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He is the anti-Recep Tayyip Erdogan and dreams of being the savior of a Turkish democracy damaged by 20 years of unchallenged power.

Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, candidate of the Turkish opposition alliance for the presidential election, should force for the first time the Turkish head of state to contest a second round since his accession to the head of the country.

On the evening of the first round, neither the leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP, social democrat), at the head of a coalition of six opposition parties, nor Mr. Erdogan seemed able to rally the majority of votes, according to the state agency Anadolu.

“I will bring law and justice to this country. I will bring appeasement,” Erdogan’s rival launched during his campaign, repeating that he would bring “spring”.

Faced with the Head of State, a tribune willingly wielding invective, this 74-year-old former senior official has long suffered from an image of a man of apparatus devoid of charisma.

But his entry into the campaign, his meetings and his homemade videos posted every evening on social networks had ended up creating a dynamic, arousing hope among his supporters, some of whom were counting on his victory in the first round.

Many of them experienced a tense evening on Sunday seeing this prospect recede, even fearing that President Erdogan would be re-elected in the first round.

– “Mr. Kemal” –

The N.1 opponent of the outgoing president, a slender silhouette and a fine white mustache, also poses as a “Mr. Clean” of Turkish politics, denouncing for years the corruption which, according to him, has plagued the summits of the State.

President, he will continue to pay his water and electricity bills, he promises, and will prefer the historic presidential palace of Çankaya to the sumptuous 1,100-room palace erected by Mr. Erdogan on a protected wooded hill in Ankara.

“He’s like us. He understands people,” enthused Aleyna Erdem, 20, during a big meeting in early May of the candidate in Istanbul.

Kemal Kiliçdaroglu also undertakes not to confiscate power: following having “restored democracy” and limited the powers of the president, he will return his apron to take care of his grandchildren, he assures.

Since taking over the presidency of the CHP, founded by the father of modern Turkey Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, he has transformed the party line by erasing in particular its very secular image.

At the end of 2022, he thus proposed a law to guarantee the right of Turkish women to wear the headscarf, offering pledges to the conservative electorate.

The candidate, born into a modest family in the historically rebellious province of Tunceli (east) with a Kurdish and Alevi majority, wanted at the same time to seduce the Kurds, many of whom affectionately call him “Piro”, as one evokes a grandfather or a Alevi religious leader in Kurdish language.

During the campaign, he broke a taboo by evoking in a video that went viral his membership of Alevism, a heterodox branch of Islam that some rigorous Sunnis consider heretical.

President Erdogan gives him the nickname “Bay Kemal” (“Mr. Kemal”), using the term “bay” traditionally reserved for foreigners to make fun of him.

In the early days of the campaign, the head of state renamed it “Bay Bay Kemal” (pronounced “Bye Bye Kemal”), saying that the Turks would “bury it with their votes” on the evening of May 14, in despite multiple polls that placed Mr. Kiliçdaroglu in the position of favourite.

– “I’m coming” –

This economist by training, appointed head of the powerful Turkish Social Security in the 1990s, has so far been deemed unfit to win an election – which his opponents will not fail to recall.

But the double victory in 2019 of CHP candidates in the municipal elections in Istanbul and Ankara, an unprecedented setback for Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his party, is largely due to him.

It is on the strength of this success that the boss of the party has managed this year to unite six opposition parties behind him and to win the support of the main pro-Kurdish party as a bonus.

He also knew how to surround himself with the very popular CHP mayors of Istanbul and Ankara, Ekrem Imamoglu and Mansur Yavas, who will be appointed vice-presidents in the event of victory.

At each of his meetings, Kemal Kiliçdaroglu sent his supporters, his eyes narrowed with mischief, a “heart with fingers” which had become a sign of rallying.

But this affectionate symbol was not enough to completely convince the opponents of the outgoing president to follow him.

Kemal Kiçdaroglu is, however, a patient man who has proven tenacious.

Two qualities that he will still have to mobilize until May 28.