https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65743031
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been ruling Turkey for 20 years, easily won the next elections and received the right to rule the country for another five years, which under him became richer and more influential, but less secular and free. In the second round on Sunday, Erdogan won 2 million more votes than united opposition candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.
There were no serious complaints about the organization of voting and counting of votes, however, the opposition does not consider the elections free, since in Turkey the electoral commission and the courts are actually subordinate to the president, freedom of speech is suppressed, and prominent opponents of the authorities are in prison or go under the article.
In the first round two weeks ago, Erdogan lacked half a percent to win, but in the second round he won more than 52% of the vote. The opposition hoped that the suppression of freedoms and failures in public administration, exposed by the recent devastating earthquake and the long-standing economic crisis, would force voters to abandon the traditional candidate in favor of change. However, in a divided country, it was not the city dwellers who missed a democratic, secular and European-oriented Turkey that prevailed, but the outback, where Erdogan's key electorate is concentrated, sharing his conservative policy aimed at the Islamization of public life, strengthening authoritarianism, military power and influence in the world.
The opposition opposed the soft and down-to-earth 74-year-old Kilichdaroglu to the domineering and wayward Erdogan. His chances were initially low, but the main opposition candidate, 54-year-old mayor of Istanbul Ekrem Imamoglu, could not take part in the elections. He was sentenced to a real term for criticizing the electoral committee, and an appeal against the sentence was promised to be considered after the presidential elections. Even if Imamoglu won, he risked going to prison. Kılıçdaroğlu, despite occasional calls to step down as head of the party, vowed to continue the fight for democracy in Turkey. He called the elections "the most unfair in recent years."
Even before the end of the counting of votes, leaders of various countries began to congratulate Erdogan, which confirmed his status as a successful mediator, able to benefit Turkey from the most difficult conflicts without taking either side. Following a message of praise to a "dear friend" from Russian President Vladimir Putin, Erdogan received congratulations from Vladimir Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, to which Turkey is selling drones to ward off Russian aggression and help bypass the Kremlin's trade blockade.
Turkey remains both a member of NATO and an ally of the European Union in protecting Europe from the influx of refugees. At the same time, Erdogan is developing ties with the Middle East, his army is fighting in Syria, and he is increasingly cooperating with Russia, especially in gas and nuclear energy. He considers himself a reformer of the scale of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and the sultans of the Ottoman Empire. After winning the election, he promised tens of thousands of jubilant admirers a new golden age.
"In these elections, one of the most important in Turkish history, our people voted for the century of Turkey," Erdogan told those gathered in the square near the walls of his palace. He recalled that Constantinople fell exactly 570 years ago, after which the Byzantine Empire withered and the Ottoman Empire flourished. "That was a turning point in history. One era ended, another began. I hope these elections will be such a turning point in modern history," Erdogan said in a short speech that he began with a song and ended with a poem.
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