Turkish political analysts have unanimously agreed that the upcoming Turkish presidential elections on Sunday will be the strongest, powerful and most competitive among the three candidates, namely Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the nominee of Turkiye’s People’s Alliance party, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the candidate for the Nation Alliance and Sinan Ogan, the nominee of the ATA alliance (Alliance of Ancestors), after the withdrawal of Muharram Ince.
In exclusive statements to Qatar News Agency (QNA), the analysts said all options are possible in these elections, adding that it is hard to have confidence in the findings of the opinion polls that come out at the present time, especially since most of the parties that stand behind these polls are serving specific agendas.
The analysts’ predictions varied concerning the elections’ results, where some of them see that elections will not be determined just from the first round, but there will be a re-election round, whilst others say Erdogan will be capable of determining the elections’ results for his party from the first round with a slight disparity from his closest contender Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the candidate for the Nation Alliance.
They pointed out to the existential role of some foreign parties whether they are states or organizations, including numerous factors that would have their impacts on the results, and perhaps one side will outweigh the other, but eventually the decision remains for the Turkish voter. As the voter in the presidential elections may not adhere to the partisan affiliations to which he/she belongs, and many voters may deviate from the framework of their narrow affiliation with the party and vote according to their personal preferences and not to the preferences of the party.
For his part, Researcher at SETA Foundation, Foreign Policy Research Department in Ankara Bilal Salaymeh underlined that the Turkish presidential elections will not be decided from the first round and might see a second round, because votes are distributed among the key candidates, namely Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Kemal Kilicdaroglu and Sinan Ogan.
The joining of the Peoples’ Democratic Party to the opposition front, which is the parties of the six-party table, supports this front, Salaymeh told QNA, pointing out that this increases the chances of its candidate, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, especially since the Peoples’ Democratic Party has a large electoral base.
He predicted that the elections are set to witness high popular turnout because of the polarization size that preceded them as well as the significance of that electoral struggle in Turkiye’s history, indicating that young voters will have an influential bloc to dramatically determine these elections.
For his part, the political analyst and member of the Justice and Development Party Yusef Katabioglu said the presidential elections will be decisive as opposed to their predecessors because they hold extremely significant objectives, and notwithstanding of these alliances and blocs the elections will be determined in the first round in favor of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
In statements to QNA, Katabioglu said there is a foreign support to the Turkish opposition, because the Turkish model under the leadership of Erdogan keeps disturbing the foreign entities very much, where Turkiye has become a major regional country and has been influential in foreign and regional policies.
He added that the opposition’s alliance will not be able to receive more than %50 in these elections due to defections.
Source: Qatar News Agency