Turkey will vote for the future of the country by choosing both a president and parliamentarians on June 24. The vote marks the end of the election campaigns that have created a lively atmosphere across the country for more than two months.
As soon as the snap elections were announced in April, Turkish political parties kicked off their campaigns. Despite the limited time before the election day and that it coincided with the holy month of Ramadan, politicians managed to come up with dynamic schedules that enabled them to reach as many people as possible.
Rallies were the main part of the campaigns, alongside convoys of election buses that constantly played campaign songs and the colorful banners and flags that lined the streets. There are 56,322,632 registered voters and 180,065 ballot boxes across the country. Voting is scheduled to start at 9 a.m. and continue through 5 p.m.
Voters will be able to cast their ballots after they show their ID cards or any other official identification document. It will be forbidden to enter the voting booth with photo or video cameras and mobile phones. Voters will cast votes on two separate ballots in the same envelope, one for the presidential and one for the parliamentary elections.
After the voting ends, ballots cast for the presidential candidates will be counted first. For the first time, elections officials will collect ballots from the homes of voters with mobility issues due to old age, poor health or disabilities. Currently 17,000 of such voters exist.
Traditionally, Turkish politicians organize rallies throughout the country and visit provinces to speak to the public for an hour or two during the day. This trend persisted but also saw new twists due to the campaigns’ short time frame and Ramadan. Thanks to these adjustments, the initial participation rate for the rallies, which was predicted to decrease compared to previous elections, did not happen, especially in the parties’ strongholds.
In addition to the classical, old-fashioned rallies, politicians also began to hold rallies or small-scale meetings with people during iftar and sahur meals, considering that fasting during the summer months might cause trouble for the people who would like to attend the rallies. On June 9, one of these rare nighttime election events took place for İnce’s rally, attracting tens of thousands of people who were either waiting for sahur or their usual Friday entertainment in Istanbul’s upscale Bağdat Avenue. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also organized many iftar meetings, especially in the Justice and Development Party’s (AK Party) provincial branches in the provinces that he visited.
Another interesting twist to campaigning this election season were the multiple city visits in a single day by politicians, sometimes even three provinces in a row, compared to the previous elections. For instance, on June 11, Erdoğan held rallies in Kocaeli, Niğde and Bursa provinces, respectively. Kicking off his election campaign from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) stronghold of İzmir on April 28, Erdoğan is expected to have visited around 50 provinces and more than 20 districts by the end of the election process.
CHP presidential candidate Muharrem İnce also had a very intense election campaign schedule. In one instance İnce held five rallies, including one during an iftar dinner, in five different districts of Istanbul on June 10. Good Party (İP) presidential candidate Meral Akşener also brought her own twist to the rallies by basing them on what she called the “cheesecloth revolution” in which she collected cheesecloths from each province she visited, claiming that they represent innocence. Cheesecloths are traditional scarfs worn by Anatolian women. There are six candidates running for the presidency: Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for the People’s Alliance, formed by Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP); Muharrem İnce for the CHP; Selahattin Demirtaş for pro-PKK Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP); Meral Akşener for the İP; Temel Karamollaoğlu for the Felicity Party (SP); and Doğu Perinçek for the Patriotic Party (VP).
