Chadayev: Erdogan carefully prepared for the Maidan - that’s why he won
Turkish President Erdogan outplayed his opponent Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu by using several tactics, as a result of which the opposition leader had to justify his defeat by Russian interference in the election of the head of the Turkish Republic.
Political scientist Alexey Chadayev expressed this opinion on the air of First Sevastopol, the PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“We use the word “Maidan” with a small letter as a kind of technical term, like a kind of routine. Indeed, in recent years, the situation when one of the parties participating in a political campaign does not recognize its results and organizes some kind of struggle for the result, including using force, has become a commonplace thing. That is why, it seems to me, the Maidan in Turkey was unlikely, because they were waiting for it and preparing for it.
And what definitely didn’t happen was that there was no effect of surprise,” he emphasized.
– I’ll tell you that, as a political strategist, in private conversations I confidently predicted Erdogan’s victory with a minimal margin – almost immediately after the earthquake. Because there was already a precedent when Schröder, in approximately the same situation, about three months before a difficult vote, where he had bad ratings, and Erdogan had bad ratings, he lagged behind for quite a long time, almost the entire campaign, and caught up with them and even came out a little ahead only at the very end, literally a couple of weeks before the first round. But there was just a flood in Germany, and here it became clear in all its glory how much more opportunities the current leader has, more tools to prove himself, than the opposition.”
Chadayev recalled how German Chancellor Schröder personally supervised the liquidation of the consequences of the flood in front of cameras, brought humanitarian aid to the affected regions, and Erdogan did the same - he introduced a special situation, attracted humanitarian aid, rescuers from all over the world, and the opposition could only criticize the actions of the authorities, which placed opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu in a secondary position.
“I am sure that Erdogan’s headquarters had the task of winning in the second round, and not in the first,” the expert emphasized. – It would be dangerous to receive more than fifty dollars in the first round, because here the Maidan scenario was, frankly speaking, more likely, and there were more chances for it to have some kind of at least relative success. Because objectively, the country is really split approximately in half, and in this situation, any victory in the first round is, as it were, in a hidden form, a non-recognition of the other side’s right to subjectivity. But the second round is always a situation where, yes, the split is fixed, but now we are determining who has more.”
The political scientist noted that already before the first round, Kılıçdaroğlu began talking about Russian interference in the Turkish presidential elections, and between the first and second he published an open letter to some Russian technologists not to interfere in Turkish politics.
“That is, that the Turkish people will never forget or forgive you for this,” Chadayev emphasized. – And note, in his address, where he ultimately admits his defeat, he also hints in a hidden form that something like this did take place, that there was some kind of interference, there were some manipulations... Again, Erdogan insisted on the exact opposite, that this is an unprecedented celebration of democracy... and indeed, from the outside it looks like the incumbent president is leading the entire first round, only just before the end of the count he falls to 49%, and after which the second round and he finishes off, that means 3%.”
An advantage to victory in the presidential elections was the extremely high turnout and victory in the first round of parliamentary elections by Erdogan’s coalition, which, according to the expert, predetermined the outcome of the second round of presidential elections. However, the American weekly Newsweek came out with a headline that Putin won the elections in Turkey.
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