The general battle of R. Erdogan. Turkey launches presidential campaign
Election date
Turkish President R. Erdogan has finally decided on the date of the presidential elections. He has submitted a proposal to Parliament to hold a vote on May 14, and there is no reason to believe that it will be postponed unless some exceptional circumstances arise.
In fact, since the transformation of the Turkish political system in 2014, this will be the third presidential campaign of the charismatic Turkish leader. But, as political analysts say, this campaign does not promise to be a passing one. Quite the opposite, now R. Erdogan has a rather interesting and promising opponent - Kemal Kilicdaroglu.
For the leader of Turkey, the previous campaign in 2018 was not without surprises. With the planned 62-63%, the actual result was 52,6%, and many observers quite reasonably noticed that the last 3% was frankly stretching.
His charismatic rival M. Inje scored a little over 30%, the Kurdish representative S. Demirtas - 8%. It is clear that R. Erdogan defeated his competitors in those elections, but here the question is not only and not so much in the fact of victory "on points", but in what score. Here the score turned out to be quite modest for the Turkish leader and his Justice and Development Party (AKP).
This year, the Kemalists are counting on a quite visible revenge, and R. Erdogan's rival, like last time, is a Kemalist. True, the Kemalist is quite peculiar.
In a number of aspects, the Turkish electoral-political strategy is similar in approach to ours, domestic. It also gives priority to foreign policy, narratives of independence, the Turkish and Turkic world, the Turkish economic and value pole.
Another thing is that Turkish foreign policy is characterized by extremely high activity, simply deliberate activity, wide scope (Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Cyprus, Ukraine, Central Asia, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Iran, not to mention Europe), an order of magnitude greater in comparison with Russia, rigidity and, most remarkable, effectiveness.
Stagnation
But with all this "active performance", the state of affairs within the Republic of Turkey itself can be described as stagnation for ten years already.
It looks rather strange at first glance. For example, GDP growth indicators are very positive: in 2010 - 1,25 trillion dollars, in 2015 - 1,91 trillion dollars, in 2021 - 2,32 trillion dollars, an increase of 86%, that is, in 12 years the economy has almost doubled. For comparison: in Russia, this increase is two times lower: +42%, although it seems that we have our own basis of production - hydrocarbons, polymers, metals, timber, grain, while Ankara has just all of this - purchased and imported.
Export and import of Turkey is 20% of GDP. For an economy where almost all basic raw materials are “over the hill”, exports of $225 billion and imports of $271 billion are a very good result. However, GDP is an important indicator that is fairly well publicized in the media, but far from sufficient for evaluation and analysis.
Turkey has been in a position for ten years now when the service sector, which makes up more than a third of the economy, and commodity output require a weak national currency, otherwise it is difficult to sell and increase output. But the problem is that since about the beginning of 2018, this devaluation and the inflation following on its heels, as if on a leash, do not allow the society to fully use the growth in output and the growth in the volume of services. In May 2018, the lira generally collapsed sharply, which led to very difficult situations in foreign trade: many contracts fell off, which had to be reconfigured, and the Turkish Central Bank had to get out with rates.
In simple business language, Turkey produces much, much more than in 2010, but while growing in volume, it does not grow in profit. The profit that remains in the end is spent, in turn, on an overactive foreign policy, social spending, where Syria and Syrian refugees in Turkey itself play an important role. The GDP is growing, but all this funding comes not from the total growth, but from the conditional net income.
Another traditional feature of the Turkish economy is fast and cheap circulating money. It is impossible in Turkey to imagine a situation like ours, where you will be given a penny revolving loan at a real rate of 14% with a mortgage of real estate with a 40% discount. In general, it is better not to describe our credit policy to Middle Eastern buyers - not that they will not believe it, they will simply say that we will not take this into account as a factor. But even by those Middle Eastern standards, the conditions for entering and working in the field of trade and services in Turkey are traditionally very comfortable - God forbid, the total load will be three, three and a half percent. But such a policy in the context of devaluation and inflationary fluctuations has its own pitfalls.
And there are also police operations, subsidizing the reconstruction of Kurdish regions in the south, the maintenance of a million army, the development of UAVs, their own fighter, precision-guided munitions, rocket science, their own main tank, BBM, military shipbuilding and so on - based on purchased technologies and components, as well as imported basic raw materials. That is, for Turkey, this is an extremely non-trivial task - to ensure not just an increased accounting indicator of GDP, but an increase in real incomes.
