2023-05-28 14:28:38
Will the handling of the Syrian war refugees decide the presidential election in Turkey?
After no candidate was able to get more than half of the votes in the first ballot, incumbent Recep Tayyip Erdogan (69, AKP) and challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu (74, CHP) are running in a run-off election this Sunday.
Kilicdaroglu, who did significantly worse than expected in the first round, is now apparently banking on nationalist and xenophobic resentments as his last trump card: His election campaign blames the Syrian war refugees in Turkey for the poor economic situation.
On election posters, Kilicdaroglu promises: The Syrians will go.
To this end, the CHP also wants to work with the Assad regime, from which the Syrians fled to Turkey.
In the meantime, the number of Syrian refugees in Turkey has actually fallen, says Rena Netjes. The Middle East expert, who lives in Turkey, regularly goes on research trips to northern Syria and observes the migration flows. “According to the Turkish Ministry of Migration, 3.38 million Syrian refugees live in Turkey today.”
Around 500,000 Syrians have returned from Turkey to the opposition-controlled areas in the north and north-west in recent years, the vast majority of them voluntarily, says Netjes.
“In stark contrast, between January and October 2022, only 10,766 refugees returned to regime-controlled areas.” Many more people fled these areas over the same period.
► In the Turkish election campaign, racist rhetoric against Syrians is becoming increasingly loud, says Netjes. She noticed that the mood in Turkish parts of the country near the Syrian border differed significantly from the situation in Istanbul, for example. “In Gaziantep, people have much more understanding for the situation of the Syrians and are more likely to ask: ‘Where should they go?'”
The CHP election campaign at the expense of the Syrians is not a new development, says Netjes: “The CHP and its ally, the nationalist IYI party, have always been linked to the Assad regime.”
► In 2013, a delegation of high-ranking CHP officials traveled to Damascus and was received by Assad. “The only new thing is that these posters are hanging in public in Istanbul, creating a climate of hatred.”
The hostilities are now noticeable in everyday life and can be observed on a daily basis.
However, it is uncertain to what extent this campaign will also provide additional votes for Kilicdaroglu, says Netjes. In any case, the direct votes of the Syrians are too small to make a difference: “Only 167,703 Syrians in Turkey are eligible to vote, I assume that most of them will actually vote for Erdogan,” says Netjes.
Irrespective of the outcome of the election, however, it is clear that the slogans aimed at Syrians in Turkey will have consequences beyond the day of the election; the EU must set clear limits here, otherwise it would betray its own values.
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