Inside the campaign to give Erdogan one final victory

It’s expected to be an incredibly tight race. But don’t forget that not so long ago, Erdogan and the AKP were much further behind in the polls.

On Friday, MEE’s Turkey bureau chief Ragip Soylu took a look at the feeling within the Erdogan campaign, and what tactics they’ve used to get parity with the opposition and perhaps even inch ahead.

Here’s an excerpt:

When the Turkish president’s people looked at the polling in June last year and saw that their ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) had dropped below the 30 percent mark, they became worried.

Annual inflation was surging, the Turkish lira was depreciating and people were unhappy. Many interviewed by Middle East Eye back then didn’t know how Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan could make a comeback in time for Sunday's presidential and parliamentary elections.

But Erdogan and his lieutenants developed a plan: they boosted wages for the public and private sector, flooded the market with cheap credit for home buyers, launched an amnesty on unpaid taxes, and began a major public sector recruitment drive.

And to stabilise the lira, they funded the central bank’s backdoor methods by taking money from Russia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and Azerbaijan.

Populism worked. The AKP’s ratings rose month by month, jumping by six points between June and January.

Read more here:

Inside the campaign to give Erdogan one final victory