Turkey, the elections and Gen-Z
Source:Balcani Cuacosso Date:05May2023
Given the serious grievances young people have with the current situation in Turkey, the AKP’s campaigns directed toward Gen Z have recently been criticised for being out of touch. A recent video that left many viewers scratching their heads was shot in a university canteen. Its message was that young AKP-supporting men have to hide their political views in order to attract liberal women.
Another official AKP campaign video was quickly deleted from social media after viewers noticed that the background music was American rapper Coolio’s 1995 hit “Gangsta’s Paradise,” with its description of an outlaw life on the fringes of society. This is not the first time the AKP’s attempts to reach out to the youth have backfired, in a phenomenon that scholar Lisel Hintz and I have described elsewhere as “boomer fails”.
The main opposition, in contrast, is not using rap songs or highly visible but mostly symbolic young MPs to court the youth vote. Instead, Kılıçdaroğlu and his allies are using their speeches and campaign videos to focus on the issues that research has shown youth are most concerned about: unemployment, nepotism, restrictions on lifestyle, quality of education, and declining purchasing power.