Devirupa Mitra 
New Delhi: When Turkey’s 64 million voters cast their votes on Sunday for the presidential and parliamentary elections, it will be the first time in two decades that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will be facing a formidable challenge.
There is a lot of international interest to find out whether the joint opposition candidate, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, will be able to convert the lead in opinion polls by harnessing this moment of rare opposition unity and deep economic distress.
While President Erdogan’s aggressive foreign policy had raised Turkey’s profile abroad, it had also led to sharp differences between NATO and Western allies in finding a resolution to international conflicts.
Erdogan’s desire to take over as leader of the Muslim world had also led to resentment in the region. With the opposition promising a return to a parliamentary system and strong ties with the West, the elections have acquired urgent geopolitical significance.
Speaking with The Wire, India’s former ambassador to Turkey from 2020 to 2022, Sanjay Panda, unpacks the significance of the elections and whether any change in Ankara could herald a new direction in India-Turkey relations.
Panda was posted to Istanbul after Turkey’s relationship with India had gone downhill due to President Erdogan’s criticism of the removal of Jammu and Kashmir’s special constitutional status. Since Independence, India’s relationship with Turkey had been stunted due to Ankara’s position on Kashmir, which is aligned with Pakistan’s.
According to the former Indian envoy, the opposition will be healing some of the trust issues with the West, but it would not give up on its core issues in the eastern Mediterranean. Similarly, he does not expect a dramatic shift in post-Erdogan Turkey’s relations with India, but more of a continuity in Ankara’s ongoing calibrated outreach to New Delhi that began last year.
Below are excerpts from the interview, which have been edited and condensed.
Why does this election feel so significant?
This is the most critical election that Turkey has ever faced.
Turkey has been an enigma, especially in the last five to six years when it has chosen to embark on a path that has progressively alienated it internationally.
There are many diplomats, academics, think tanks and Turkey watchers who are all intrigued by this and scratching their heads trying to figure out the rationale for this strategic miscalculation, which neither serves its national interest nor helps resurrect its global image.
By default, Turkey’s geostrategic location makes it an important player, not only for the region but globally as well.
However, due to its aggressive regional posturing, going against its allies, even as a NATO member, it is viewed internationally as a ‘bad boy’ in the block. But then you cannot ignore this ‘bad boy’.
What has been the secret of Erdogan’s political longevity?
There are two phases of Erdogan’s rule – from 2000 to 2016 and from 2016 to the present. In the first phase, he followed a policy that projected Turkey’s interests and did not alienate Kemalist secularists. However, he gradually moved in a direction that appealed to the conservatives.
Initially, he only tried to arrest those societal changes that were caused by a Westernised society, but he did not obstruct them completely. The way of life in Turkey did not change significantly.
After 2016, there was a significant transformation under President Erdogan in the aftermath of the failed coup attempt. When the parliamentary system was replaced with an executive presidential system in 2018, the power dynamics of the country also got overhauled. Today, power is centralised in the presidency. And if you ask me, all the organs of the government have been made fairly redundant.
The country is divided between the conservative Islamists and the Kemalist seculars. Erdogan has been able to consolidate his power because the opposition has been far too divided and represents many strands.
Right now, he faces an economic crisis. It is very important for him to fast-track global economic engagement, even with foreign political adversaries, so that Turkey recovers from this current phase of recession and the forex crisis that it faces.
Regionally, he wants to reinforce Turkey’s relevance as an important actor, both in terms of economic and military power. Erdogan has appealed to the conservatives and more unsuccessfully millennials, trying to show that, “Look, we have a leader who can stand up to the West.”
This aggressive regional posturing deflects attention from the current domestic economic woes.
And, what is particularly important for him is the consolidation of political Islam and marginalising of the Kemalist seculars, who are kind of seen to be standing in the way of Erdogan’s dream of the restoration of the Caliphate.
Erdogan attempted to usurp Saudi Arabia’s position for leadership of the Muslim world and flowing from this, championing the cause of Muslims around the world.
This is the most important election that Turkey has ever had for the simple reason that it will chart out the future course for Turkey. Also, this is the first time that Erdogan after 20 years feels the heat.
