President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was in Istanbul on Friday as part of his penultimate rallies before Sunday’s elections. In his first stopover, Erdoğan addressed a crowd in the Sultangazi district on the European side before heading to Bahçelievler.
The president said some 50,000 people convened for the rally, boasting a high turnout that has been evident in his past rallies.
Erdoğan stated that the opposition bloc led by his main rival Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu “acted with the motivation of greed and revenge,” after their past defeats.
“We cannot accept this ugliness,” he said, referring to what he called a smear campaign. Without naming names, Erdoğan said it was the same power “that forced Meral Akşener back to the opposition bloc after she stepped down,” which “forced Muharrem Ince to withdraw from the candidacy three days before the election.”
Akşener, head of Good Party (IP), had earlier announced that she would leave the six-party alliance before suddenly changing her mind and endorsing Kılıçdaroğlu. Ince, who challenged Erdoğan again in 2018, resigned from the election race, citing a smearing campaign by the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) against him, “supported by the opposition.”
Erdoğan accused Kılıçdaroğlu of being a “puppet of that power,” which saw him “cheering Qandil,” in reference to the hub of the PKK terrorist group in northern Iraq.
He also criticized Kılıçdaroğlu over his claims that Russia interfered in Turkish elections through deep fake content. “It is a shame. What can you say if I tell you that the United States, Britain and Germany manipulate the elections?” he said.
“They used the same method to take over a political party and used it again, against a name who challenged me in the last election, from their own party,” he said. Erdoğan was referring to the resignation of late CHP Chair Deniz Baykal, who stepped down after a sex tape scandal blamed on FETÖ. Kılıçdaroğlu succeeded Baykal as CHP's leader.
Erdoğan also heaped criticism on “the West.” “We are competing against those trying to disrupt the 'Century of Türkiye,'” he said, referring to his ambitious vision of a series of megaprojects and reforms in the centenary of the Republic of Türkiye. “Magazines have covers reading ‘Erdoğan must go.’ It is none of your business. The West cannot decide it. It is up to my nation,” he added.
London-based weekly The Economist drew the ire of the president’s supporters earlier this month with a cover calling for a victory for the opposition. The cover with the title “The Most Important Election of 2023” was adorned with tags “Save Democracy” and “Erdoğan Must Go.”
The weekly claimed Erdoğan's defeat would show “democrats everywhere that strongmen can be beaten.” Earlier this year, The Economist ran another anti-Erdoğan cover titled "Empire" and "Dictatorship."
The publication's report accompanying the body, which reads "Turkey's Looming Dictatorship," claimed Türkiye is on the brink of a disaster as it may go from a "deeply flawed democracy into a full-blown dictatorship." The piece, again conveniently, ignored over two decades of democratic elections the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and its leader Erdoğan easily won, mainly with a landslide victory, with the opposition admitting defeat.
French Le Point and L'Express magazines also featured anti-Erdoğan covers, with the former referring to Erdoğan as “the other Putin,” while L’Express associated him with the risk of chaos, with subheadings including relations with Europe, the migrants and the Middle East, as well as his discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Both magazines featured photos edited to villanize the president.
