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Erdogan vs Kilicdaroglu: Two visions of Turkey's future
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A couple walks past billboards with the portrait of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (L) and with the portrait of Republican People's Party (CHP) leader and presidential candidate, Kemal Kilicdaroglu (R) in Sanliurfa, Turkey on April 28, 2023. (AFP/Ozan Kose)
O
ne embraces chaos and glorifies Turkey's Islamic past. The other promises the badly divided country a slightly calmer and more prosperous future.
Voters decided to give President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu another chance Sunday to convince them which of these starkly different alternatives is better.
A close outcome in which neither picked up 50 percent of the vote means the two will face each other again in Turkey's first presidential runoff on May 28.
Few expect either Turkey's longest-serving leader or his 74-year-old secular rival to change their stripes in a fortnight.
Erdogan is the man who rose from a hardscrabble part of Istanbul to become Turkey's longest-serving leader -- a devout 69-year-old who has created chronic headaches for the West and become a hero for Turkey's working classes.
"Erdogan is our chief and we are his soldiers," 48-year-old Sennur Henek told AFP while attending one of the president's packed campaign rallies.
Kilicdaroglu is a bookish former civil servant from a historically repressed Kurdish group who has lost half a dozen national elections to Erdogan while leading his secular party.
