Ankara
\nTurkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pays homage on Saturday to his executed Islamic predecessor in an attempt to rally his conservative base on the eve of a historic runoff vote.
\nErdogan\u2019s visit to Istanbul\u2019s Adnan Menderes mausoleum takes him back to the man he cited when he called early polls for May 14 in a bid to ease his way to an unprecedented third decade of rule.
\nMenderes was tried and hanged one year after the military staged a coup in 1960 to put Turkey back on a more secular course. Erdogan survived a putsch attempt against his own government in 2016. The 69-year-old told his followers in January that he wanted to continue Menderes\u2019s fight for religious rights and nationalist causes in the officially secular but overwhelmingly Muslim republic of 85 million people.
\nErdogan paid a similarly symbolic visit to Istanbul\u2019s iconic Hagia Sophia mosque on the eve of the first round.
\nHis conversion of the ancient seat of Eastern Christianity into a mosque in 2020 further elevated his hero status among poorer and more rural voters who have helped keep him in power since 2003.
\nErdogan ended up beating secular opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu by nearly five percentage points two weeks ago.
\nBut his failure to top the 50 per cent threshold set up Turkey\u2019s first election runoff and underscored the gradual ebbing of support for its longest-serving leader.
\n\u2018They are afraid\u2019
\nKilicdaroglu has focused his campaign on more immediate concerns as he tries to come from behind and bring back power to the secular party that ruled Turkey for most of the 20th century.
\nHe used a late-night TV interview on Friday to accuse Erdogan\u2019s government of unfairly blocking his mass text messages to voters.
\n\u201cThey are afraid of us,\u201d the 74-year-old former civil servant said.
\nThe episode highlights what opposition supporters \u2014 many of them liberal secularists who live in big cities such as Istanbul and Izmir \u2014 have been saying for years.
\nWhile Turkey\u2019s polls were judged to be free on election day, observers say they were hardly fair.
\n\u201cThese were competitive but still limited elections,\u201d the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) election observer mission\u2019s chief Michael Georg Link said after the first round.
\n\u201cThe criminalisation of some political forces, including the detention of several opposition politicians, prevented full political pluralism and impeded individuals\u2019 rights to run in the elections,\u201d Link said.
\nCreating fake news
\nErdogan\u2019s first decade in power was distinguished by strong economic growth and warm relations with Western powers that elevated his global status and domestic support.
\nHis second began with a corruption scandal and soon descended into a political crackdown and years of economic turmoil that erased many of the early gains.
\nErdogan\u2019s consolidation of power included a near-complete monopolisation of the media by the government and its business allies.
\nReporters Without Borders (RSF) estimated that Erdogan received 60 times as much airtime on the TRT Haber state broadcaster as Kilicdaroglu in April.
\n\u201cThey have taken over all the institutions,\u201d Kilicdaroglu said in his television interview. \u201cWe have to rebuild this state.\u201d Erdogan used his own TV interview on Friday to attack Western coverage of the election.
\n\u201cWestern media have channelled all their attention to us. They are more interested in the elections in Turkey than in their own countries,\u201d Erdogan said. \u201cBut they are always creating fake news.\u201d
\nEconomic peril
\nThe vote is being accompanied by growing alarm about the fate of Turkey\u2019s beleaguered lira and the stability of its banks.
\nErdogan forced the central bank to follow through on his unconventional theory that lowering interest rates bring down inflation.
\nThe exact opposite has occurred.
\nTurkey\u2019s annual inflation rate touched 85 per cent last year while the lira entered a brief freefall.
\nThe lira has been holding remarkably steady during the campaign period \u2014 a sign that the government is plowing vast sums into market interventions.
\nThe central bank\u2019s net foreign currency holdings \u2014 a key measure of financial health \u2014 have dropped into negative territory for the first time since 2002.
\nEconomists feel that Erdogan\u2019s government will need to reverse course and sharply raise rates or stop supporting the lira if it wants to avoid a full-fledged crisis after the vote.
\n\u201cIf Kilicdaroglu were to win, he would immediately establish a more austere monetary policy than that of Erdogan,\u201d Moneyfarm investment house\u2019s Giorgio Broggi said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ankara Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pays homage on Saturday to his executed Islamic predecessor in an attempt to rally his conservative base on the eve of a historic runoff vote. Erdogan\u2019s visit to Istanbul\u2019s Adnan Menderes mausoleum takes him back to the man he cited when he called early polls for May 14 in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333883,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-333846","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n