Meet Kemal Kilicdaroglu, Turkey’s long-derided opposition head who could dethrone Erdogan
Source:al Monitor Date:25Mar2023
The leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, who will face off against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in presidential elections May 14, is a far more complex figure than meets the eye.
“His years of gradually modifying the CHP’s Kemalism paid off when he was able to bring Iyi and the HDP together while keeping the Ataturkist core of his party intact — demonstrating as he never had previously that he could play in the big leagues of Turkish politics,” Makovsky observed.
Many believe the turning point in Kilicdaroglu’s career was his 2017 “March for Justice” to protest the conviction of CHP lawmaker Enis Berberoglu. The former journalist was sentenced to 25 years in prison for allegedly leaking state secrets to an opposition newspaper about arms deliveries to jihadis in Syria.
Alongside the Kurds, some 6 million first-time voters will have a determining impact on the outcome of the elections. “In a society that adulates power, a leader projecting such humility may not be attractive to everyone. Moral fortitude can be perceived as weakness,” Ogur said.
Still, that a poor Alevi boy from Dersim traveled this far is proof that accepted truths about Turkey can sometimes prove wrong. With a growing number of polls in his favor, envisaging Kilicdaroglu’s victory no longer sounds absurd.