ISTANBUL: Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the would-be successor to Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey has a deceptively straightforward plan: make sure that the country’s two decades of Islamic-rooted government end smoothly, and then leave after depriving the president of its authority.
Few anticipated that Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a literate ex-civil servant from a long-repressed religious community, would come so close to leading one of NATO’s most important states, according to AFP.
Since taking the helm of the adamantly secular CHP in 2010, the 74-year-old social democrat has endeavoured to emerge from Erdogan’s shadow.
He lost every national election to the president’s right-wing AKP after being dethroned by Erdogan’s supporter in his 2009 quest to become the mayor of Istanbul.
When Kilicdaroglu chose to confront Erdogan in one of Turkey’s most important elections in recent times, his dismal electoral record nearly destroyed the six-party opposition alliance.
After debating it for a year, the anti-Erdogan alliance decided to support his candidature. It could have been a smart decision.
Polls indicate that ahead of next Sunday’s presidential election, the candidate who is little known outside of Turkey is running neck-and-neck with Erdogan. It’s too close to call, but a runoff on May 28 seems likely.
Kilicdaroglu reportedly told Turkish expert Gonul Tol in 2020, “I am a very patient man.”
No ambitions
To the flamboyant and bombastic Erdogan, a populist whose talent for campaigning has helped him become Turkey’s longest-serving leader, the soft-spoken Kilicdaroglu is a study in contrasts.
Kilicdaroglu’s professorial attitude, which is concealed by his silver hair and square spectacles, belies his past as an accountant who rose through the ranks to become the director of Turkey’s social security department.
He has chosen during the campaign to disregard Erdogan’s personal jabs and instead focus on the suffering that all Turks have endured due to years of political and economic unrest.
Giving parliament a large portion of the authority Erdogan has accumulated over the past ten years of his leadership is one of his primary campaign promises.
He then makes a promise to step down from his position in order to create room for a newer generation of leaders who have joined his diverse team.
Before the election, Kilicdaroglu told Time magazine, “I’m not someone with ambitions. To “restore democracy” and then “sit in a corner, playing with my grandchildren,” was his ultimate goal.
Kitchen chats
Kilicdaroglu is benefiting from a cost-of-living issue that economists and many Turkish voters attribute to Erdogan’s unconventional economic views.
However, it is supported by a successful social media campaign that speaks to voters in short snippets shot in his retro-tiled kitchen, circumventing the state’s monopoly on television.
Millions of people watch these one-on-one conversations, which frequently cover subjects that are rarely covered in pro-government media.
Kilicdaroglu famously broke taboos by revealing that he was Alevi.
Because the organisation adheres to a more spiritual branch of Islam that sets it apart from both Sunni and Shiite Muslims, it has been the focus of decades of brutal repressions.
Erdogan once claimed that Alevism was a “new religion” that he (Kilicdaroglu) created. In the video, Kilicdaroglu added, “God gave me my life. I don’t commit sins.
By the next morning, the late-night tweet had received close to 50 million views on Twitter.
Steely edge
Some of his other ideas have a more hardened edge that is reminiscent of the nationalism of Turkey’s first and most significant leader, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
Within two years, Kilicdaroglu promises to repatriate roughly four million Syrians who left the country’s civil war.
He claimed that in Turkey amid its economic crisis, the problem was not one of “race,” but rather of “resources.”
By recounting his own modest beginnings in the Kurdish Alevi area of Tunceli, Kilicdaroglu reinforces that message.
He once said, “We didn’t have a fridge, washer, or dishwasher.”
Later, he invited reporters to his flat, which was completely dark, to talk about his choice to cease paying his electrical bills.
It was an astutely timed attempt to mend political rifts by expressing unity with Turkey’s inflation-stricken voters.
Next to an antique lamp that projected a glint of light over his desk, he remarked, “This is my effort to assert your rights.
