Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will begin another five years as Turkey’s president after winning a divisive election that threatened his hold on power. Especially women’s and LGBTQ+ rights groups find themselves in the immediate line of fire. But they say “they have no other choice than to keep organising, to give voice to reason and to stick together.”
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who has dominated his country’s politics for two decades won the runoff vote by 52 percent to 48 percent, beating opposition candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.
Political analysts say Erdoğan’s victory highlights the polarization in Turkish society, particularly divisions between Islamists and secularists. While much of Turkey’s coastline, the big cities and the largely Kurdish southeast voted for Kılıçdaroğlu, the heartlands strongly favored Erdoğan.
Analysts also argue that the election reflected Erdoğan’s grip on power, including his near-total influence on the country’s media, which is largely controlled by groups friendly toward the governing party.
Constanze Letsch from Guardian says: “The elections were being held under deeply unfair conditions, with an opposition set up to fail. Istanbul’s mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu, was recently sentenced to more than two years in prison and banned from holding public office for insulting members of the supreme election council. This left the opposition unable to nominate its maybe most promising candidate. This was all amid biased media coverage, relentless smear campaigns against the eventual opposition candidate, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, threats, manipulation and a crackdown on civil society, such as the arrest of 126 Kurdish lawyers, activists and politicians at the end of April in Diyarbakır.”
Erdoğan declared victory in front of his residence in Istanbul, singing his campaign song before his speech. “I thank our nation, which gave us the responsibility of governing again for the next five years,” he said. “We have opened the door of Turkey’s century without compromising our democracy, development and our objectives,” he added.
Women and LGBTQs in the immediate line of fire
As two radical Islamist fringe parties (New Welfare Party and HUDA PAR) have joined the national assembly on Erdoğan’s side, women’s and LGBTQ+ rights groups especially will find themselves in the immediate line of fire. Their presence normalises discriminatory attitudes, already rampant among the governing bloc, towards women and LGBTQ+ people.
Ahead of the runoff elections, the women’s rights group Left Feminist Movement warned that the choice between Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu was one between “darkness” and “light”. A statement signed by several dozen well-known female musicians, actors, writers and rights defenders said: “We either succeed in tearing apart the darkness and glimpse the light of dawn, or we will suffocate.”
During his first victory speech in Istanbul last night, Erdoğan targeted LGBTQ+ groups without wasting any time. “Could those LGBT elements ever find their way into the AK party?” he asked to a resounding “no” from the crowd. “Family is holy to us,” he continued.
What will happen next?
On Sunday night, rights activists took to social media to declare that the election results should not deter people from fighting. “Our hopes should not be broken, but we need to be aware of the consequences,” tweeted Fidan Ataselim, general secretary of the We Will Stop Femicide platform. “We have no other choice than to keep organising, to give voice to reason and to stick together.”
In such a period when “closing down LGBTI+ associations” is used as election propaganda by the ruling bloc, LGBTI+s are also very concerned.
The New Welfare Party Youth Branches Chairperson and Central Executive Board member Melih Güner, lost no time in taking action for the closure of LGBTI+ associations right after the second round of the Presidential elections.
Güner shared a post on his social media account and said “We have been noising it around for a while so having been sworn in, our parliamentary members should take a step for the closure of LGBT associations.”
“Once we have come out, we will never close again”
In the joint statement of 17 May and Kaos GL associations, LGBTQs activists said:
“We once again witnessed an election period full of anti-LGBTI+ propaganda just like all the formers. They spoke of us. They tried to trivialize us and our lives via insults. Nevertheless our lives and our will are valuable, puissant. 13th President targeted us during his speech in İstanbul. We didn’t get used to, we were never tired of however we have never forgotten that our struggle is greater than all these words either.
As May 17 and Kaos GL associations, we will continue to strengthen the LGBTI+ community and to struggle for equality and freedom of LGBTI+s. Having evaluated the results of the elections and our predictions for afterwards, we will determine a road map for the new period, and also we will announce and share it with the whole society, particularly LGBTI+ community.
As lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people, we will overcome these dark days with our struggle began from the moment we were born. We will continue to get strength from each other. We will go on to fight, to be in solidarity and to love. We will protect our loves, our lives and each other. Even though they submitted to close us as an election promise; once we have come out, we will never close again.
Liberation of LGBTI+s, will liberate entire society!”
Sources: Guardian, BBC, Pink News