Turkish President Erdogan has won the second and final round of elections this Sunday, the Wall Street Journal reports. The final vote count as declared by the the Turkish election board 52.13% for Erdogan, while his opponent received 47.87%. In his victory speech, Erdogan put emphasis on his foreign policy record of making his country a strong regional power, and accusing his opponent of promoting an LGBT agenda, the shorthand to criticize Western-alignment.
Erdogan’s background as the child of the working class contrasted with his opponent Kılıçdaroğlu’s middle-class intellectual upbringing. Turkey’s Republic People’s Party which Kılıçdaroğlu heads, the Kemalist Western-aligned secularist party, had been in charge of the country until various coups broke its monopoly on power. Erdogan’s AKP found support in the conservative Eastern part of the country, with its high birth rates gradually shifting the center of power away from Istanbul.
Despite Turkey suffering a currency downfall, Erdogan continued with his populist reforms, expanding access to credit for ordinary Turks, raising wages for civil servants, and offering free natural gas to all citizens for a month. He also responded to the shattering earthquake that killed tens of thousands of Turks, rebuilding destroyed houses at record speed. His control on the media and use of state resources has raised question as to the fairness of the elections, but a majority of the electorate saw him as a steady leader in a time of uncertainty for Turkey.
