The man touted as the future of Turkish democracy fidgets a little, touching a delicate red-string bracelet on his wrist. “These elections are not being held under suitable conditions,” he said. “But despite it all, we will win. Because people want democracy.”
Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, a former civil servant and ex-accountant, is Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s key rival and when the Guardian speaks to him he has just finished one of the most important rallies of his career. The opposition leader, who heads the Republican People’s party (CHP), promised thousands of Turkish citizens assembled in an Istanbul park that when they go to the polls on Sunday they will be able to vote out Erdoğan and dismantle a system he and his Justice and Development party (AKP) have spent two decades building.
“I live like you, I have a humble life like yours,” Kılıçdaroğlu told a field packed with people waving Turkish flags and others bearing the image of the founder of modern Turkey and the CHP, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Kılıçdaroğlu, who presents himself to voters as Erdoğan’s arch-opposite, held up his hands in a heart shape, his signature gesture. He prides himself on running a campaign that avoids the kind of barbs Erdoğan has become notorious for, claiming he would decline to live in the presidential palace and would move into a more modest premises that belonged to Atatürk if he wins.
A member of Turkey’s Alevi religious minority, Kılıçdaroğlu’s candidacy is considered boundary-breaking. His ascent to presidential candidate has taken decades, galvanised through a 280-mile (450km) march from Ankara to Istanbul in 2017 to protest against arrests following a 2016 coup attempt. Now heading a six-party opposition coalition, he has also worked to garner support from Turkey’s marginalised Kurdish community, which resulted in him being given a hero’s welcome in Kurdish-majority towns.
The opposition leader holds a narrow lead in polls, which suggest the vote may advance to a second round later in the month. Despite having lost several elections as leader of the CHP, he has become the face of the opposition’s strongest chance to unseat Erdoğan in a generation, whose popularity has dipped amid rampant inflation and a deepening cost of living crisis.
Kılıçdaroğlu has promised a return to orthodox economic policies, and to spearhead a return to parliamentary democracy. He has also pledged to restore judicial independence, a move away from using the judiciary to crack down on dissent.
Yet with his rise came a brief and very public spat with his coalition partners this year, who accused him of imposing himself on the candidacy in the place of alternatives who might more easily win against Erdoğan. The bespectacled politician, now sporting rimless glasses and a sharp suit, brushed off these concerns and tried to focus on policy.
“We will win the election. We have no concerns about this,” he said.
Erdoğan held his own Istanbul rally over the weekend, laying on free transportation for those wishing to join and claiming that 1.7 million people attended. The president played a video at the rally, reportedly a deepfake of militants from the banned Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) expressing their support for Kılıçdaroğlu.
“This is very important,” he told the rally. On the same day, a group of assailants threw stones at supporters and a campaign bus belonging to the Istanbul mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu, on the campaign trail in north-east Turkey.
Other than promises of a socially democratic new dawn, the policies that Kılıçdaroğlu has been most vocal about include pledging to deport millions of Syrian and Afghan refugees living in Turkey, a proposition that drew cheers from the crowd in Istanbul. Asked how he intended to square this promise with a desire for Turkey to join the European Union, Kılıçdaroğlu claimed he could draw on the EU or even the United Nations for support.
“We do not think of this as racism. When we come to power, we will sit and talk with the legitimate administration in Syria and find a solution to this problem,” he said. As for how this might work given that Damascus has said it will not submit to talks without the withdrawal of Turkish troops from northern Syria, he added: “We will also explain the reasons for securing our own borders.”
One of Kılıçdaroğlu’s largest challenges as president would be inheriting Erdoğan’s careful balancing act that has meant Turkey maintaining ties with both Moscow and Kyiv, and a camaraderie with the Russian president few other leaders can claim.
Asked what kind of relationship he intended to forge with Vladimir Putin, he said: “We will create a policy within the framework of whatever Turkey’s interests require. We are a political party which believes that the foreign policy currently pursued is not in favour of Turkey,” he said.
On Ukraine, Turkey’s neighbour across the Black Sea, Kılıçdaroğlu was more bullish. “We know that Ukraine has been unfairly invaded,” he said. “Therefore, we support them in that regard. We would provide all kinds of political support that is needed.”
At the opposition rally, the polls indicated the race was tight but Kılıçdaroğlu’s supporters were confident about the prospect of change. “I came here for the future of Turkish democracy,” said Emirhan Gül, a 19-year-old student and first-time voter. “If Erdoğan gets re-elected, I do not believe that there will be another election. Hopefully, good things will happen for Turkish democracy from now on.”
