Defying the odds, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took first place in Sunday’s presidential election with 49.5% of the vote. On the back of Erdogan’s victory in the first round of the election, there are five lessons we can draw from the Turkish presidential election, with the “face” of Turkish nationalism it projects, perhaps stronger than ever, perhaps the most worrying of these, as nationalists emerge in regulators.

“Howl of the Gray Wolves”

The unexpectedly high percentage of ultra-nationalist candidate Sinan Ogan was one of the surprises of the ballot box. The former MP received more than 5%, although both Erdogan and Kemal Kilicdaroglu are supported by nationalist parties.

“Nationalism has been a component of the Turkish political landscape (…) since the 1990s,” according to Umut Ezkirimli, a researcher at the Barcelona Institute for International Studies (Ibei).

The rise of the nationalists, whose various parties together garnered 22% of the vote in the parliamentary elections held at the same time as the presidential elections (Bakhceli, Aksener, Sinan Ogan), is partly attributed to the problem of Syrian refugees living in Turkey.

“The big upheaval is that now the right and far right are at the heart of the game,” explained Yohanan Benheim.

Economy ‘not that important’

The collapse of the Turkish lira, which sent inflation soaring to 85% last fall, had been seen as a major thorn in the side of President Erdogan. But he, after increasing the minimum wage three times in a year, multiplied his campaign promises – among them is the doubling of the salary of civil servants.

These “populist measures” convinced a part of the electorate, in a Turkey where “the economy is not as important (in terms of voter choices) as commentators say,” estimated Berk Esen, a political science researcher at Istanbul Sabancı University.

To get the economy back on track, the opposition promised to raise interest rates to bring inflation down to single digits within two years. Umit Aksai, a professor of International Economics, believes that these opposition proposals, which could curb economic activity, “didn’t cheer the world which is already facing difficulties”.

The Kurdish vote was not enough for the opposition

“The Kurdish vote explains the good results of the opposition,” noted Yohanan Benhaim, head of modern studies at the French Institute of Oriental Studies (Ifea) in Istanbul.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu achieved his highest percentages in Turkey’s southeastern provinces, where the majority of residents are Kurdish. In Diyarbakır, for example, he got 72%, after the pro-Kurdish HDP party sided with the opposition candidate.

But the Kurdish vote, although it has been considered for years to decisively influence the outcome of the presidential elections, this time was not enough for the opposition. “Erdogan’s strategy, which has consistently linked the opposition to the Kurds, the PKK and terrorism, has proven effective,” said Bayram Balci, a researcher at CERI-Sciences Po.

The consequences of the earthquake are limited

Survivors of the massive February 6 earthquake, which killed at least 50,000 people, have been expressing their anger, accusing the state of being slow to act in some provinces, such as Antiyaman and Hatay.

This anger was not expressed at the polls. President Erdogan promised to build 650,000 houses for the earthquake victims as soon as possible. “The message was seen as credible” by a portion of the voters, Burke Essen commented.

Erdogan maintained his very high percentages in most of the affected areas: 72% in Kahramanmaras, 69% in Malatya, 66% in Antiyaman. In Hatay, its percentage remained stable at 48%.

The polls fell out

All or almost all polls gave Kemal Kilicdaroglu the lead. Some even declared him the winner even from the first round of the elections. Erdogan denied them: the next day found him the winner, even if he did not manage to prevail in the first round, as he did in 2018, since the percentage he gathered was below 50%.