Turkish voters in Germany can cast their ballots in the presidential run-off today. By May 24, 1.5 million eligible voters are called upon to vote between incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu of the CHP. According to the Turkish embassy, anyone who has registered before the first round of voting can vote. Erdogan is the favorite ahead of the second round at home and abroad after narrowly missing out on an outright majority in the first round on May 14.
The fact that he finished ahead of his challenger also has something to do with the votes from abroad. Of the 3.4 million Turks living abroad who were eligible to vote, only about half went to the polls. 57.7 percent of them voted for the incumbent head of state. Kemal Kilicdaroglu got almost 40 percent of the votes. In Germany, too, only about every second person entitled to vote cast their vote, 65 percent of whom voted for Erdogan according to preliminary figures.
Erdogan thanks supporters
Observers also expect similar voting behavior from voters abroad in the forthcoming elections. Most of the Turkish foreign voters live in Germany. Erdogan addressed his supporters on Friday, thanked them for their votes in the first round and asked them to vote again.
“Each of you has already engraved your name in our political history with golden letters,” Erdogan wrote on Twitter. “I ask you to make sure you exercise your democratic rights.” Turks abroad were able to vote in specially set up polling stations for the first time in 2014.
Kilicdaroglu: Voting is a “national obligation”
Challenger Kilicdaroglu also urged the Turks abroad to vote. Voting for the runoff is a “national duty” for citizens wherever they are in the world, the CHP politician said in a speech published on Twitter.
He described the decision on May 28 as a referendum that goes beyond an election. Kilicdaroglu pointed to the 2018 vote that resulted in an expansion of presidential powers – including more control over the judiciary. “You saw what happened after the previous referendum. This is the last resort for our country,” the opposition leader said in the video.
criticism of the opposition
The possibility of voting abroad goes back to Erdogan. Sinem Adar writes for the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik that it is one of the systematic measures taken by the current head of state, which are aimed at migrants from Turkey and their children born abroad. Unlike the opposition, Erdogan makes politics for the Turks abroad, which pays off for him at the ballot box.
In Turkey, the possibility of voting at the ballot box abroad is repeatedly criticized, especially by members of the opposition. In the 2018 elections, Erdogan did significantly better with around 65 percent in the Federal Republic than in the overall result (around 53 percent).
Source: Tages Schau
