In Türkiye Election, Erdogan Doesn’t Flinch as He Fights for Political Life

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses his supporters during a rally ahead of the May 14 presidential and parliamentary elections, in Ankara, Türkiye April 30, 2023. (Reuters)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses his supporters during a rally ahead of the May 14 presidential and parliamentary elections, in Ankara, Türkiye April 30, 2023. (Reuters)
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In Türkiye Election, Erdogan Doesn’t Flinch as He Fights for Political Life

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses his supporters during a rally ahead of the May 14 presidential and parliamentary elections, in Ankara, Türkiye April 30, 2023. (Reuters)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses his supporters during a rally ahead of the May 14 presidential and parliamentary elections, in Ankara, Türkiye April 30, 2023. (Reuters)

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has nurtured an image of a robust and invincible leader over his two decades in power, yet he appears vulnerable as the political landscape may be shifting in favor of his opponent in Sunday's presidential vote.

Erdogan emerged from humble roots to rule for 20 years and redraw Türkiye’s domestic, economic, security and foreign policy, rivalling historic leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk who founded modern Türkiye a century ago.

The son of a sea captain, Erdogan has faced stiff political headwinds ahead of Sunday's election: he was already facing blame over an economic crisis when a devastating earthquake hit in February. Critics accused his government of a slow response and lax enforcement of building rules, failures they said could have cost lives.

As opinion polls show a tight race, critics have drawn parallels with the circumstances that brought his Islamist-rooted AK Party to power in 2002, in an election also shaped by high inflation and economic turmoil.

Two days before the vote, Erdogan said he came to office through the ballot boxes and if he had to, would leave the same way.

"We will accept as legitimate every result that comes out of the ballots. We expect the same pledge from those opposing us," he said in a televised interview on Friday.

For his enemies the day of retribution has come.

Under his autocratic rule, he amassed power around an executive presidency, muzzled dissent, jailed critics and opponents and seized control of the media, judiciary and the economy. He crammed most public institutions with loyalists and hollowed critical state organs.

His opponents have vowed to unpick many of the changes he has made to Türkiye, which he has sought to shape to his vision of a pious, conservative society and assertive regional player.

The high stakes in Sunday's presidential and parliamentary election are nothing new for a leader who once served a prison sentence - for reciting a religious poem - and survived an attempted military coup in 2016 when rogue soldiers attacked parliament and killed 250 people.

A veteran of more than a dozen election victories, the 69-year-old Erdogan has taken aim at his critics in typically combative fashion.

He has peppered the run-up with celebrations of industrial milestones, including the launch of Türkiye’s first electric car and the inauguration of its first amphibious assault ship, built in Istanbul to carry Turkish-made drones.

Erdogan also flicked the switch on Türkiye’s first delivery of natural gas from a Black Sea reserve, promising households free supplies, and inaugurated its first nuclear power station in a ceremony attended virtually by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

His attacks against his main challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, have included accusations without evidence of support from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has been waging an insurgency since the 1980s in which more than 40,000 people have been killed. Kilicdaroglu has denied the accusations.

'Building Türkiye together'

Polls suggest voting could go to a second round later this month - if neither Erdogan nor Kilicdaroglu win more than 50% of the vote - and some show Erdogan trailing. This hints at the depth of a cost-of-living crisis sparked by his unorthodox economic policies.

A drive by authorities to slash interest rates in the face of soaring inflation aimed to boost economic growth, but it crashed the currency in late 2021 and worsened inflation.

The economy was one of Erdogan's main strengths in the first decade of his rule, when Türkiye enjoyed a protracted boom with new roads, hospitals and schools and rising living standards for its 85 million people.

Halime Duman said high prices had put many groceries out of her reach, but she remained convinced Erdogan could still fix her problems. "I swear, Erdogan can solve it with a flick of his wrist," she said at a market in central Istanbul.

The president grew up in a poor district of Istanbul and attended Islamic vocational school, entering politics as a local party youth branch leader. After serving as Istanbul mayor, he stepped onto the national stage as head of the AK Party (AKP), becoming prime minister in 2003.

His AKP tamed Türkiye’s military, which had toppled four governments since 1960, and in 2005 began talks to secure a decades-long ambition to join the European Union - a process that later came to a grinding halt.

Greater control

Western allies initially saw Erdogan's Türkiye as a vibrant democracy. But his drive to wield greater control polarized alarmed international partners. Fervent supporters saw it as just reward for a leader who put Islamic teachings back at the core of public life in a country with a strong secularist tradition, and championed the pious working classes.

Opponents portrayed it as a lurch into authoritarianism by a leader addicted to power.

