Turkey's Erdogan On His Way Out? | Djene Bajalan | TMR

Djene Bajalan, professor of history at Missouri State University, joins the program to discuss Türkiye's (Turkey's) upcoming elections. The country is preparing for general elections on May 14, and polls suggest a record turnout, which could lead to a tight race between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the main opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu. The election will also see parliamentary elections held simultaneously. There are four candidates running for this year's presidential election, including Erdogan, Kilicdaroglu, centrist Homeland Party leader Muharrem Ince and right-wing Ancestral Alliance candidate Sinan Ogan. Most of the provinces affected by a devastating earthquake in February were strongholds of Erdogan and his AK Party, but the quake could lead to displacement of at least one million voters.

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A pleasure to welcome back to the program Djene Bajalan professor of history at Missouri State University. Djene thanks so much for joining us. Let's talk turkey. As it were yeah well thank you so much for having me. and I should know these days it's officially Türkiye. They've made Turkey, they've officially changed and everybody changed the name of the country to the Turkish spelling of the word. Oh, I did not know that turkey. Is that it? yeah, it's one of these cultural War moves that they've done in recent years to consolidate nationalist support. because I think a lot of regime supporters when they discovered the internet Googled the word turkey and discovered that it was also the name of a bird. and so they found it quite offensive. So now officially the country has demanded all International institutions refer to it as Türkiye. But maybe we'll Rebel today and call it Turkey. How about that? yeah, they're trying to head off Sam's jokes. yeah, I understood. well I mean fair enough I I walked into that. that was not a plan. I just wanted you to know that let's talk about Turkey. Turkey. all right well let's Okay give us an update as to where we are? I mean that you know Turkey has not been really on the radar at least from a political standpoint. obviously a major earthquake there. but a lot of refugees in Turkey sort of Fallout from the Syrian Civil War gives us an update on what's happening there and what's been happening there. sure so we are a few weeks out from an election, a general election, and a presidential election. This is the 100th anniversary of Turkey's foundation. and I use Turkey because Turkey is kind of like a pro-government signifier that is being used at the moment to polarize the Turkish population and consolidate power. so we're close to this election. and it's a very tense election. because the Justice and development party, the ruling party of Turkey, has dominated Turkish politics for the last two decades. their support in recent years has waned. but this upcoming election looks like it's going to be at least on paper the most competitive presidential election that has happened in the last 20 years. and it's important to understand that originally when the Justice and development party came to power in 2002, Turkey was primarily a parliamentary system of government. but as the repay Consolidated its power and more specifically again Consolidated its power there was this shift to move the country to a presidential system. Erdogan became the president and then basically 2017 rewrote the Constitution forcing a referendum under a very tense system of emergency law.