And now let's add COVID-19 here, which almost knocked Ankara with its service sector. Let's add the actual recession in the EU. It is clear that Turkey has its own "Chip and Dale" in the northeast, which always come to the rescue, but this resource also has limits.
It is in such forks between profits, output, recession, the need to spend on external activity, social and military spheres that Turkey has been living for ten years now. In 2018, the results of the elections showed that Ankara’s efforts in domestic matters are not enough, and 2023 may well be the watershed when society will say “stop” to its restless leader.
The problem of R. Erdogan's cabinet, by and large, is not even that he is doing something "wrong", it's just that many of his steps have a strategically long-term effect that requires consistency and the accumulation of intermediate results. Libyan oil will not flow quickly, while Iraqi oil is insufficient, gas will not appear in the required volumes without resolving the “Greek issue”, and, having resolved this issue, gas will still have to be produced. Third-party volumes, which are cheaper, through pipes from the Caspian, from Russia, Iran and from Central Asia, still need to be organized, and the nuclear power plant will take years to build, etc.
A lot has been done to provide raw materials and energy, but all this is taking a very long time. Last but not least, the protracted Syrian campaign, which, although it brought resources from Russia, also sucked a lot of money out of Ankara, and continues to pump them out to this day.
The old dispute between "Kemalists" and "Turkists"
Against this background, the old dispute between "Kemalists" and "Turkists" threatens R. Erdogan's cabinet to develop into the most difficult election campaign in recent years.
If you take a closer look at Turkey's steps that have been taken over the past six months, then with all the external activity, its assertiveness and focus were connected with the issues of the domestic economy. The grain deal mercilessly criticized in our country, of course, brought foreign policy points for Ankara, an increase in the turnover of traders, but above all, it was the saturation of the domestic market with agricultural products obtained at wild discounts. And this is a fight against rising prices.
The prices at which Turkey received Ukrainian grain, and not only grain, but also legumes, vegetable oil, etc., differed significantly from those at which deliveries were made to the same European Union, up to 40-42% in smaller side. This is not taking into account the fact that local buyers in some months bought products at rubbish prices in general.
Ankara's sensational proposal to prepare for direct negotiations with Syria, meeting directly with B. Assad is a direct signal to all those who ask to reduce social spending for refugees, to resolve the issue that the Syrians who have left need jobs, and if they are not found, the municipalities get problems with unemployment.
The growth of exports through the ideas of transit corridors, the Turkic world in Central Asia, which began as part of the new Silk Road, only eventually began to work for Ankara in the opposite direction, not East-West, but West-East.
Since the summer of last year, negotiations have been underway on payments for energy carriers in national currencies. This is even being touted by our media as a great step towards "de-dollarization of the world economy." It is, of course, de-dollarization, but Turkey offers payments in lira with the possibility of paying in lira for its exports to Russia.
For Turkey, this would be a godsend before the elections, since it is obvious that private Turkish sellers will not sell us for export in lira, and they will not be forced to, and state contracts for execution in lira will be mandatory. At the current exchange rate, in the first case, by buying raw materials in lira, Ankara wins 4%, and in the second case, by selling other goods privately in dollars, another 3,5%. For the operation to play the opposite way, it would be necessary to bring the dollar exchange rate to the ruble into the corridor of 47-48 rubles, which, obviously, will not happen. Ankara has chances for such a half-way de-dollarization and will be used before the elections, not to mention the fact that, as the holders of the "gas hub", the Turks are discussing discounts in the region of 25%.
The fight against inflation is gradually turning into the axis of domestic policy for Turkey. The rise in prices is really impressive - up to 45% per year. Another thing is that for the reasons described above, the measures that are used by domestic functionaries from finance - inflation is growing, which means we are reducing the amount of money, is a priori unacceptable for Turkey. But, as we say, “methods of quantitative easing”, that is, the printing press, here the situation cannot be corrected - only aggravated.
The fight against inflation in Turkey, as well as ideas and projects, looks quite adequate: the maximum reduction in production costs, primarily raw materials, the expansion of domestic production and the growth of output, attracting funds to the country by growing exports (in fact, therefore, the Turks do not need exports in lira) . But without the first step - the other two are not technically feasible.
And here, not a single political force has come up with other recipes, and is not going to come up with, but to use the past developments of R. Erdogan's cabinet in order to bring them to the result themselves, his opponents will try quite consciously and objectively.
Position difference
What then is the fundamental difference between him and his political opponents?
