Half of Them Are in Germany: Can Turks Living Abroad Tilt the Balance of the Elections?

Turkiye is heading towards parliamentary and presidential elections on May 14 to determine the leader and political party that will lead the country, as the voting process is of great importance to citizens given the coincidence of this event with the first centenary of the founding of the Republic.

However, the importance of the voices of the Turkish diaspora is no less important than the voices of those at home, especially with the presence of a large Turkish community, especially in Europe.

Turkish voters abroad continue to cast their votes in the presidential and parliamentary elections from April 27 to May 9, ending five days before the start of the polling process inside Turkiye.

According to Turkish newspapers, there are 3.4 million Turkish voters living outside the country, more than 5% of the total number of voters, which amounts to 64,113,941 voters. In addition, the Supreme Elections Council (YSK) established ballot box committees in 73 countries and 156 foreign representatives.

Other newspapers indicated that voter turnout outside Turkiye constantly ranged around 50% only (compared to about 85% inside Turkiye), but these votes are important and may resolve the intense competition between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his most prominent rival, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

Amid doubts and questions about whether it reflects the pulse of the street in the country, opinion polls show that there is little difference between Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu, but it does not take into account the opinions of Turkish voters abroad, especially in Germany and all of Europe.

Four candidates are running in the Turkish presidential elections, as the candidate of the People’s Alliance (Erdogan) is competing with the candidate of the Nation Alliance (Kilicdaroglu), the candidate of the Ancestral Alliance (Sinan Ogan), and the head of the Homeland Party (Muharrem Ince).

 

Fateful Elections

On April 27, 2023, Turks abroad began casting their votes in the presidential and parliamentary elections, which gather all indications that they will be fateful for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with the Turkish opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu continuing to consolidate his credit, according to the latest polls.

The official information of the YSK in Turkiye indicates that there are 3,416,098 Turkish citizens abroad who are officially registered and have the right to vote, while 277,646 voters vote in the elections for the first time outside Turkiye.

According to a report published by The Daily Sabah newspaper on April 26, 2023, the number of ballot boxes at customs crossings is 4,671.

Germany constitutes the largest number of Turkish voters, with a total of 1,501,152 voters, and France ranks second in the number of Turkish voters, with 397,86 Turkish voters, the Netherlands ranked third with 286,753 voters, while Belgium ranked fourth with 153,443 voters.

The countries with the lowest number of voters were Brazil with 581 voters, Nigeria with 584 voters, and 635 in Turkmenistan.

In the United States, 134,246 people will be able to vote in the elections, and 127,281 Turks living in Britain are also entitled to vote.

In view of the large number of Turkish voters in Germany, voting will be possible in boxes set up by Turkish missions in 16 cities, while in France, Turkish expatriates will be able to cast their votes in 6 cities.

The dates for the start of the Turkish electoral race for residents abroad vary according to the country, and the location and date of voting in Turkish embassies and consulates around the world can be found here.

The process of voting for Turks abroad will continue until the next May 9 at the headquarters of the Turkish diplomatic missions, while it will continue at the border crossings until the evening of May 14, which is the election day inside Turkiye.

After the end of the voting process abroad, the ballot boxes will be brought to Turkiye by diplomatic couriers, under strict security measures, in the ways determined by the YSK.

The ballot boxes will be stored at the ATO Congresium exhibition center in Ankara by the YSK.

The process of counting the votes of voters abroad begins, after the end of the voting process inside Turkiye on May 14 at 17:00 (local time), while the counting of votes will be conducted under the supervision of the YSK.

Should the May 14 elections extend into a run-off, citizens in Turkiye will go to the polls again on May 28, while citizens abroad will be allowed to vote between May 20-24.

It is noteworthy that the analysis of the information unit in The Economist magazine predicted that Erdogan would win the presidential elections in Turkiye, observing a number of reasons, including those related to the current president himself, and others related to the country’s economic and political conditions.

In turn, the researcher specialized in Turkish affairs, Dr. Saeed al-Haj, in a statement to Al-Estiklal, indicated that accounts close to the Turkish opposition are currently talking about great progress for Kilicdaroglu in the voting abroad, which began a few days ago, explaining that this is nothing more than electoral propaganda and psychological pressure exerted by the opposition.

He returned reasons for the falsity of this news is that the elections abroad have not ended yet, just as those votes are not being counted now, but are counted on May 14 along with the internal votes, adding that even if opinion polls were conducted at the exit of abroad voters from voting, they are also inaccurate.

