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| Elections in Turkey: Opposition Dreams of Defeating 'most powerful' President Erdogan |
Turkey's most powerful president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is fighting for his political survival against a united opposition in Sunday's election.
His main rival, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, came out to supporters on Friday. This is the first time that his allies were also accompanying him. He pledged to restore 'peace and democracy'.
Turkish President Erdogan says that he has kept Turkey afloat despite many challenges, including the economy, inflation, and the devastating double earthquakes in February.
These issues have dominated the campaign for both the presidency and parliament.
The general perception of the 74-year-old opposition leader is that he has gone soft, but he delivered a rousing speech to the audience.
His supporters see this as his best chance yet to wrest power from a president who has increased his power vis-à-vis parliament.
Kemal Kilicdaroglu is slightly ahead in opinion polls and his supporters expect him to win Sunday's election with more than 50 percent of the vote.
First, one of the five million first-time voters, said he was happy to see conservatives and nationalists on the same platform under the leadership of the left-wing Republican People's Party (CHP).
There was the nationalist Meryl Aksiner, the only female leader in the six-party strong coalition, and Temel Karamlauglu, who heads the pro-Islamist Felicity Party.
Kilicdaroglu's party is primarily secular, but he has worked hard to reach out to women who wear the hijab. The six parties have campaigned under the slogan Heidi (Go ahead!) and an election song of the same name.
Tensions have run so high ahead of the vote that he wore a bulletproof vest on stage at his last rally in Ankara and at another event before that.
This election race has become as tense as it is important. One of the four candidates for the presidential election, Muharram Anjah, withdrew from the election saying that she was being targeted by deep fake sex videos on social media and was 'misleading the voters.
While the main opposition rival blamed Russia, the Kremlin denied it had anything to do with the videos or that it wanted to interfere with the vote.
Erdogan, who maintains ties with Vladimir Putin, warned his rival: "If you criticize Putin, I will not tolerate it."
President Erdogan was addressing party supporters in Istanbul, but the night before he was outside the capital in a city of 500,000 people who appeared to be in full support of his AK Party.
The orange, blue and white flags of the AKP party flew in the Sincan center, while locals took to the streets hoping to catch a glimpse of President Erdogan.
President Erdoğan's supporters were anxiously awaiting his arrival and as he took the stage, the audience greeted him with enthusiastic chants.
In his speech, he said: "We built schools, universities, and hospitals." We changed the face of our cities. We benefited from our gas and oil reserves.
His policies have evolved massively since he was Prime Minister. He implemented big projects in most of the big cities, but this is not reflected in Sikan.
Although his party still enjoys strong support, he relies on the support of the nationalist MHP and other smaller groups in his People's Alliance.
He is mainly supported by conservative or nationalist Turks, and during his campaign he has criticized not only the West, which he accuses of opposing him but also the LGBT community. has made
"The AK Party does not allow LGBT people to join its ranks, and the MHP prevents them from joining the People's Alliance, because we believe in the sanctity of the family."
These political alliances are necessary under the Turkish political system because a party needs 7 percent of the national vote to enter parliament or be part of a coalition that has sufficient support within parliament. be
Whoever wins the presidential election will need enough support in parliament to support their plans.
While campaigning in Ankara, left-wing candidate Aysen Pali Kokits said that while the economy and post-earthquake conditions were the two main issues in the election, the future of Turkey's democracy and people's rights were equally important.
"When we tweet, we don't want to be intimidated, and that's especially true for young people," he said.
But AK Party candidate Zehranur Edemir, 25, believes the government treats young voters too well. "You can see young people at all levels in our party."
More than 64 million people at home and abroad are expected to vote on Sunday.
clear candidate must get more than half of the votes to win.
If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote in the first round, a second round of presidential elections between the two candidates who received the most votes will be held on May 28.