Final push for campaigns in Turkey ahead of the presidential election
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Transcript
00:00 Istanbul and Barçın Yenanç, journalist who is there.
00:05 Thank you for speaking with us, Barçın.
00:07 Good to see you.
00:08 Good to see you, François.
00:09 A lot to unpack.
00:10 Let's just explain some of what we just heard for our viewers.
00:15 Late on Thursday, there was this tweet put out in both Turkish and Russian where the
00:24 leader of the opposition accused Moscow of meddling in the campaign, particularly with
00:31 that 11th hour pullout by the third party candidate, Ince.
00:40 There's allegations of a sex tape, although that's not been confirmed.
00:44 And what you heard there from the Turkish president is basically turning the tables.
00:51 Is that correct?
00:52 Well, in the last 48 minutes, 48 hours, I can say that, yes, things are turning a little
01:00 bit ugly.
01:02 In terms of the Russian meddling, we have been observing the Russian interference, open
01:08 interference actually, ever since November.
01:12 For the second time, Russia has delayed the payment of natural gas to please the government.
01:22 And Russia has organized a meeting between Turkish foreign minister and the Syrian foreign
01:27 minister because the Syrian refugee issue is so sensitive.
01:32 And up until now, actually, Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu has sent very positive messages to Russia
01:37 saying, don't worry, if we come, relations are not going to be fundamentally affected.
01:43 But this is the first time he has taken this confrontational and accusational tone against
01:49 Russia.
01:50 And in this afternoon, he has just said that he said to a news organization that he wouldn't
01:58 have accused Russia had he not had concrete evidence in his hands about a digital interference
02:08 this time from Moscow.
02:11 So it sounds, when he's accusing Moscow of putting out a sex tape, which in that tweet
02:18 he says, he talks about, he doesn't specifically say that it's referring to Muammar al-Inceh,
02:24 who dropped out of the race on Thursday, a third party candidate.
02:28 But he talks about montages, conspiracies, deep fakes and tapes.
02:33 And it's clear that that is kind of what he's referring to.
02:37 Actually, I would rather think that he does not allude to the famous allegedly sex tape
02:46 of the third presidential candidate who has withdrawn yesterday from the race, which is
02:54 actually under normal circumstances should result in favor of Mr. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.
03:01 But I think the leader of the opposition is rather warning against possible meddling in
03:10 these hours to come, especially during, at the election day.
03:18 They are fearing that there could be some fake news about, you know, claiming some allegations
03:29 about the opposition leader, etc.
03:32 So more than alluding to the alleged sex tape, I think he was rather warning about possible
03:40 new interventions on the digital realm from Moscow.
03:45 Barçın, we devoted a whole hour to Turkey's elections on Thursday, and the panel was saying
03:52 that with less than 72 hours to go, this could be a first round win, but they don't know
03:58 for who.
04:00 Well, when you had this panel, probably maybe the third candidate had not-
04:07 He had just pulled out.
04:09 He had just withdrawn.
04:11 Right.
04:12 Actually, normally experts predict that he's pulling out would rather work in favor of
04:21 the leader of the opposition, because according to pollsters, at least 55 percent of those
04:27 who were planning to vote for this candidate who withdrawn would be voting for the opposition
04:33 candidate.
04:34 Now, the polls are showing a slight advance of Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu.
04:40 Having said that, we still, you know, we still expect the race to be neck and neck, although
04:47 some of the circles around the opposition seem quite confident that there could be maybe
04:54 a landslide victory, and the fact that the government has taken a very harsh rhetoric
05:01 against the opposition sort of tells me that they are seeing that they're about to lose.
05:08 All right.
05:09 So, it's certainly, it's not for the faint of heart, a Turkish election.
05:12 That's nothing new.
05:13 This one is oh so close by the looks of it.
05:17 If Recep Tayyip Erdogan is voted out, even though he controls all the levers of power
05:24 right now, what does he do?
05:26 Is it the scenario where he goes quietly?
05:29 Is it the scenario where he tries to have some kind of a recount or there's violence?
05:35 Or does he go into the opposition a la Benjamin Netanyahu and start to work away at the coalition
05:45 that's behind his opponent?
05:47 Well, in the course of the past 50 years, when Turkey has had multi-party elections,
05:55 never once had we had to think about whether an incumbent government who had lost would
06:03 not, would stick to the power.
06:06 The transition of power has been very peaceful and normal in the course of the 50 decades
06:14 of multi-party democracy in Turkey.
06:16 So one would assume that that tradition, that democratic tradition should continue.
06:23 I would agree that even some in Turkey have difficulty to contemplate Erdogan going home
06:31 peacefully.
06:32 But this is, this will be the case if he will lose in an election result, which will be
06:39 a landslide.
06:40 Now, if the election result is so tight and it's neck and neck, I would imagine obviously
06:46 that each side will contest the election results.
06:52 And again, I wouldn't want to speculate on any possible violence since apart very little
07:01 skirmishes in the past, we never had major violent incidents.
07:08 The problem is I think President Erdogan wants to inject fear, want to spread fear among
07:15 the supporters of the opposition by trying to give the impression that he might resort
07:23 to violence.
07:24 He never says that, obviously, but in between the messages he gives, there is always the
07:30 sense of he might call his supporters to the street.
07:33 I mean, especially the statement he has done today was carrying this hidden message.
07:40 I think this is a strategy he's just doing on purpose so that people avoid going to the
07:45 ballot box.
07:46 But more importantly, he wants to scare people off so that they don't go to the ballot box
07:51 to see, to control, to watch whether their votes are counted in a transparent way.
07:59 Because let's not forget that tens of, tens of, more than 30,000 people, most probably,
08:07 thousands of civilians will be taking jobs in the ballot box this time.
08:13 It's unprecedented because there are fear of fraud.
08:19 A lot of civilians will be working as either ballot box officials or election observers.
08:26 So this is a strategy he's trying to pursue in order to get, to have partisans of the
08:33 opposition, you know, stay away.
08:35 To discourage his opponents from voting.
08:37 Barçın, very quickly, because we're out of time.
08:39 How will the vote go down in areas that have been hit by the earthquake, where oftentimes
08:43 the displaced live on the other side of town, if not in different cities right now?
08:48 Well, this is a big question, Mark, because we know that at least three million have left
08:54 the earthquake zones and only a few thousands, 133,000, have registered in the new cities
09:01 that they have gone.
09:02 Now, having more than two and a half million citizens going back to the earthquake zone
09:08 could prove to be difficult, although we know that as of today, a reverse journey had started
09:16 towards the earthquake zone.
09:18 But right now, I think this is one of the biggest question marks in terms of how will
09:23 be the participation level from the earthquake zone.
09:26 One round or two.
09:27 It's the question we'll be putting to our panel in the world this week.
09:30 Barçın Yenenç, many thanks for speaking with us from Istanbul.