Well, at least in the fact that the "Kemalists" traditionally try to bargain for a decrease in foreign policy activity, and hence tension, for an influx of investments. The problem is that, since their backbone is Istanbul and the tourism sector, investments even in projects are rather one-sided. This time also, two thirds of the proposals that can be heard from the opposition are how to restore Turkey's former popularity among the Europeans.
The opposition to R. Erdogan has long been represented by six parties, where the Republican People's Party with its leader K. Kilichdaroglu has the advantage. As a result, the Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party adjoins them. Political popularity is concentrated with the mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu. The mayor of Istanbul in Turkey is a unique position in general - it is a stepping stone to the prime minister, and now to the presidency. R. Erdogan himself started from this at one time.
Another thing is that E. Imamoglu was prosecuted for insulting the High Electoral Commission in 2019 and sentenced. The mayor filed an appeal, but if the verdict is upheld, then the most popular opposition politician will not be able to be elected.
By and large, no one denies the political background of the court case. But formally it is very difficult for the opposition to do something about it, or rather, it is impossible, and K. Kylychdaroglu is already 73 years old - a respectable age. The mayor of Istanbul is only 52.
As a result, R. Erdogan administratively wins on the contradictions in the camp of opponents who put forward a well-known, but age-old politician "with a scratch." Until the decision of the appellate court is announced, the mayor can theoretically participate in the campaign, but how then to nominate a common candidate? Time is going on. A non-coalition candidate in the Turkish electoral system has no chance of winning - the rule is at least 50% of all votes.
For Russia, the alignment between R. Erdogan and the opposition on pressing international issues is interesting, and here one should pay attention to the fact that Western politicians, and in particular Britain, are very courting both the RPP leader and the mayor of Istanbul. And this is done not only openly, but even deliberately.
R. Erdogan directly accuses K. Kilichdaroglu of receiving money from the British Embassy. As for the money, as they say, no one held a candle, but the “Western partners” invite the oppositionists of the current Turkish president to all international forums.
However, those also have something to answer, given R. Erdogan's stormy activities along the line of family ties, where there is production, and the supply of weapons, and the trade in Syrian oil, and the provision of hospitals to the Syrian "opposition" of various persuasions, as well as rising unemployment due to million Syrian refugees.
Popularity rating according to polls for K. Kılıçdaroğlu is around 40%. This is a very high figure. Add here the "Kurdish voices" of the PDP, and R. Erdogan's chances of winning become far from indisputable. If we recall 2018, then it was by and large about 2-3%, which are decisive.
Even the factor on which R. Erdogan's supporters often try to play - the ethical Alevi origin of K. Kilichdaroglu, here can work just in the opposite direction. Turkey is diverse in its national palette, and the Alevi origin here, on the contrary, is more attractive to Kurds and Zazas. Hints of "sectarianism" and "Shiism" of this group are leveled by indirect data about the Seyd origin of the family of K. Kylychdaroglu, that is, about the ascent of his family to the line of the Prophet Muhammad.
All this is important, since in the last elections the entire opposition to R. Erdogan received about 40%, while the Turkish president was already openly stretching his 52,6%. Now the opposition's initial rating is even higher.
For Russia
In relation to our country, the Turkish "Kemalist" opposition speaks in very restrained tones. Often this looks very complimentary against the backdrop of R. Erdogan's swing. But in this regard, we must always keep before our eyes the example of N. Pashinyan’s cabinet in Armenia, which also started with such rhetoric, and still conducts it as a whole, but at the same time it follows within the framework of the game strategy of Washington and London, relying simultaneously on the integration achievements of its predecessors .
The opposition to R. Erdogan is not going to give up all his foreign policy and trade "conquests", but it will turn out that all this wide range of achievements, platforms and forums, connections and projects will be used in Western strategies.
We have been losing a lot on the Turkish track lately, it is obvious that today there is a one-sided advantage of the Turkish side, but it can be evened out if we correctly play on the side of R. Erdogan during the election campaign. There would be political will and goal-setting.
It should also be taken into account that, in order to guarantee his victory, R. Erdogan will use every opportunity to help Baku break through the corridor to Nakhichevan, and the British, if he wins, will actively begin to push Greece against the Turks, which is pumped up with the latest weapons and assurances of help.
With such polarization in Turkish society, there is really little chance that R. Erdogan's regime will outlive its analogue of the SVO, if it drags on for any decent time. On the other hand, in this case, personalities like Annalena Burbock will also be a little unimpressed with Ukraine.
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