The decisive factor will be the Kurdish vote
The citizens of Turkey go to the polls on Sunday (31/3) for the crucial municipal elections that are going to test the popularity of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The president of the country is faced with the discontent of the citizens, while the vote of the Kurds is expected to play an important factor in what will happen.
The ruling party is trying to win back key cities it lost five years ago, with the Istanbul municipality at the forefront, and the dethronement of the current mayor Ekrem Imamoglu. Ioannis Papafloratos, Lawyer – Internationalist – Lecturer at the University of Athens, spoke about this issue to ERTNews, the show CONNECTIONS and to journalists Christina Vidou and Costas Papachlimintzos.
According to Mr. Papafloratos the battle this is semiological:“Of course it will also have a reflection in his movements in the external environment.We already see that he has adopted a high-toned rhetoric towards Greece. He obviously wants to grab some votes of extreme nationalists, who would go to his candidate anyway. In any case, we here do not take kindly to all this nationalist rhetoric that has been adopted lately by his officials AKP”.
What the polls show
The polls until now showed a close battle, which would be decided on the point, within the margin of statistical error. However, there is also a poll that shows the difference to be very large and the difference to increase to 10 points.
Next, Mr. Papafloratos, referring to the American rapprochement between the United States and Turkey, emphasized that: “Let us not forget that Turkey has raised the tone too much in Cyprus. It's not calm waters there. On the contrary, it provokes, insists on the two-state solution and dynamizes every mediation effort of the UN. Therefore, Turkey does not leave its fixed positions. He will try to adapt some of them to American wills.”
The issue of accuracy and inflation which is currently rampant will greatly affect this election. In particular, pensioners are already expressing anger towards the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and even believe that they have been wronged in relation to other categories of citizens.
source: newsbeast.gr
