The Turkish political spectrum is more complicated than most.
The familiar axes of: socially liberal-conservative
and economically left-right intersect with:
secular-religious and Turkish-Kurdish nationalisms.
In recent years, considerations of West-East orientation and
parliamentarism vs exec rule have been added to the mix.
The success of Erdoğan’s AKP party has largely been down to it covering many of these bases at once.
In its early years, it formed a big-tent coalition of liberals, conservatives
and religious voters, Turkish and Kurdish alike.
They shared a frustration with the failures of the authoritarian Kemalist elites.
When Erdoğan’s rule started to become authoritarian itself,
he lost his liberal support and then traded Kurdish support for the far more powerful Turkish nationalist base,
formalising this in an official pact with the ethnic-nationalist MHP.
In Turkish politics, ideology is a double edged-sword that cuts both ways.
Erdoğan had long won the major culture war issues and as a result created a new centre-ground.
As the economy stagnated and political repression grew, an inevitable realignment took place.
The nationalists, long divided between their Turkish-Islamic synthesis and Kemalist wings,
finally split along these lines resulting the creation of the İYİ Party.
Combining a nationalist stance, secularism and parliamentarianism,
it has parked its tanks on the centre-right and consistently polls in third place.
Its electoral alliance with the centre-left CHP has seen the election of popular mayors in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir.
These cities alone are home to over 25 million people.
The ruling AKP-MHP and the opposition CHP-İYİ coalitions have both been polling an average of 40% for the past year.
This situation was already very unsettling for Erdoğan.
Breaking this stalemate depends on the remaining 20% of voters.
Half of these are locked in for the left-wing Kurdish HDP,
leaving a small fraction of voters that will be decisive in 2023.
Recent months have seen an explosion in the number of new small parties.
Most struggle to even register in polling but there are two notable exceptions:
and worryingly for the ruling party, they are both AKP splinter parties.
Future Party (GP), led by former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu is averaging 1.8%.
DEVA, led by another former Foreign Minister, Ali Babacan, is doing even better at 3.2%.
In March, CHP and İYİ held a press conference
announcing a joint opposition platform with Future and DEVA
and formal coalition partner Saadet, the original AKP splinter party that has a solid support base of just over 1%
This grouping is united on their agreement for a strengthened parliamentary system
and the need to curb the powers of the executive presidency created under Erdoğan.
If an election were to be held today, according to the latest polling,
the ruling coalition would struggle to win more than 40%,
while this new loose opposition alliance could win over 47%.
Though conspicuously absent from any of these talks,
the HDP has stated that it would support any votes for returning to a parliamentary system.
With Erdoğan once again a key figure on the world stage,
a lot could still change from now until the election.
These parties have deep ideological divisions
which are unlikely to just disappear after implementing joint constitutional reforms.
Erdoğan will undoubtedly try to exploit this.
The elections are to take place in the symbolic 100th anniversary year of the Turkish Republic’s founding.
The political energy will be extremely high on both sides.
Yet with the economy doing as badly as it is and after two decades of AKP rule,
the opposition has everything to play for.
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