Dr. al-Haj noted that Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) usually lead by a large and comfortable margin in elections abroad, and this is among the reasons for the inaccuracy of opinion polls in Turkiye, and the same applies to the reason for the opposition’s attempt to influence public opinion by claiming to obtain results in a certain direction in the elections abroad.

 

Favorite Candidate

Questions have recently been raised about the political preferences of expatriate voters, who will have a decisive role in light of the little rapprochement between the candidates of President Erdogan’s People’s Alliance and Kilicdaroglu’s Nation Alliance.

Various opinion polls in Turkiye highlight a slight difference between Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu, but the various survey companies did not include the political preferences of voters abroad in their polls.

Recent polls indicate that Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu are very close, with an average of 7 opinion polls conducted this April indicating that Kilicdaroglu could beat Erdogan in a run-off if it takes place, says a Middle East Eye report on April 27, 2023.

Ulas Tol, research director at the Center for Social Impact Studies, told Middle East Eye that “the votes coming from abroad may tilt the balance in favor of Erdogan, as he polls strongly in Europe, where the bulk of the Turkish immigrants live, who are mostly conservative,” indicating that the votes abroad may impact the results of the presidential election by half a percent.

“The second issue is the parliamentary race. The total amount of votes coming from abroad is distributed to all 81 provinces in Turkiye in accordance with each party’s total votes and based on the population in each electoral district,” writes Ragip Soylu in the same MEE article.

“Tol says, because of that, the votes from abroad for the parties that do not run candidates in some provinces would go to waste and will indirectly work to benefit of Erdogan’s ruling AKP.”

According to an analysis published by Euronews on April 21, 2023, the number of voters abroad is estimated at 5.3%, and they may play a decisive role in the presidential and parliamentary elections.

The website indicates that the preferences of these voters are crucial for Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu, who want to obtain support of more than 50% in the first round of voting and avoid moving to the second round.

In the 2018 elections, the voter turnout was 5.1% of the total electorate, and Erdogan got 59.4% of their votes, while his rival at the time, Muharrem Ince, won 25.8%, while the vote for Meral Aksener, leader of the Good Party, reached 3%.

In the 2018 elections, 87% (2.63 million) of Turkish voters abroad resided in 19 EU member states, the UK, Norway, and Switzerland.

During those elections, Turkish voters in Europe overwhelmingly supported President Erdogan, such as Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Austria, but in some European countries, Erdogan found less support, such as the Czech Republic, Ireland, and Spain.

There is no poll predicting what the turnout rate of voters abroad will be on May 14 or their preferences at the ballot box, but the AKP expects votes to favor Erdogan.

 

Important Role

Before 2014, Turkish expatriates who wanted to participate in the elections had to come to Turkiye to vote, but as of August 2014, the voting procedures became easier as voters abroad were able to vote in the diplomatic missions of the countries in which they reside.

In August 2014, only half a million expatriates, out of 2.8 million registered voters, cast their ballots in the presidential elections. This is mainly due to logistical problems.

As polling stations were distributed in urban areas, voters were in a state of confusion because they were participating for the first time in the electoral process. However, Erdogan won with 62.5% of the expatriate vote.

The participation rate increased in the parliamentary elections held the following year with the addition of more polling stations, and an increase in the period for casting votes, as more than a million Turkish expatriates cast their votes. The result also confirmed the victory of the AKP.

In the constitutional referendum that was held in 2017 with the aim of switching from the parliamentary system to the presidential system, the number of Arabs voted for was about 1.4 million.

In the 2018 presidential and parliamentary elections, which the Justice and Development Party won again, the participation of Turks abroad jumped to more than three million.

This change, which gave the expatriate Turks a greater role in the domestic politics of their country of origin, coincided with the steady expansion of Ankara’s foreign policy, as was the role of President Erdogan in opening a corridor for Ukrainian grain exports in the midst of the conflict with Russia, as reported by TRT World website on April 6, 2023.

According to a study published by two researchers, Sebnem Koser Akcapar and Damla Bayraktar Aksel, the file of expatriate Turks gained renewed importance in the early 2000s, when the Justice and Development Party realized its importance in projecting Ankara’s soft power abroad. It was also at a time when Ankara was stepping up its efforts to join the European Union.

Turkiye has significantly increased its diplomatic presence internationally in the past two decades, increasing the number of foreign missions to 236 in 2017 from 163 in 2002.

The lack of representation that politicians of Turkish origin get in Europe is perhaps a reason that has propelled the diaspora to have more say in their national elections.