President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan assembled 10,000 young citizens in the capital Ankara on Tuesday for an energetic rally where he introduced his ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AK Party) 25 parliamentary candidates and a set of promises dedicated to cultivating Türkiye’s younger generation as he campaigns for the upcoming elections.
So far, Erdoğan’s appearances have been limited to inauguration and launch ceremonies for several projects, from groundbreaking for new houses for deadly Feb. 6 earthquake victims to the launch of a state-of-art warship.
As part of his agenda to hold rallies in 40 provinces every day until May 14, the Turkish leader has addressed cheering crowds in half a dozen cities and highlighted the past services of his government and expounded the election promises ranging from economic measures to curbing inflation, boosting production to expanding social rights for women and youths and elevating Türkiye’s international standing.
Under the “Right here, right now for youth” slogan, Erdoğan has assured his parliamentary seats would include younger names.
In addition to his promise to establish a Family and Youth Bank funded by the natural gas and oil income of Türkiye to serve the welfare of young citizens and families, Erdoğan has pledged to exempt for one time only value-added tax on mobile phone and computer purchases of university students and offer students an environment of quality education and research and development by advancing the means and tools of higher education institutions.
As such, some 30,000 youths selected by objective criteria will be raised as qualified personnel to be able to compete in some 20 strategically important specific fields in the international arena.
The AK Party is looking to encourage the political perspective of young Turks while ensuring there is more room for young minds in politics to leave their mark on local affairs.
Erdoğan is also aiming to grant principal roles to young candidates in municipal councils, with the hope of preparing youth for the future based on not “destructive” but “humanitarian” digitalization.
Furthermore, Erdoğan has revealed he would issue interest-free loans and ensure flexible working conditions to young entrepreneurs looking to build their own businesses to guide their integration into the business world.
Young citizens will be supported with all the necessary social and financial benefits while being able to continue their professional work or education comfortably.
As for adolescents freshly graduating high school or university, Erdoğan said guiding assistance would be provided in terms of employment and career opportunities.
In agriculture, state-of-the-art means that center on green transformation and digitalization will bolster support for young farmers and generate the push they need.
Agricultural Entrepreneurship Sites, shortly dubbed TARGIB, will be established nationwide for young entrepreneurs.
For university students, the party said the government would issue “Youth Cards” to ensure youths can benefit from free or discount prices for cultural and art events like theater and cinema showings.
Moreover, Erdoğan has vowed to gift 10 gigabytes of mobile data a month to university students and up the number of donation programs like trips, education, internships, activities, and sports games in order to let youths mingle and increase their cultural engagement.
In addition to his pledges for Türkiye’s younger population, Erdoğan has also honed in on earthquake recovery as part of the "Century of Türkiye" vision he unveiled last year to celebrate the second century of Türkiye’s being a republic. He assured more housing and infrastructure would be built for the affected regions in the country’s southeast devastated by the massive tremors.
He has since pursued a subdued yet still effective campaign.
On May 14, some 64 million Turks, both at home and abroad, will be heading to polls to elect Türkiye’s 13th president and all 600 members of Parliament.
Besides Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu, two other candidates, one secularly nationalist and one far-right, are also competing for the top office but the race is likely to be primarily between Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu.
Recent opinion polls conducted by the survey company Areda last week showed Erdoğan would win 51.4% and Kılıçdaroğlu would garner 41.8% of the vote.
In the case of a run-off, pollsters also overwhelmingly endorsed Erdoğan, marking some 53.5% for him and 46.5% for Kılıçdaroğlu.
