NOURNEWS - Although the recent Turkish presidential elections ended with the victory of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the defeat of Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the political and internal consequences of these elections on Turkey's political fronts cannot be ignored.
In other words; The 2023 presidential elections in Turkey have brought changes in some political ideologies and political disunity in this country, the most important of which is related to the field of nationalism.
Sinan Oğan, the nationalist candidate for the Turkish presidential election, supporting Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and, on the other hand, supports of the leaders of the extreme nationalist party "Victory Party, Zafar" for Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, shows the deep disagreement that exists among Turkish nationalists on determining their relationship with the ruling political movements.
On the other hand; The Turkish Nationalist Movement Party, led by Devlet Bahçeli, has been in a coalition with the Justice and Development Party for many years, and thanks to the support of the National Movement Party in the 2017 referendum, Turkey's political structure changed from parliamentary to presidential. These two parties formed the People’s Alliance in 2018.
During these years, the competition for the leadership of the National Movement Party intensified, and finally, two new parties were born from this conflict; "Good Party" led by Meral Akşener, who tries to fill the empty space of the middle-right movement, and "The Victory Party", which has strong anti-immigrant and far right-wing positions.
Both parties, which branched off from the Nationalist Movement Party in protest against Bahçeli's positions, supported Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu in the recent elections, while Akşener was an ally of the West and the Laïcité's school of thought in the structure of Turkish politics and government and Westernism in the path of establishing nationalism. she considers it an important principle in her party's structure.
The important point comes back to the differences that occurred during the elections between the Victory's party and Sinan Oğan as the third candidate in the Turkish presidential elections, before the elections, Zafar's party supported Sinan Oğan as a nationalist leader by creating the " ATA Alliance". But in the second round, Oğan supported Erdoğan and Victory party supported Kılıçdaroğlu.
Some analysts say that the main reason for Oğan‘s support for Erdoğan was his failed negotiations with Kılıçdaroğlu for forming a coalition government, where Oğan demanded the future vice presidency but received a negative answer!
However, some others say; The reason for Oğan’s support for Erdoğan is considered to be Erdoğan’s more negative approach towards the Kurds, especially the "People's Democratic Party", escpesially in the first and second round of the elections, Kılıçdaroğlu saw an important part of the votes of Kurds protesting against Erdoğan in his ballot box. Kılıçdaroğlu receiving votes from Kurds was not compatible with the nationalistic spirit of Oğan.
Nevertheless; The alignments of the traditional, reformist and modern nationalist movements in Turkey have changed in an obvious way after the recent presidential elections, and the effects and consequences of these alignments should be noticed in the future political struggles of these groups with each other.
One of the critical and decisive stages in the upcoming competitions is the upcoming mayoral election in 2024, which can become an opportunity to measure the exact power of Turkish political groups, including nationalists, in various cities and regions of Turkey.
BY: Pooya Mirzaei
NOURNEWS