Supporters of Kemal Kilicdaroglu, presidential candidate of Turkey’s main opposition alliance, attend a rally ahead of the May 14 presidential and parliamentary elections, in Istanbul, Turkey, May 6, 2023. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

This weekend, the Turkish will be going to the polls to elect both the members of the Grand National Assembly and, crucially since the transition to a semi-presidential system in 2018, the next president. In what Politico is calling “the world’s most important election in 2023”, reigning president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is facing Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the candidate of Turkey’s oldest and historically most important political party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP). Most at stake, at least as one would understand it looking at articles from western media, are the political and economic situation of the country. Erdoğan gained huge popularity throughout the first half of his now over twenty year reign by riding an economic boom, but quickly became notable for growing authoritarianism, culminating in a constitutional reform which transitioned Turkey from a parliamentary regime into a semi-presidential one with much more power vested in the role of the president shortly after the coup attempt of 2016, after which Erdoğan had already thoroughly purged opposition from the judiciary. All the while, economic difficulties and crisis deepened as Erdoğan pursued a “unique” monetary policy in oftentimes direct contradiction of any neoclassical economic principles. Inflation has increased to the point of Kılıçdaroğlu using an onion as a symbol in his election campaign, claiming its price would triple in case of Erdoğan being reelected. Illustratively, when centre-left opposition candidate Muarrem İnce withdrew his candidacy without supporting either candidate, the stock market in Turkey notably soared, as his withdrawal increased the CHP candidate’s chance of victory, especially in the potential second round. 

The CHP and its allies in the Millet (Nation) coalition have already made clear that in case of victory against the Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), Turkey would once again be made into a parliamentary regime, however as any progressive Turk you ask may tell you, this would only be a step towards restoring values either changed or lost during the Erdoğan era, nor would it immediately solve the country’s economic woes. The changes in Turkey’s society, culture, and even foreign policy have been sweeping, quite unlike anything in the decades preceding Erdoğan’s rise to power since the foundation of the republic in 1923.

A central question often overlooked in debates around economics and politics in the coming election is one that is however entirely fundamental in Turkish society, as one of the six values that father of the republic Mustafa Kemal Atatürk based the country on, forming an ideology known as Kemalism; secularism. Secularism is quite unique in Turkey, taking direct inspiration from French laïcité (of which the Turkish name laiklik is a direct cognate) as formulated first by positivist philosopher Auguste Comte. Indeed, rather than the state protecting freedom of religion, laiklik could be said to protect freedom from religion, keeping religion and religious belief out of the practice of the state, in which all are equal in the eyes of the republic. Despite this, it is far from state atheism, as demonstrated by Turkey to this day still fostering a population with a high degree of religious practice. Religion is simply kept out of affairs of state, even if forcefully, as demonstrated by past bans on wearing headscarves in public institutions, from schools to parliament, which AKP politicians often defied to public acclaim, with some even arguing for the right to wear a headscarf from a feminist point of view of allowing women to dress and practise their religion freely within state institutions. By consistently endorsing an Islamist conservatism not unlike western religious fundamentalism since Erdoğan’s rise to power, the field of religious questions in Turkey has made a slow creep towards Islam having a considerable place in public life and discourse. The ministry once responsible for controlling the place of religion in society, the Diyanet, has essentially reversed roles to promote the place of a Sunni Islam beneficial to the government. To be sure, religion was never fully absent from public life in Turkey, with numerous events displaying its importance throughout the 20th century, such as the Istanbul pogroms of the 1950s. But to say that many Turks do not hold some respect for the previous place of religion would be a grave understatement.

Pages like “Old Laik Days” on Instagram display what could be seen as memorabilia of a sort of past golden era for Turkish secularism. Women in TV ads and music videos wearing revealing clothes, ads for rakı, Ankara beer, Tuborg beer, and concerts (made even more striking since AKP politicians gained a reputation of banning concerts and clubs in their constituencies for reasons of “public order” over the last decade) mingle on such pages with pictures of Atatürk, protests, and catalogues displaying much lower prices for everyday goods. To return to old days of economic prosperity and cultural liberalism is to return to a past of freedom from religion, reflecting the frontline of debate used by the CHP during the first half of Erdoğan’s reign.

Despite this, along with promises of return to a better Turkey before Erdoğan, the CHP seems to have broken with its foundations, attempting to attract Islamist voters away from the AKP by taking a softer position on headscarves. Hagia Sophia, which was reverted back into a mosque by the Turkish government after being a museum for nearly the entire history of the republic and thus ending a significant symbol of secularism, is notably missing from any election discussions in western media, despite the CHP’s previously firm opposition to the change. In many ways, in hope of taking advantage of Erdoğan’s failures to take power, the once staunchly secular CHP has made concessions to attract the religiously devout. While the electoral battle between Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu could be described as one between Islamism and Kemalism – or (without adopting a too Eurocentric vision) between eastern fundamentalism and European values, as reflected by Turkey’s stagnant accession process to the EU which the CHP and its allies would be keen to revive – one might honestly ask if Turkey has entered a post-Kemalist era. For many Turks, it is no longer enough that Turkey return to the republic which the revered and idolised Atatürk founded, rather it needs to take a new path. In the case of a victory by the CHP, how might this new – or old – Turkey be shaped? Furthermore, for many voters, ideological factors are much less important than the failure of Erdoğan to effectively respond to this year’s deadly earthquakes, which primarily hit conservative regions. If many former AKP voters turn towards the CHP, it is unlikely that this reflects a sudden change in worldviews. Turkish voters will decide this weekend, though this decision will undoubtedly be marred by electoral conditions which have been called by international observers neither entirely free nor fair.

Turkey goes to the polls for the first round on Saturday the 14th and Sunday the 15th of May.