Why was Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu chosen as the opposition presidential candidate?
Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu is actually more popular than the other high fliers in the opposition camp. He has support not only from their Kemalist secular base but also from some conservatives who are anti-Erdogan. Even the pro-Kurdish left is supporting him. The problem is that he is not as charismatic as the mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem İmamoğlu, or mayor of Ankara, Mansur Yavaş. But he is more popular.
He is a grassroots man. He has been a civil servant. At 74, he is much older than Ekrem, who is younger and more articulate. He is also the mayor of Istanbul, a dynamic city. Among the youngsters, elites and middle class, he is very popular but then at the grassroots level, people don’t even know of him, while Kılıçdaroğlu has a following in small cities and towns.
The opposition realised when it decided to come together that it needed a candidate who had a much wider appeal from those who actually vote. This is why Erdogan is feeling the pressure for the first time.
What have been the main electoral issues during the campaign?
The economy has been the most important issue in the election. But so far as youngsters are concerned, they also do not like the ultra-conservative direction of the country. They wish to uphold the values passed down to them from Kemal Ataturk.
That being said, conservatives and Islamists continue to provide a significant amount of support for Erdogan.
How do you assess the opposition’s prospects?
There was some speculation that on the pretext of the earthquake, Erdogan might postpone the elections. But not only are the elections being held, but he brought them forward from July to May. Erdogan calculated that this is the right time as the opposition is still quite fragmented.
Just before I left Ankara last year on finishing my official assignment, six opposition parties had got together and come up with a consensus document with the common aim of reinstating Turkey’s parliamentary system. But they failed to mobilise the public.
In recent months, there is a sense of urgency in the opposition ranks with an eye on this upcoming election. But it was only as late as March that the opposition got together now and decided on a common candidate for the elections in May. So, it was pretty late in the day. They have made up some of the lost ground, so it will be interesting to see how they do.
There is some speculation I’ve seen in the Western media, but the election process is quite transparent and credible.
If he does lose, will Erdogan accept the results?
There are two rounds in the election. If no candidate gets 50% plus one in the first round, it goes for a second round. So, in case the difference is big, which looks a little unlikely, then I don’t think Erdogan will raise a dispute.
But if it is a very small difference, just one to two percent or even less, then he could object.
So, Erdogan’s nationalist foreign policy is not an electoral factor?
Erdogan’s foreign policy has a very strong domestic orientation. Internal dynamics are the major bearing of foreign policy.
But far as the man on the street in Turkey is concerned, he wants bread. Turkey is in an economic mess at this point. Even before the pandemic set in, its economy contracted by 10%. Now in recent months, all economic indicators point to a major downturn. The foreign reserves have dwindled. There is a flight of capital, uncontrollable inflation, surging unemployment and there is a fear of food insecurity.
And more importantly, tourism is down right now. Before the pandemic in 2019, tourism had contributed $35 billion, accounting for 5% of the GDP.
The current state of Turkey’s economy can be attributed to foreign investment flows drying up due to its foreign policy and President Erdogan’s unorthodox economic policies. That is really what the opposition is now talking about. And the man on the street is concerned about it.
Why is the West so closely watching this election?
Because they feel that this election could decide the nature and extent of Turkey’s relationship with the West.
Particularly after the 2016 coup attempt, Turkey embarked on an adventurist foreign policy. It unilaterally intervened in Syria, which led to criticism from its Western allies. Ankara also went on to procure a Russian-made air defence missile system, which terminated its participation in the American F-35 fighter jet programme. This caused its allies and the world to question Turkey’s core security commitments to NATO.
Turkey made a dramatic declaration that it would ‘open the gates’ to Europe for Syrian refugees. There are five million Syrian refugees in Turkey, and if it opens the gates, that would have been a nightmare for the EU.
In the recent Ukraine war, Turkey did not stop Russian planes when the entire West had banned them. It doesn’t want to alienate Russia because they have a lot of economic interests. At the same time, it sold drones to Ukraine.
Turkey managed to get the foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine to talk to each other.
But can it be assumed that if the opposition wins, the country will be more aligned with the West?
