The voting process for Turkish citizens living abroad has been completed, six days before the presidential and parliamentary elections on June 24. Despite all the attempts to manipulate the electorate and obstruct the turnout in many European countries, citizens have cast their ballots, most of whom are expected to have opted for the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
All kinds of unfair competition and double standards have been employed to undermine Erdoğan and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party). The governments and political parties of several EU countries directly intervened in the elections, and overtly showed that they are not impartial, by disregarding political ethics. While they restricted all the events and activities propagating Erdoğan and the AK Party, they openly supported the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), the mouthpiece of the PKK terror group. They condoned the propaganda activities organized by the PKK militants and proponents.
In Germany, the Greens and the Left breached political ethics and called upon to vote for the HDP. They resorted to every means possible to impress the opinion of the electorate. However, all these heinous attempts only rendered the Turkish electorate in Europe more determined. As a matter of fact, the efforts to sabotage Turkish electorate's democratic will boosted the support given to Turkey.
When the votes are counted, we will see that a majority of European Turks have opted for Erdoğan and the AK Party. It is impossible to hinder and suppress the will of the people.
In the last two days of the voting process abroad, a total of 1.198 million Turkish expats cast ballots. Some 588,209 people voted in Germany whereas the total number of voters was 146,464 in France, 96,049 in the Netherlands, 57,563 in Belgium and 45,211 in Austria. Compared to the turnout in the April 2017 referendum, a 9.7 percent increase has been observed in the participation rate. It is predicted that more than two million expats will have voted by the end of the voting period abroad.
The expat votes are of critical importance for Turkey. In the latest election, a vast majority of them voted for the AK Party, thus enabling the increase of AK Party deputies in some provinces. I am more than certain that this will be repeated on the night of June 24.
Those closing the mosques in Austria, those lynching the best two football players in Germany only because they met Erdoğan, and those granting asylum right to the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) and PKK militants in Germany and Austria cannot understand why the European Turks vote for Erdoğan although it has a simple answer: The Muslims and Turks living in Europe are being protected and defended by the state of Turkey governed by President Erdoğan. Turkish expats know that Turkey will be a stronger country as long as Erdoğan and the AK Party win the elections. They also know that the incompetent politicians of the old Turkey left the European Turks alone in the past.
On June 24, certain groups in several EU countries who used every means to hinder Erdoğan's victory will be greatly disappointed once again.
All the polls suggest that Erdoğan will be elected as president in the first round of the presidential elections. Also, it is estimated that the People's Alliance led by the AK Party will enjoy the majority of votes in the parliamentary election. The polls indicate that Erdoğan will be re-elected as president by receiving a vote share between 50.3 to 55 percent.
With the support of the majority of the electorate in Turkey and abroad, the new system will get its final shape after the formation of the new government. I think our interlocutors in the EU and other places should review their policies in consideration of this factor. I suggest them to pay a particular attention to this article because they will see that what I wrote above will come true on June 24.