As Turkey elects a new leader, the far right wins no matter the result

Syrians escaping the dictatorship of Bashar al Assad did not cause Turkey’s inflation crisis, raise food and housing costs, or decimate the value of the Turkish lira. Afghans fleeing the Taliban are not responsible for the authoritarian drift of Turkey, the crackdown on the press and the hollowing out of its institutions. The Malians, Eritreans, and Sudanese huddling on rubber dinghies in the night-time waters of the Aegean Sea in hopes of making it to Europe did not build the shoddy apartment towers that collapsed in the country’s cataclysmic 6 February earthquakes. Nor did refugees botch recovery efforts afterwards.

Yet judging by the political manoeuvring and rhetoric by both president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Kemal Kilicdaroglu in the days after the inconclusive 14 May first round of presidential elections, the four million or so Syrian refugees and other foreigners in Turkey are about the only issue that matters in the upcoming 28 May runoff.

Kilicdaroglu, who performed worse than expected with only 45 per cent of the popular vote in the first round, has done a complete 180. For weeks, Kilicdaroglu campaigned on messages of hope and inclusion. He spoke of an impending spring, and made heart-shaped hand gestures in videos from his kitchen. He has now started making xenophobic rants, incorrectly accusing Erdogan of allowing “10 million” Syrian refugees in the country and warning that more are coming.

“If you love your country, then decide,” he said in a video posted Saturday. “As if 10 million Syrians were not enough, will you let 10 to 20 million more come? Remember, you’re not voting for me, you’re voting for yourself.”

Erdogan exploited his control of the media and state resources to draw a commanding and likely decisive 49 per cent of the vote in the first round and secured control of parliament for his Justice and Development Party. Regarding the issue of refugees, he has maintained a moderate stance in his rhetoric and cautioned this month that deporting Syrians back into a conflict zone against their will would be “inhuman,” “immoral” and “un-Islamic.” He might have also added that it is blatantly illegal under both Turkish law and international treaties, to which Turkey is a signatory.

However, his own government has allegedly been pressuring Syrians to return to the potential clutches of the Assad regime. Erdogan’s Islamic morals also did not prevent him from meeting and presumably courting far-right third-party nationalist Sinan Ogan, who amassed 5 per cent of last Sunday’s vote on a platform focused exclusively on deporting Syrian refugees and curtailing the rights of the country’s Kurdish minority.

That meeting came just a few hours after Kilicdaroglu openly embraced Ogan’s political ally, Umit Ozdag, who a month ago walked through a neighbourhood in the city of Mersin, live streaming himself as he taunted Syrian shopkeepers.

“We promise Syrians only to send them back to their homeland,” he told a young Syrian man.

Kilicdaroglu and his People’s Republican Party (CHP) have been saying for years that they would adopt a more stringent approach towards the refugees in the country. But he has dramatically escalated his talk since the outcome of the first round. The opposition appeared shocked by the result, and apparently had no coherent plan B to take on Erdogan. Instead of slamming Erdogan on the economy, corruption or incompetence, Kilicdaroglu has instead focused on the most vulnerable and voiceless communities in the country.

"Let me declare it here: I will send away all refugees as soon as I come to power. Period," he said in an 18 May speech.

The worst part of Kilicdaroglu’s embrace of such rhetoric is that it will likely hurt his image and that of his party more than help him.

"It will possibly cause many Kurdish voters to think ‘there’s no difference between [Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu]’ and cause them to not go to the ballot box,” commentator Levent Gultekin argued on the news website Medyascope.

Turkish voters aren’t idiots. They can tell when a politician is making a calculated political move to draw votes. Kilidaroglu’s jarring swing from promising a new spring to vowing to effectively launch pogroms is ugly, but also transparently cynical. It shows a lack of integrity and principles.

In fact, with far-right fringe groups forging alliances with both the president and opposition camps, an argument could be made that Erdogan, as authoritarian and erratic as he has become in recent years, was the lesser of two evils.

“Erdogan might win in the second round with a bigger margin,” said Nevsin Mengu, a political analyst and independent broadcaster. “Erdogan is a strong leader who can take control of the fringe groups. Kilicdaroglu is not a strong leader. If Sinan Ogan gets into government, it is the mafia. They are dangerous. If Kilicdaroglu gets into bed with them he cannot control them.”

Turkish politics’ dramatic lurch even further in the direction of the xenophobic right has a familiar ring to it. Like in western countries, the public has been peppered for years with anti-immigrant messaging from far-right politicians and pundits. That message perhaps finds an even more receptive audience in Turkey, where the surge in refugees from Syria and elsewhere has coincided with economic malaise caused largely by failed economic policies.

Turkey’s hosting of refugees and its status as a potential haven for those in the Middle East, South Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa fleeing war and oppression should be a point of pride. Istanbul’s emergence as a freewheeling Manhattan of Eurasia could draw foreign investment and capital. But no politician has made that argument.

Both Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu know better. Each has, at various points in their political careers, attempted to brand themselves and their political parties as somewhat liberal and cosmopolitan before shifting towards the right.

The political dynamics in Turkey resembles that of American and European politicians believing they can harness and exploit the toxic fire of the far-right, only to be eventually consumed by its flames. In the US, the Republican Party was eventually overtaken by its most toxic elements. French conservatives were knocked aside by the far-right they had played footsie with for years.

The far-right leader Ogan has said he will announce on 22 May whether he will call his supporters to vote for Erdogan or Kilicdraoglu on 28 May. The Moscow-educated think tank scholar has gone from an obscure former member of parliament to the nation’s “kingmaker.” Turkey’s toxic politics and irresponsible politicians propelled him to prominence.