The Unlikely Survival of Erdoğan in Turkey's May 2023 Elections

Approaching the May 2023 Turkish presidential and assembly elections seemed to promise a challenging situation for the incumbent Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP). The significant influx of refugees since the onset of the Syrian civil war introduced a reactive public agenda marked by occasional violent clashes in neighbourhoods with high refugee populations. This eventually spilled over to the national political agenda. A new political party, the Victory Party (Zafer Partisi, ZP), emerged with an anti-Syrian sentiment platform, gaining traction amongst young voters and expanding its electoral appeal. After the 2018 elections, the opposition parties united under the Nation Alliance (Millet İttifakı, MI), bringing together social democrats, liberals, nationalists and pro-Islamist conservatives to broaden the opposition's appeal and resistance to the ruling AKP. Additionally, the Erdoğan government's policy performance was also deteriorating. The economy deteriorated due to the President's reliance on strict monetary controls and disregard for market dynamics, leading to a depreciating national currency. The opposition's control of the largest cities since 2019 limited the cabinet's ability to regulate projects and manage clientelist networks. The resulting insecurity and vulnerability tarnished the government's image as a stability and good governance provider. The twin earthquakes on 6 February, 3 months before the elections, exacerbated the administration's failure to respond effectively to the disaster. The affected southeastern provinces, home to nearly 10% of the population, suffered extensive loss of life and infrastructure damage.

The AKP's 21-year rule seemed to be ending due to poor performance in economics and democratic governance, leading to a potential electoral defeat. However, Erdoğan won the presidency in the second round, and his People's Alliance (Cumhur İttifakı, CI) secured a comfortable margin for controlling the Turkish Grand National Assembly (Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi, TBMM). 1 The question remains: what factors contributed to Erdoğan's remarkable survival against all odds? Who were Erdoğan's supporters, and on what issue bases did they cast their votes for him? 2

I examine the factors contributing to Erdoğan's re-election using individual-level post-election data and I argue that his success was primarily based on his performance in various policy areas, such as protecting moral values and easing the use of turban in public spaces, as well as his handling of security and foreign policy. However, his performance in other areas, such as resolving the Kurdish problem, reducing inflation, providing economic welfare and addressing the LGBTQ community's demands, was perceived as relatively low. This duality in his performance allowed him to strategically shift the agenda in favour of more advantageous issue areas, which were favoured by large nationalist and pro-Islamist constituencies. By successfully positioning himself on these key issues, Erdoğan secured a considerable electoral gain.

Optimistic prospective rather than retrospective pocketbook evaluations and support from low-educated middle-to-older age groups, right-wing voters and those who are not problematized by the state of Turkish governance all significantly contributed to Erdoğan's support. However, ethnic and sectarian minority groups, such as Kurds and Alevis, were negatively predisposed to voting for him. The misinformation campaign against the opposition appears to be ineffective in shaping the Erdoğan vote.

Turkey has been designated as a candidate for EU membership, but its accession negotiations have been halted since 2018 on account of worries about the rule of law and democratic values. The two election candidates cannot be easily categorized as pro- or anti-EU. Although Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the opposition candidate, was hesitant towards the EU, he promised to regain trust in Western allies, which was unprecedentedly low. Erdoğan's broader alliance now comprises partners with more conservative right-wing and pro-Islamist viewpoints, further constraining his capacity to adopt a more Western-oriented foreign policy approach. Erdoğan's eventual victory reinforces his control over Turkish politics, which does not bode well for enhancing Western relations. 3

The 2018 elections sparked speculation about an early election in the country. The economic crisis, which significantly depreciated the Turkish lira against the US dollar, further fuelled this expectation. However, the politicization of the financial crisis is mainly due to the AKP candidates' significant losses in the 2019 local elections. This gave new momentum to the opposition and provided potential challengers to Erdoğan's electoral dominance.

