Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
The 60-year-old Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has dominated Turkish politics for the past decade, is widely expected to win — possibly even in the first round. A gifted public orator who grew up in a tough neighbourhood of Istanbul, Erdogan leads the Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party, or AKP, whose support base is the Turkish heartland. He has focused his campaign on burnishing his reputation as a man of the people who engineered an economic boom, while heaping scorn on his opponents.
Erdogan has said he favours strengthening the position of president, and has vowed to tap unused powers allowed under the current constitution, such as the right to convene cabinet meetings.
He is credited with bringing development and prosperity to neglected parts of the country, expanding the health care system and improving the rights of ethnic minorities such as the Kurds. He has championed the cause of devout Muslim women banned from wearing headscarves in public institutions under Turkey’s secular laws.
But he has also been harshly criticised for his divisiveness and populism. He has displayed increasingly autocratic tendencies and clamped down on the media, banning — albeit temporarily — Twitter and YouTube. Many fear he will also impose increasingly religious mores on a country that has prided itself on its secular foundations.
In the past year, Erdogan has been dogged by corruption scandals, which he dismisses as an attempted coup.
Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu
Ihsanoglu’s nomination as candidate by the secular opposition parties caused considerable controversy as like Erdogan, he is a pious Muslim. But he has vowed to honour modern Turkey’s secular traditions.
The son of Turkish cleric who lived in exile in Egypt, Ihsanoglu was born in Cairo, something Erdogan has mocked mercilessly in the campaign by calling him an “imported” candidate.
Ihsanoglu, 70, is a respected scholar who speaks numerous languages but has appeared out of his depth in the political rough-and-tumble of election campaigning where Erdogan thrives.
While Erdogan has given dozens of mass rallies up and down the country, Ihsanoglu has preferred to give press conferences and meet ordinary people on the street.
His candidacy offers not so much a different vision of the future of Turkey but a different vision of the office of the president.
Whereas Erdogan wants to make the Turkish president a powerful political figure, Ihsanoglu has insisted the president should be above politics and not affiliated to any party.
“The reason I accepted this candidacy is that Turkey is being dragged into an environment of chaos. There is polarisation, divisions and conflict. This is what we are standing against,” Ihsanoglu said in an interview ahead of the polls.
Erdogan has taunted Ihsanoglu repeatedly during the mass rallies but the bookish academic has refused to rise to the bait, sometimes speaking so softly that some TV channels use subtitles to make clear what he has said.
Selahattin Demirtas
A Kurd, born in Turkey’s main Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, Demirtas is the co-leader of the People’s Democratic Party (HDP), a new coalition of Kurdish political forces.
A lawyer by training, Demirtas, 41, will do well to break into double figures but he has caught attention with an energetic campaign and rhetorical gifts.
His charisma, flashing smile and penchant for white shirts with rolled up sleeves have even led some to describe his as the “Kurdish Obama” after the US president.
Demirtas has notably attempted in these polls to broaden the support for his candidacy to take in not just Kurds but all Turks tired with the domination of Erdogan.
Promoting socialist-tinged policies, he has gone out of his way to make clear he is a candidate for Turks of any ethnicity.
He has intensified the Kurds’ traditional support for women’s rights and in a major step by a Turkish politician has emerged as a strong public supporter of gay rights.
“If all the poor, gays, women, the workers can hold each other’s hands, continue to believe in each other and continue to multiply, no dictator can stand against us,” he said at a major rally in Istanbul ahead of the polls.