I feel that since 2021 there has already been a bridge-building effort as part of a reset of Turkey’s foreign policy. Ankara mounted a diplomatic charm offensive to mend its frayed ties across the board, from the UAE to Armenia and Saudi Arabia.
There has been a growing realisation that Turkey cannot continue to send mixed signals to its Western allies and NATO. Frankly, Erdogan is not going to alienate the West completely. Of course, economic expediency has a major role to play in this.
If the opposition gets the presidency, they won’t also give up Turkey’s claims in the Eastern Mediterranean or delimitation of maritime borders with Greece. But it’s a question of how does one handle it. It’s a question of how much you respect the UN and how much you are part of NATO.
You have met all the important opposition and ruling party figures who will be in the election. What has been their attitude towards India?
My interaction with Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu was a formal call after I had presented my credentials. He is a man of few words. It is not possible to go beyond formal exchanges and pleasantries in a 30-minute conversation.
But my meeting with the mayor of Istanbul (Ekrem İmamoğlu) was fascinating. We did not talk much about domestic politics. As the Indian ambassador, I did not go into that. But he had a vision for Turkey-India relations, of reviving the sister city arrangement that Istanbul had with Mumbai and how actively that could be promoted.
And he was very supportive of our activities. For Yoga Day, we did yoga on a floating platform on the Bosporus. İmamoğlu came and joined us. He was very, very positively inclined towards India. Same with the mayor of Ankara Mansur Yavaş.
Having said that, unlike what some people might think here, I had excellent meetings with President Erdogan as well. I had a 45-minute conversation after the presentation of my credentials. The discussions are very warm and one could feel his desire to strengthen ties with India.
Would Turkey’s foreign policy towards South Asia shift away from being Pakistan-centric if there is a change in leadership?
Islam is a major factor in the foreign policy options of the Turkish government. The corollary is the desire to acquire a leadership role in the Muslim world means that they feel they need to raise Kashmir. By default, they feel that it means echoing the Pakistani narrative. Of course, historically, Turkey and Pakistan have been very close.
If you see the past decades, our relationship has been on a roller coaster. But if you look at it in a purely bilateral context, there are no big issues in our ties with Turkey. Ironically, it is external factors which have taken the relationship hostage. Pakistan and Kashmir continue to remain major irritants.
The thing is that any bilateral relationship has to be bilaterally conducted between two sovereign nations. There is no space for a third entity in this equation.
So the India-Turkey relationship should stand on its merit and [the countries should] not look at each other through the prism of any third country.
We reached our lowest point in the immediate aftermath of August 2019 when the positive momentum was rolled back at Ankara’s behest. President Erdogan spoke critically about the decision to remove Jammu and Kashmir’s special status at the UNGA plenary. India did not like it and we also kind of retaliated that it can’t be business as usual.
Turkey was left in a catch-22 situation. On one hand, it desires to economically engage with India. Post-pandemic cooperation was extremely important, especially with the growing distrust of China and the reconfiguration of the supply chains. They wanted to upgrade tourism and also tap investment flows from India.
While Turkey cannot ignore India, let’s be also very clear from India’s point of view Turkey is critically important as a major stepping stone into Europe. There are many Indians who look at setting up shop in Turkey because the cost of living and doing business is much more economically prudent than doing so in Western Europe. Thanks to the customs union, you also benefit from being based in Turkey. Now with the kind of relationship that they have with Africa, Turkey becomes an important base.
Last year, Indian PM Modi and President Erdogan met unexpectedly on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Uzbekistan. Was that a signal from Ankara that they want a reset?
When Turkey wanted this meeting, I was very happy that Prime Minister Modi immediately accepted the invitation. There are several things which had happened in recent months which augur well. For example, we had foreign office consultations after many years.
And then, of course, India sent assistance for the earthquake. Incidentally, Turkey also sent help during the second wave. All the packages had a poem by Rumi: “There is hope after despair, there are many suns after darkness.”
I think this sums up the state of play of our bilateral ties, irrespective of who comes to power. If you’re thinking that there will be a dramatic shift in India-Turkey relations, if the opposition comes to power, I don’t expect that. I feel that that will be a continuity in the course correction that Turkey was already moving towards.