“If you want our friendship to continue after May 15, don’t touch the Turkish state,” Kılıçdaroğlu tweeted in Turkish and Russian. He added that he remains open to “cooperation and friendship” with Russia, with which Turkey shares a Black Sea border.
Moscow “vehemently rejected” his claims about the video’s distribution. “There is no way to talk about Russia interfering in elections in Turkey,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, adding that these are “fabrications of liars.”
Dear Russian friends,
You are behind the montages, conspiracies, Deep Fake content and recordings that were exposed yesterday in this country. If you want to continue our friendship after May 15, keep your hands off the Turkish state. We still stand for…— Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu (@kilicdarogluk) May 11, 2023
According to The Guardian, Ince claims that the footage he was supposed to be on was copied “from an Israeli porn site”. “That’s not my private life, that’s slander. It’s not real,” he said. But the video and links to it that appeared on the Turkish internet caused such an uproar that Ince, a former school principal, dropped his candidacy.
Poll: Three days before the election, Erdogan is losing
Foreign
His 2.2 percent of the votes predicted by the last published survey should go to Kılıçdaroğlu, but according to experts, it is likely that Ince’s staunch supporters will not go to the presidential elections at all.
Erdogan is losing 5.6 percentage points to his main rival, Kılıçdaroğlu, according to the aforementioned survey conducted by the KONDA agency: the president has the support of 43.7 percent of voters, while his challenger has 49.3 percent. This suggests that Turkey’s presidential election is likely to go to a second round, scheduled for May 28.
For two weekends, Erdogan thus faces the biggest challenge in twenty years of his stellar political career. His situation is complicated by Turkey’s severe economic crisis and, above all, disillusionment with the state’s response to the devastating earthquake that killed more than 51,000 people in Turkey in February, leaving millions more homeless.
Photo: CTK
Resignation candidate Muharrem Ince
In the parliamentary elections, according to the KONDA survey, the current ruling Justice Development Party and its allies appear to be “footed” to win, with 44 percent of the vote, while Kılıçdaroğlu’s Republican People’s Party (CHP) and other opposition parties nominated him for the presidential race , only 39.9 percent of the vote.
The pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), which has already declared its support for the opposition, will decide on the government. However, the disunity of the Kurdish electorate also gives Erdogan’s AKP a chance.
Until now, Moscow and Ankara have had good relations
Russia and Turkey have enjoyed close relations in recent years, with Russian President Vladimir Putin often holding talks with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Russia is the most important supplier of energy to Turkey, which is a member of NATO and, unlike other states of the North Atlantic Alliance, did not impose anti-Russian sanctions after the invasion of Ukraine.
Erdogan is trying to act as a mediator between Moscow and Kyiv.
Turkey helped negotiate a contract to transport agricultural products from Ukrainian ports across the Black Sea.
For the earth to come out of darkness. Kurds will back Erdogan’s challenger
Foreign
