In his victory speech in front of the presidential palace in Ankara, Recep Tayyip Erdogan did not leave a good hair on his challenger. He derided the opposition leader as a "bye-bye-kemal" and claimed that Kemal Kilicdaroglu was supported by terrorists. Erdogan polarized as if he were still in the election campaign. His call for the unity of the country therefore sounded rather hollow. "All 85 million citizens won. It's time for us to unite around our national goals and dreams," he said. "The only ones who have lost are those who are on the side of the terrorists and loan sharks."
Friederike Böge
Political correspondent for Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan based in Ankara.
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At midnight, the re-elected president had appeared in front of his supporters. Unlike usual, he did not give his victory speech from the balcony of the headquarters of his AK Party. Instead, he had the gates in front of his thousand-room palace opened to tens of thousands of supporters in order to reinterpret his narrow election victory as a "turning point in the history" of Turkey. With the preparations for the triumphal celebration, he had already spread certainty of victory in advance.
Around eleven o'clock in the evening, the Supreme Electoral Council had confirmed that Erdogan had won the run-off election. According to the preliminary official result, the incumbent won a good 52 percent of the vote. Kilicdaroglu came accordingly to just under 48 percent. In his speech, the president portrayed his re-election as a battle against sinister forces. "Many traps have been set for Turkey," he said. "You've seen who played dirty games against us." German and French media had made headlines to ensure that he was "overthrown". For the next five years, he emphasized his foreign policy ambitions. "Turkey will get the place it deserves in the global order."
Congratulatory letter from Putin
Erdogan recalled his plan to turn Turkey into a hub for Russian energy supplies. Russian President Vladimir Putin reaffirmed his support for this in his congratulatory letter on Erdogan's re-election. Otherwise, Erdogan announced that he would give priority to the reconstruction of the territories destroyed by the earthquake. He promised to bring down inflation and work to ensure that one million Syrians would return to their homeland.
The refugee issue had dominated the last two weeks of the election campaign. Opposition leader Kilicdaroglu had tried to avert his foreseeable defeat with shrill, anti-refugee slogans. Against this background, Erdogan pretended to be presidential. The refugees would return voluntarily and in an "honorable manner."
Compared to the first round of the presidential election, Kilicdaroglu had managed to reduce the incumbent's lead. According to the state-run Anadolu news agency, he mobilized nearly 700,000 additional voters. No opposition candidate before him had come so close to the goal of replacing Erdogan in the past twenty years. In the end, however, it was not enough. When the 74-year-old leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP) appeared in front of his supporters at the party headquarters in the evening, he was received with a standing ovation.
He referred to himself as "your grandfather, uncle and elder." That already sounded like half a farewell speech. However, he did not announce his resignation. Although in the party headquarters before this rumor made the rounds. Kilicdaroglu called on his supporters to continue the fight for democracy. The CHP will continue to be at the forefront of this struggle.
Kilicdaroglu: Election 'more than unfair'
He accused the president of creating "an atmosphere of fear" and abusing "all the resources" of the state for his election campaign. The choice was therefore "more than unfair". Nevertheless, they did not bow down. "The nation has shown its will to get rid of the authoritarian regime," Kilicdaroglu said. Tears flowed at the party headquarters in the evening. Many of the young election workers, who had invested every free minute for months in the hope of an opposition victory, were deeply disappointed.
Kilicdaroglu praised the young women as "true heroines of our struggle". She saw the defeat coming, said Gisan, one of the helpers. Nevertheless, experiencing them makes them "hopeless". Another, who introduced herself as Nilsu, said that the founder of the republic and CHP, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, gave her the strength to continue the fight. The run-off election coincided with the tenth anniversary of the start of the Gezi Park protests in 2013. The crackdown on the protests marked the beginning of a spiral of repression that accelerated after the failed coup attempt of 2016. Erdogan's critics fear that the country will become even more authoritarian after his re-election.
In the evening, the state broadcaster TRT reported in detail on the congratulations that the president had received from all over the world on his re-election. The words of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who wrote on Twitter, were also highlighted, "Germany and Turkey are close partners and allies - we are also strongly connected socially and economically. Congratulations to President Erdogan on his re-election. Now we want to push ahead with our common issues with renewed vigour."