In the first round of the presidential election, the sitting President, Erdoğan, and the opposition CHP's candidate, Kılıçdaroğlu, competed against Muharrem İnce, who was the MI candidate in the 2018 election, and Sinan Oğan, a former MHP parliamentarian (see Table 1). İnce's campaign aimed at the opposition rather than the incumbent alliance. He withdrew from the competition 3 days before the election day due to claims regarding his financial status and personal life. The late withdrawal resulted in over 230,000 votes being wasted as his name remained on the ballots. Oğan was part of the Ancestral Alliance (Ata İttifakı, AtaI), a nationalist-conservative group with the ZP and Justice Party (Adalet Partisi, AP). He received over 2.8 million votes (5.2%) and backed Erdoğan in the second round, causing the alliance to disband.

The initial round of the presidential election yielded a turnout rate of 87.04%. Turnout was notably higher in the western provinces. The low voter turnout in East and Southeast Anatolia, where most Kurdish voters supporting the opposition candidate resided, suggests that low turnout in these regions mainly hurt the opposition. The turnout in the second round was approximately three percentage points lower (84.2%). In the second round, Kılıçdaroğlu raised his votes but remained 2.3 million votes behind Erdoğan. The turnout in eastern and southeastern Anatolia was even lower, harming the opposition's chances.

The vote share received by Erdoğan in the 2023 elections (52.2% in the second round) was nearly identical to the share he received in the 2018 elections (52.6%). Kılıçdaroğlu obtained a considerably larger share (44.9%) in the first round of 2023 compared to the MI candidate Muharrem İnce in 2018 (30.6%). This suggests that a considerable number of individuals who voted for HDP candidate Demirtaş and IYIP candidate Akşener in 2018 have shifted their support to Kılıçdaroğlu in 2023, hence consolidating the opposition votes behind his candidacy.

Sinan Oğan's endorsement of Erdoğan may have tilted the balance in Erdoğan's favour. However, the collapse of AtaI after ZP and AP, both members of the Alliance, supported opposition candidate Kılıçdaroğlu suggests that Oğan may not be fully in control of his supporters in the second round. To pressure Erdoğan's campaign in the second round, Kılıçdaroğlu's campaign adopted an increasingly nationalistic and antagonistic discourse to attract Oğan's and ZP voters and promised to return Syrian refugees to their home country. This last-minute appeal to the nationalists might have worked against him, pushing both the Kurdish voters and his core CHP supporters to not vote in the second round.

Analyses of voting behaviour in Turkey are built on long-term cultural cleavage arguments based on Mardin (1973) and short-term economic voting dynamics. According to Mardin, cultural differences shape Turkish politics, which is characterized by a dominant military and bureaucratic elite that controls a strong and coherent state apparatus. The periphery, comprising mainly peasants, small farmers and artisans, is often hostile and confronts the centre. In the Republican era, the ‘center’ is defined by Kemalist secular principles and a nationalist modernization programme. The ‘periphery’ is a coalition that opposes the centre's modernization efforts and includes diverse regional, religious and ethnic groups with conflicting interests and strategies.

The cultural bases of the cleavage are diagnosed to continue into an even sharper kulturkampf after the peripheral AKP's capture of the state apparatus (Çarkoğlu and Kalaycıoğlu, 2021). 15 Reflection of this cleavage in voting behaviour is found in peripheral masses with a pro-Islamist conservative attitudinal predisposition amongst relatively lower educated predominantly living in the outskirts of large metropolitan cities and Anatolian small towns who tend to support the right-of-centre pro-Islamist and nationalist parties. 16 The central constituencies have relatively higher education, display lower piety and cherish secular values (Çarkoglu, 2013; Kalaycıoğlu, 2021).

