicians could receive “life sentences or bullets in their bodies” if they lose.
Many of those who were happy to see Poyraz told him they were hungry for change, meaning an end to the AKP and Erdoğan, but others were defiant. Three men sitting drinking tea on a quiet shopping street waited until he was out of earshot before expressing their support for the president and their complete distrust of the opposition.
“What they say and what they do are opposites,” said one. His friend interrupted: “Even if the price of onions reaches 1bn lira, our choice won’t change. Always Erdoğan,” he said.
In the sprawling resort town, where Poyraz chatted to shop owners among piles of plastic beach shoes and kitsch fridge magnets, the race is fierce. Both presidential candidates have come to Antalya to hold rallies, and Poyraz’s main competition in the local campaign is the AKP foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu. The contest is a microcosm of a larger fight playing out nationwide, with the AKP and CHP jostling for the largest share of the 17 seats on offer in Antalya, and upstart parties such as the İyi party asserting themselves to try to siphon off support from the two major players and make themselves indispensable in a future coalition.
Nuri Cengiz, a local CHP official, grumbled about Çavuşoğlu’s presence in the race, an effect of Erdoğan making his cabinet ministers run for office. “It’s not a fair election considering the fact that ministers are campaigning for themselves and their party with government funds,” he said. “For instance, the other day we hung a Kılıçdaroğlu poster to announce his visit to Antalya and they cut his face out of it.”
Still, the opposition believes that Turkey’s crippling financial crisis and concerns about how the country is being run will help its ideas triumph over personality-driven politics. Voters in Antalya, a tourist and agricultural hub of 2.6 million people whose surrounding farmlands feed a large portion of the Turkish population, are hurting from the economic crisis, and complain of rising housing costs linked to an influx of Russian and Ukrainian people after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Opposition parties say they are making regular campaign stops at local wholesalers to reassure farmers that they can reverse Erdoğan’s unorthodox economic policies and bring down production costs if they win.
The cosmopolitan seaside town welcomes the tourists who provide a boon to the economy while also fostering a fierce nationalist streak. Hours after kissing children and holding pensioners’ hands, Poyraz switched gears and attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony at a local park dedicated to the slain leader of an ultra-nationalist paramilitary group, the Grey Wolves.
“Justice will be served,” he promised a large group assembled in front of colourful wreaths in the park, including many who raised their hands in a gesture of allegiance to the Grey Wolves, who have a decades-long history of violent attacks on minorities and their leftwing opponents.
The İyi party publicly claims to have distanced itself from its ultra-nationalist roots but is also looking to capitalise on the increasing nationalist sentiment stirred up by Erdoğan. Challenging an incumbent, one with a 20-year record of adapting to an increasingly right-leaning political climate and reshaping Turkey in his image, is no small task, but Poyraz demurs.
“We’re setting out to change the system rather than fight one individual,” he said. “The Turkish public doesn’t believe in this president, his government or the things he represents any more, meaning this is the end of the road for them.”
It’s not clear that all voters see it that way, but the overwhelming majority in Antalya appeared to have made up their minds about the president and the opposition. At the entrance to Antalya’s old town, a truck blared campaign music dedicated to Erdoğan while a group of young men screamed the president’s name in increasingly frantic tones. Most campaign banners, including some hung from balconies across Antalya, displayed giant pictures of Erdoğan’s face and little else.
“The question is: will Turkey be a member of the civilised world or drift into autocratic darkness? But no matter how much you hammer on this, on a certain level people look at it as this guy versus that guy,” said Selim Sazak, Poyraz’s campaign adviser.
“Perhaps we underestimated our ability to make it less about a person and more about principle. We’ve made a dent, but it’s human nature to look at the gladiatorial nature of this. Erdoğan is much weaker than he used to be but he’s still quite strong, even here in Antalya. Still, we have no doubt that we’ll win.”
