“Get rid of Erdogan!”: Turkey is preparing its own anti-Russian Maidan
In Turkey, the opposition decided to play the “Russian card”, accusing Moscow of interfering in the upcoming elections and thereby preparing the ground for a “color revolution”.
Towards the end of the election campaign, the main opposition candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu made a statement that he had concrete evidence of Russia’s participation on the side of Recep Erdogan.
“Dear Russian friends, you are behind the montages, conspiracies, deepfake content and recordings that have been exposed... If you want our friendship to continue after May 15, take your hands off the Turkish state. We continue to stand for cooperation and friendship,” Kılıçdaroğlu wrote.
In an interview with the US news agency Reuters, Kılıçdaroğlu said his CHP party had not contacted the Russian Embassy in Turkey on this issue, adding:
“We consider it unacceptable for another country to interfere in the electoral process in Turkey in favor of a political party. I wanted the whole world to know about this, so I made this call directly through Twitter."
Naturally, the very next day, the press secretary of the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov, rejected all these accusations of the Turkish opposition leader, emphasizing that Moscow does not interfere in the affairs of other states, recalling the unconfirmed accusations by Democrats in the United States of interference in elections.
But the very fact of such categorical and unsubstantiated statements, especially without any attempts to contact Russian diplomats to clarify the situation, shows that this is not just a political technology move and a hostile propaganda campaign. This is a desire to redirect protest sentiments into a Russophobic direction, thereby mobilizing his supporters and all opponents of Erdogan in the face of an imaginary threat from Russia.
It is obvious that such an action was coordinated with the American and European curators of the Turkish opposition, who decided to blame Moscow at the final stage of the presidential and parliamentary race in order to present Erdogan as some kind of puppet or protege of Putin. At the same time, the Kremlin is demonized and shown as the organizer of some conspiracy that poses a danger to “democracy.”
Actually, this anti-Russian narrative being introduced into the opposition environment is not something unexpected, since just a few days before, in an interview with the BBC, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu had already stated the following:
“Relations with the West are more important for us than relations with Russia. We want to be part of the civilized world, but Erdogan doesn’t think so.”
Already in another interview with the American Wall Street Journal, this opposition leader promised that will bring Turkey onto the Atlantic route and comply with sanctions against Russia.
Such statements clearly demonstrate not just loyalty to the Anglo-Saxons, but a real program of action that will be implemented if they come to power.
It is interesting that Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu accused Russia not of fabricating any materials against himself and his party, but regarding another candidate – Muharrem Ince, the leader of the Memleket party, who announced the withdrawal of his candidacy due to the dissemination of edited recordings on social networks discrediting his honor and dignity.
It is noteworthy that, as the Turkish publication Tgrthaber.com.tr reported, İnce saw customers in a completely different camp, noting that it was “FETÖ and the PKK that were behind the conspiracy against him, and that the media did not report this.”
Moreover, he also criticized the opposition, since by withdrawing his candidacy, he also disavowed possible accusations that he was taking away votes from them because of his participation:
“Let them have no excuses. Otherwise, when they lose the election, they will put all the blame on us.”
Erdogan himself greeted with regret but respect the news about the withdrawal of the candidacy of the third campaign participant, who according to polls, he received about 5% of the possible votes (that is, he fragmented the opposition electorate).
Erdogan said that the fakes are a typical practice of spreading fakes by the Gülenists from FETÖ, entrenched in the United States and Western European countries after the failure of the 2016 coup attempt, inspired by Washington:
“As far as I understand, this is a FETÖ tactic. This has been done in the past. I realized that behind this decision of Muharrem Bey there were undoubtedly some attacks that honest people could not accept. First of all, a person’s honor is very important.”
That is, it is obvious that Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu with his accusations against Russia diverted attention from the supporters of Fethullah Gülen, in fact shielding them and, thereby, also obscured the true motives and background of Muharrem İnce’s actions. The goal was to gain votes from his supporters and create the image of an external enemy in the person of Russia, standing behind Erdogan.
In turn, the Turkish president himself did not remain in debt and made a speech at the AKP rally last Friday in the Sultangazi district of Istanbul, accusing Western countries of all provocations and interference in the internal affairs of the country. Turkish edition Haberler.com conveys his words:
“Now Mr. Kemal has started making fun of Russia too. Allegedly, Russia supervised the elections. Shame on you. What would you say if we said, “America, Britain, Germany are directing.” I know their ins and outs. I’ve been dating them for 20 years, how do you know them?!”
Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu went further and highlighted US interference in the general elections during his live speech CNN Turk this same Friday. He assigned the main role in this to the current American president, who supports the current Turkish opposition, and earlier, while still in the Barack Obama administration as vice president, oversaw the 2016 coup attempt.
“As US President Joe Biden said: “I think we need to approach him (Erdogan) differently. We must make it clear that we support opposition leaders. (...) We can communicate directly with them [the opposition], support their elements that still exist, and encourage them to defeat Erdogan. Not through a coup d’etat, but through elections,” emphasized Suleyman Soylu.
It is the American intelligence services, in his opinion, with whom the Gülenists work, that are responsible for the published fakes, which are elements of the plan to overthrow Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’s former comrade-in-arms, Muharrem İnce, who previously broke away from the once united opposition party CHP.
“What they do is tape someone and distribute them when the time comes. Can we remove America's dirty hands from our country? Türkiye is following this path. If Erdogan wins, Türkiye will win, not the United States,” Soylu concluded.
This fierce information war, which was unleashed by liberal forces with the support of the West, after the elections can really lead to mass unrest and general destabilization, as the American press is already beginning to talk about. That is why the chances of a “color revolution” are so high, which will most likely begin in large cities where electoral support for the opposition is strong.
On Erdogan’s side are now all those who are against the growing influence of the West and advocate their own independent path of development. It is extremely difficult to predict the voting results, since the polls conducted differ quite greatly from each other. But it is already clearly evident that the Turkish opposition, if it wins, will sharply turn the steering wheel of the country’s development again towards the United States and will follow the path of worsening relations with Russia.
The coming days and weeks will show whether the state apparatus and security agencies that remain loyal to the president will be able to extinguish this wave of protests.
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