A persistently significant effect of economic evaluations has also been diagnosed with macro and micro-individual-level data. 17 More recently, the intensive use of misinformation in traditional and social media is underlined with implications for influencing vote choices (Akgül, 2019; Bozdağ and Koçer, 2022). Given the declining democratic standards in the country over more than a decade during Erdoğan's tenure, presidential vote decisions are also expected to depend not only on evaluations of performance in different policy areas but also on the overall satisfaction with the way Turkish democracy performs. 18

Economic concerns persisted in shaping vote choice despite opposition party struggles and earthquakes. The expectation of improved performance evaluations in these areas may have driven Erdoğan's focus on security and foreign policy. The performance evaluations, considering foreign policy and security as well as other important issues for conservative voters, have a significant impact on the decision to choose Erdoğan over Kılıçdaroğlu.

Analyses suggest that the youth vote remains divided. Younger voters who do not have a high school or higher university education are more likely to vote for Erdoğan. Ethnic Kurdish and sectarian minorities of Alevis were both negatively predisposed to vote for Erdoğan. After controlling for demographic and attitudinal factors, we observe no geographical differentiation between residents of rural areas or the outskirts of metropolitan areas. Erdoğan's vote predominantly comes from right-of-centre voters who declare high religious worship. Even though democratic backsliding has accelerated over the past decade, Erdoğan appears to comfortably attract voters who are satisfied with the way Turkish regime works. Reflecting traits of polarized pluralism, Erdoğan voters are more satisfied, and Kılıçdaroğlu voters are less satisfied.

The misinformation campaign claims concerning the opposition collaborating with a terror organization or supporting the LGBTQ agenda did not have a significant impact on the vote choice between Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu. More important impacts were not due to issues on the LGBTQ demands, Syrian refugees or even the prioritization of fighting against inflation as opposed to unemployment in economic policy. The older debates around the identity issues concerning the resolution of the Kurdish problem, or the tension between the secularists and pro-Islamists, appear more potent in determining the vote choice between Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu.

Though the presidential system in Turkey was criticized by the opposition, those who favoured it supported Erdoğan. The opposition campaigned on the issue of the presidential system and blamed its unchecked executive powers for all failures. However, the outcome of the May 2023 elections makes it unlikely that Turkey will revert to a parliamentary system unless Erdoğan changes his stance.

There is overwhelming agreement that these elections were partly free but not fair. 22 The lack of fairness and continuing pressures on democratic principles and the rule of law are likely to keep the tension between the opposition on the losing side and Erdoğan on the winning side. Demands for fairer campaign processes will remain on the country's agenda. However, the factors influencing the Erdoğan vote remained overwhelmingly stable. Erdoğan relied on his conservative constituencies with low-educated younger voters. His performance in select groups of issues around conservative sensitivities, security and foreign policy helped him remain afloat.

The election's outcome had implications for Turkey's economic, democratic and foreign policy prospects. Erdoğan will likely adopt a rational economic policy to create economic relief with lower inflation and growth before the 2028 elections. Likely challenges to his popularity due to rising political stars like the Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and possibly others could disrupt his plans, leading to more populist responses in economic and other policy areas to address opposition challenges. Amongst these policy areas, security and foreign policy are likely to occupy an important space due to his already well-established credibility and success in the face of his conservative constituencies. 23 Given his bewildering victory and the resulting firm grip over all executive powers, Erdoğan is likely to feel reassured of his uncompromising and increasingly autonomous new foreign policy vision. Rising populist right-wing in Europe is also likely to keep Europe more willing to look the other way as Turkey's democratic credentials continue to deteriorate, which is comforting for Erdoğan, who critically depends on his conservative allies to maintain control of the Turkish Grand National Assembly. This, in turn, will mean a continuation of the status quo and continued autocratization on the domestic front until a new electoral window of opportunity arises to oust Erdoğan's regime. It is unlikely that following this victory, however questionable from the perspective of free and fair election practices, a new wave of democratization will follow. Especially when, despite strong discomfort with the Erdoğan regime's democratic credentials, the opposition leadership does not seem to press their constituencies' demands for democratic reforms, unilateral democratization reforms are very unlikely.