After the 2016 coup attempt authorities launched a massive crackdown, jailing more than 77,000 people pending trial and dismissing or suspending 150,000 from state jobs. Rights groups say Türkiye became the world's biggest jailer of journalists for a time.

Erdogan's government said the purge was justified by threats from coup supporters, as well as ISIS and the PKK.

At home, a sprawling new presidential palace complex on the edge of Ankara became a striking sign of his new powers, while abroad Türkiye became increasingly assertive, intervening in Syria, Iraq and Libya and often deploying Turkish-made military drones with decisive force.



Father of Six Killed ‘For Piece of Bread’ During Gaza Aid Distribution

 Palestinians carry the body of Hossam Wafi who, according to family members, was killed in an Israeli strike, during his funeral in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Monday, June 2, 2025. (AP)
Palestinians carry the body of Hossam Wafi who, according to family members, was killed in an Israeli strike, during his funeral in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Monday, June 2, 2025. (AP)
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Father of Six Killed ‘For Piece of Bread’ During Gaza Aid Distribution

 Palestinians carry the body of Hossam Wafi who, according to family members, was killed in an Israeli strike, during his funeral in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Monday, June 2, 2025. (AP)
Palestinians carry the body of Hossam Wafi who, according to family members, was killed in an Israeli strike, during his funeral in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Monday, June 2, 2025. (AP)

Cries of grief echoed across southern Gaza's Nasser Hospital Monday as dozens came to mourn Hossam Wafi, after the father of six was killed while attempting to get supplies to feed his family.

His mother, Nahla Wafi, sobbed uncontrollably over her son, who was among 31 people killed by Israeli fire while trying to reach a food distribution site the previous day, according to the Palestinian territory's civil defense agency.

"He went to get food for his daughters and came back dead," said Nahla Wafi, who lost two sons and a nephew on Sunday.

Hossam Wafi had travelled with his brother and nephew to a newly established distribution center in the southern city of Rafah.

"They were just trying to buy (flour). But the drone came down on them," his mother said, as she tried to comfort four of her granddaughters in the courtyard of Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.

Israel has faced growing condemnation over the humanitarian crisis in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, where the United Nations has warned the entire population faces the risk of famine.

-'Go there and get bombed'-

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that its field hospital in Rafah received 179 cases on Sunday, including 21 pronounced dead on arrival.

The ICRC said that all those wounded "said they had been trying to reach an aid distribution site", and that "the majority suffered gunshot or shrapnel wounds".

Israeli authorities and the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US and Israeli-backed outfit that runs the distribution centers, denied any such incident took place.

The military instead said that troops fired "warning shots" at people who approached them one kilometer away from the Rafah distribution site before dawn.

A witness told AFP thousands of people gathered at the area, known locally as the Al-Alam junction, between 2:00 and 4:00 am (2300 GMT and 0100 GMT) in the hopes of reaching the distribution center.

At Nasser Hospital, Hossam Wafi's young daughters called out for their father, kissing his body wrapped in a white shroud, before it was taken away.

Outside the hospital, dozens of men stood in silence before the body, praying. Some cried as the remains were taken away, one of them holding the father's face until he was gently pulled away.

His uncle, Ali Wafi, told AFP he felt angry his nephew was killed while trying to get aid.

"They go there and get bombed -- airstrikes, tanks, shelling -- all for a piece of bread," he said.

"He went for a bite of bread, not for anything else. What was he supposed to do? He had to feed his little kids. And the result? He's getting buried today," he added.

- Militarized aid -

The deaths in Rafah were one of two deadly incidents reported by Gaza's civil defense agency on Sunday around the GHF centers, which the UN says contravene basic humanitarian principles and appear designed to cater to Israeli military objectives.

There have been several other reports of chaotic scenes and warning shots fired in connection with the distribution sites over the past week.

The UN's humanitarian agency (OCHA) published a video of one such distribution site in central Gaza's Netzarim corridor on Thursday.

A large crowd is seen gathered around four long corridors made from metal fences installed in the middle of an arid landscape, corralling men and women into files to receive flour.

The distribution site and its waiting area sit on a flattened piece of land surrounded by massive mounds of soil and sand.

It is manned by English-speaking security guards travelling in armored vehicles.

Palestinians exiting the distribution area carry cardboard boxes sometimes bearing a "GHF" logo, as well as wooden pallets presumably to be repurposed as fuel or structures for shelter.

In the large crowd gathered outside the gated corridors, some men are seen shoving each other, and one woman complains that her food package was stolen.

Hossam Wafi's uncle Ali said he wished Gaza's people could safely get aid.

"People take the risk (to reach the distribution site), just so they can survive."