ISTANBUL – ANSWER. A few weeks before presidential elections in turkey which will take place on May 14, the government Erdogan he tries to boost the morale of the voters and shows off domestically produced weapons systems every day.

At the same time, the Turkish President ordered free natural gas to be provided to all households with a limit of 25 km2, which political analysts say is a sign of poor polling results, which show Kemal Kilicdaroglu precede Mr. Erdogan.

Just yesterday, the chairman of the Turkish defense industry department, Ismail Demir, announced the launch of a Turkish torpedo from a remotely controlled unmanned ship (MIR IDA). On the same day, the son-in-law of Turkish President Selçuk Bayraktar showed on video the fifth flight of the Kizil Elma combat drone.

In the coming days, Mr. Erdogan was invited to the reception ceremony of the first Turkish-made Altai main battle tank, and these days, the landing ship Anadolu, which Mr. Erdogan calls “aircraft carrier”, is at anchor in the port of Istanbul Horn .

Experienced analysts emphasize that this whole image of the presentation of the military industry will continue as long as Ankara chose to “freeze” aggressive rhetoric against Greece in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean, at least until the election period in Athena And Anchor.

This display of weapons systems and Mr. Erdogan’s rhetoric about being the successor to Barbarossa is seen as a replacement for his past statements against Greece that “we will suddenly come to the islands overnight” and threats to launch a Typhoon ballistic missile. . aimed at Athens.

In this pre-election environment, the Turkish president inaugurated a project to distribute natural gas from fields discovered by Turkish drillers in the Black Sea at a ceremony on Thursday evening, and according to officials in the neighboring country, to reach 710 billion square meters. According to the pro-government newspaper Sabah, the Turkish government will announce free distribution of natural gas to all households in Turkey up to a limit of 25 square meters.

Unmanned fighters and remotely controlled ships were presented by the President of Turkey, introducing himself as the successor to the Barbarossa.

“I’m Alevi”

The political “earthquake” was caused by Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who, in a video he posted on Twitter, stated that he was Alevi, that is, he belongs to the minority of the same name, whose members do not follow certain rules and rituals of Islam and have been victims of discrimination and persecution in the past.

“I think it’s time to talk to you about a very special, very sensitive issue. I am an Alevi, I am a sincere Muslim,” he said, breaking a taboo because some hard-line Sunnis, who make up the majority of Turkey’s population, still consider the Alevis to be heretics. A presidential candidate from six opposition parties appealed to young people to change the mentality and structure of the country and demanded an end to discrimination. Only on the Internet this video was watched by 19 million users! If Mr. Kilicdaroglu is elected president, he will be the first Alevi to also receive the support of a majority of the country’s Kurds.

The construction of the unmanned ship was completed in 2022 at Sefine’s private Turkish shipyards, and it is planned that its main role will be anti-submarine warfare. At the same time, other versions of this type will patrol, collect information, perform surveillance missions. These ships can also carry missiles, short-range anti-aircraft missiles and offensive torpedoes. MIR MIR have a length of 14.75 m, a width of 3.85 m and a depth of 0.85 m. They can sail in weather conditions up to 5 points on the Beaufort scale, reach speeds of up to 32 knots and have a cruising range of 400 nautical miles. and are accessed by coastal control stations.

The vote of 3.5 million Turks in the diaspora is crucial

While most opinion polls show that the main opposition party, led by Kemal Kilicdaroglu, is ahead of Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party, there is one factor that could prove decisive. We are talking about the approximately 3.5 million Turks in the diaspora who will be eligible to vote this year, especially those living in Germany.

To the surprise of some, nearly 1.5 million Turks in Germany disproportionately voted for Erdogan in the last presidential election. In particular, the Turkish president may have been elected in his own country with a 53% percentage, but in Germany he received an impressive 65% of the vote. His supporters in Germany then celebrated the electoral victory with motorized marches in central Berlin, waving flags and chanting slogans in favor of the conservative leader, prompting a strong reaction from the defeated opposition.

As DW emphasizes, the fact that Turks in Germany experience “wounded pride” played a big role in this political choice. A survey conducted by the University of Münster among German citizens of Turkish origin showed that 51% of them feel like “second-class citizens”. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung recently wrote that “many Turks in Germany feel that both German society and the state are xenophobic and prejudiced against them. Thus, many end up looking for support and guidance from a supposed savior like Erdogan.”

Most of Germany’s 1.5 million people supported Erdogan in previous polls.

Erdogan’s hyper-nationalist rhetoric seems to have managed to galvanize the large Turkish community abroad, reaching such percentages in both the previous presidential election and the 2017 referendum on strengthening presidential powers, with which 63% of German Turks agreed. “To a large extent, their vote was a form of protest,” Detlef Pollack, a professor of the sociology of religion at the University of Münster, who has since done extensive research on the integration of Turks in Germany, told DW at the time. “Especially older men love the fact that someone is showing the West and the European Union how things should be; it is an expression of defiance, of pretension, but also of indignation,” he added, stating his belief that people deeply want to preserve democracy in Turkey. On the other hand, he pointed to the importance for the Turks of Germany of the existing conflict between Turkey and the EU, between a Christian and predominantly Muslim society. “It’s hard to give a clear political vote because suddenly issues of pride, nationality, identity and religion become important to the point where political pragmatism takes a backseat,” he said.

What has changed today?

But today’s situation is quite different. As the deputy from the ruling coalition of Germany with the SPD party and the president of the German-Turkish community, Macit Karaahmetoglu, told the RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland network, “Erdogan’s significant mobilization potential in 2018 has been exhausted.

German Turks are aware that Erdogan’s presidential system has brought Turkey to the brink of an abyss and many who supported the AKP are not going to vote. The opposition, on the contrary, has a much greater mobilization potential. And usually the ability to mobilize the electoral base is what wins in the election campaign.”