Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’schoice of Sarajevo to rally diaspora supporters on May 20 speaks of how unwelcome he has become in some Western capitals – and of the close ties he has cultivated in the Balkans and the potential importance of voters in Turkey who trace their roots to the peninsula.
But Erdogan is not the only one with a Balkan card to play in the June 24 elections for president and parliament.
His two chief challengers, Meral Aksener, leader of the newly-established Iyi (Good) Party, and Muharrem Ince of the Republican People’s Party, CHP, both come from families who fled the Balkans for Turkey in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire.
Though the precise ethnic breakdown of Turkey’s 80 million-strong population is not officially recorded, estimates suggests some 17 to 18 million share similar roots, meaning the Balkan connection is one both Aksener and Ince are not afraid to flaunt.
“Both candidates started their campaigns in cities like Edirne, Izmir, Kirlareli, Bursa or Kocaeli, where many residents have Balkan roots,” Kursat Guc, of the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Ankara, told BIRN.
“They also constantly meet with Balkans diaspora NGOs and representatives. When we look at their parties there are also many other Balkan names.”
Though they are running against each other for president, their parties are united in an opposition bloc that, according to an opinion poll published on May 11 by the Konsensus Research Company, may take some 43 per cent of the vote for parliament, behind Erdogan’s alliance, on close to 50 per cent.
The poll suggests either Aksener or Ince, most likely the former, will take the presidential race to a second round, and may mount a significant challenge to Erdogan, who has led Turkey for 15 years first as prime minister and now president.
Secularism
The stereotype of those with Balkan roots is of a more secular, culturally but not religiously conservative Turk who is politically closer to the principles of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey in 1923 as a secular republic – in contrast to Erdogan who has put Islamist policies at the heart of his “new Turkey”.
“Both Ince and Aksener fit this description,” Guc said, noting, though, that Ince was more secular than Aksener, who has cultivated a more nationalist, conservative image as a practicing Muslim.
For more read the full of article at The Balkaninsight
