On Sunday, May 14, Turks go to the polls, choosing president and members of the legislature. The first round of elections chooses, in addition to the president, the 600 seats in the Turkish parliament. The country, with more than 85 million inhabitants, of which about 50 million are voters, has been living for 20 years under the unquestioned leadership of the conservative Recep Tayyp Erdogan.

The election takes place in a moment of uncertainty. Marked by conflicts and bombings, the electoral process has awakened the world’s attention, worried about abuses and fraud, in a very authoritarian regime that plays all its strength to protect itself.

We can affirm that the election is the most important in the recent history of Turkey; it would not be an exaggeration to also say that it is one of the first elections of this stage that is opening, in the international sphere of a more open fight against the extreme right and its methods.

The good news is that, according to the polls, there are chances that the opposition will win, which would change the quality of the situation in Turkey, opening a new democratic scenario, where the left and the mass movement would have better conditions to intervene, in comparison with Erdoğan’s regime, which has increasingly resembled a dictatorship.

The Immediate Contradictions of the Electoral Dispute

Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in the midst of the crisis of the early 2000s. Turkey was experiencing an economic crisis, and factors such as general discontent and even an earthquake – smaller in scope than the one a few months ago – in the Izmit region led to fissures in the then government, paving the way for the “charismatic” Erdoğan.

The “Erdoğan era” was marked by a growing escalation of authoritarianism, combining repression of the Kurdish nationality in the country, with an anti-rights view and persecution of opposition sectors. After the Taksin Square rebellion in 2013, Erdogan shut down the regime, preventing youth from being able to question his anti-democratic policies, strengthening the military budget, with a greater Islamic fundamentalist narrative. To impose his religious reading, criminalizing the theologian and Islamic leader, Fethullah Gülen, on the grounds that he would be behind an attempted coup in 2016.

Enlisted in the gallery of leaders of the world’s extreme right, alongside Trump, Orban, Meloni, Modi and Bolsonaro, Erdogan embodies the authoritarian project and makes it the center of his political clashes. The dispute engenders some of the most important contradictions of the present time, namely:

i. The dispute between a secular project and an authoritarian and fundamentalist project – the question between the traditional reference and modernity; this is expressed, beyond individual civil rights, in the dispute over secular knowledge within universities, the attack on women’s rights, with his patriarchal and Islamic politics; he has reinforced in recent weeks, his already known contempt for the LGBTQI community, accusing the opposition of being “LGBtist,” something unacceptable for the “great Turkish nation.”

ii. The dispute between fractions of the bourgeoisie – the opposition candidate, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, from the CHP, the party of bourgeois nationalism, heirs of Ataturk, expresses an opposition sector that unites a wide spectrum of interests, political sectors and classes. An entire sector of the bourgeoisie is betting on a development model different from the one put forward by Erdogan and adds up to Kilicdaroglu’s candidacy.

iii. The contradictions implied in the geopolitical issue – Erdoğan is a central actor in geopolitics, due to Turkey’s strategic location, directly influencing Europe, the East and Asia, having a special place in the dispute over the Caucasus and the Black Sea. Despite some disputes with Putin – such as the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict – Erdoğan profiles himself as independent from the United States, with relations with Iran; yet, he has conditioned Sweden’s entry into NATO to the handover of exiled Kurdish activists; The Kremlin, in turn, is said to be organizing a network via the deep web to spread fakenews about Kilicdaroglu, making inferences about terrorism and the relationship with the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party); Kilicdaroglu has held important meetings with the US Ambassador to Turkey, Jeff Flake, committing himself to “democratic changes” in foreign policy.

The strategic significance of Erdoğan’s defeat

The big news of the election process, as already said, is the chance that Erdogan will lose. This could happen, as early as Sunday night, if Kilicdrogu gets more than 50 percent of the valid votes. Otherwise, the election will be decided in a second round on May 28. An electoral recovery for Erdogan cannot be ruled out, due to the instilled fear and fraud. With the sudden withdrawal of the candidate who was fourth in the polls, Muharrem Ince, who dropped out after a video of him with pornographic content was leaked, the race is closer to being decided in the first round.

As Marxist economist Michael Roberts wrote in his latest column:

“Turkey is the 19th largest economy in the world and a member of the G20. During the first decade of Erdogan’s presidency, Turkey’s economy enjoyed a degree of expansion, though very much based on a myriad of infrastructure projects and financed by foreign loans. But when people protested against many reckless developments, in particular in the months-long Gezi Park protests in 2013 over planned urban development in central Istanbul, Erdoğan responded with a violent crackdown.”

The change in quality came after the earthquake, which left another 50,000 dead, in February of this year, opening a fissure in the face of the lax stance the government took. The other aspect is rampant inflation, illustrated by the fact that onions – on account of their price increase of more than five times in the last few months – have become the symbol of the electoral campaign. Gallup polls indicate that 73% of Turks think that the Turkish economy is getting worse, and 65% think that their standard of living is declining.

The other issue involved is the Kurdish question. With about 18% of Turkey’s declared population, the Kurds are the main target and the main organized resistance to Erdogan’s project.

The current regime has banned the legal, multi-ethnic party that organized Kurdish advocacy, the HDP, arrested its main leaders, and removed hundreds of mayors and councilors from the party.

An eventual defeat of Erdoğan will pave the way for the legal reorganization of the Kurdish democratic movement. Because of the restrictions, the Kurds are allied with other leftist sectors in the Green Left and Freedom (Ysael) coalition. The coalition is running for parliament despite persecution and has not launched a presidential candidacy to avoid dispersion, in a kind of implicit critical vote for Kilicdaroglu.

Erdogan’s defeat will be a victory for all the peoples of the world, a breakthrough for the struggle of the Kurds, the working class and all the people. A struggle that will have echoes in Syria, Iran, Iraq, Greece, where the right may also lose the next election, scheduled for the end of the month.

Kilicdaroglu’s victory will be a huge relief. However, his economic plan and arc of alliances aims to maintain neoliberalism and predatory capitalism in Turkey.

The real hope lies in the heroic Kurdish resistance and the tradition of struggles of the Turkish left. It is a long-term and international battle against the far right.