ANKARA: At a rally in Istanbul on Sunday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan charged the main opposition party with being “pro-LGBT” as he ramped up his rhetoric against his rivals one week ahead of the general election anticipated to be a close contest.
In another incident, while attending an electoral rally in the eastern city of Erzurum, a bastion of Erdogan’s AK Party (AKP), demonstrators threw stones at Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, a member of the major opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).
Turkey will hold presidential and legislative elections on May 14 and polls indicate that Erdogan will face his toughest electoral test in his 20 years in office.
At his rally in Istanbul, Erdogan appealed to his traditionalist Muslim voter base.
“Family is fundamental to us, thus neither the AK Party nor the other parties in our partnership will ever be pro-LGBT. “We’ll vote out those who support LGBT rights,” he warned.
In recent years, Erdogan has stepped up his vitriol against the LGBT community, regularly calling its members “deviants.”
On Sunday, he again criticised Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the major opposition coalition and his main opponent in the election.
Erdogan said: “My people will not allow drunks and boozers to take the stage.” You can drink buckets of it, Mr Kemal, but nothing will make you well.”
“On May 14, my country will take the appropriate action. Kilicdaroglu, who works closely with terrorists, would not be allowed to split our country, Erdogan warned.
Erdogan has also charged Kilicdaroglu with receiving funding from the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has been engaged in an insurgency since the 1980s and been responsible for the deaths of over 40,000 people. The European Union, the United States, and Turkey all see it as a terrorist organisation.
As divisive and risky campaign rhetoric, the opposition has already rebutted Erdogan’s assertions, tying them to terrorists.
At a campaign event in Erzurum, Istanbul Mayor Imamoglu, who would become Kilicdaroglu as president if he wins, was speaking to supporters from the top of an open-air bus when some individuals in the audience began throwing stones at him and his supporters in the crowd, according to video evidence.
Imamoglu ended his lecture early and departed the area on the bus.
Imamoglu told his followers, “We are leaving for your safety,” and announced he would lodge a criminal complaint against the Erzurum governor and the police head for allowing the violence.
At least one individual was shown on camera with a facial injury.
“The governor of Erzurum phoned and informed me that seven persons had been hurt. I spoke with nine injured persons at this time, ” he said in a tweet.
Erdogan received 72% of the vote in Erzurum during the 2018 presidential election.
