In Frames | Turkey at a crossroads

All eyes are on May 28, when incumbent Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Opposition leader Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu are ranged against each other in the presidential run-off

The May 14 presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkey were seen by many as a crucial test for the country’s survival as a democracy.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who began his reign of Turkey in 2003 as Prime Minister, faced his toughest political fight. Mr. Erdogan was under fire as inflation touched 80% last year (it’s now hovering around 40%).

Turkey’s currency, the lira, has also fallen by 60% in two years and foreign investors are fleeing the country. Moreover, the February earthquake, in which more than 50,000 people were killed in Turkey, raised questions on both the government’s response and its construction permit policy.

As Mr. Erdogan was on the defensive, six Opposition parties came together (the Table of Six), including a Kurdish party, and fielded a common candidate, Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu, a mild-mannered former bureaucrat who promised to arrest Turkey’s “slide towards authoritarianism” and fix its economy.

But despite the initial momentum, the Opposition failed to unseat Mr. Erdogan. When the results were out, the President’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its coalition partner won a majority in Parliament, while he won 49.5% votes in the Presidential election. As Mr. Erdogan fell short of an outright victory, the country will go for a second round of polls.

Mr. Erdogan’s supporters, mostly Islamists, who see him as a strongman who stood up against the country’s secular Kemalist establishment, thronged the streets with Turkey’s national flags to celebrate their President’s lead. However, the fact that the Opposition denied a first-round victory to Mr. Erdogan is telling of the losing sheen of his brand of politics — a blend of Islamism, nationalism and welfare that’s rooted in Ottoman imperial nostalgia. Now, all eyes are on May 28, when Mr. Erdogan and Mr. Kiliçdaroğlu are ranged against each other in the Presidential run-off.

Text by Stanly Johny