Turkish voters have taken to social media to mock President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s absence since his ruling party lost its parliamentary majority in elections on Sunday with a clock recording the length of time it has been since he appeared in public.
His Justice and Development Party (AKP) is attempting to form a majority coalition government after only receiving 41% of the vote in the elections which saw an 86% turnout of those eligible to vote.
However Erdoğan, who campaigned for the AKP party before the polls opened despite the country’s constitution ruling that those in such a position be neutral, has not made a public appearance since the result was announced. The powerful former prime minister frequently delivered speeches throughout the campaign, sometimes up to three a day, but has only mustered a short statement after the victory.
Social media users in Turkey, who have frequently been blocked from using sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube by Erdoğan, have started circulating a ticking clock which shows how long “President Erdoğan has been off-air for”. At the time of writing, the timer stands at over two days and three hours.
The Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet led with the front page “Turkey is enjoying the silence” in reaction to his lack of public appearance. The paper’s editor, Can Dündar, is facing legal action from Erdogan for publishing evidenceof an arms transfer to Syrian territory by Turkish intelligence, the criminal complaint seeks a life sentence for Dundar.
In Erdoğan’s statement, he said that all parties should “preserve the atmosphere of stability” in the country and asserted that no party could lead the country alone. “I believe the results, which do not give the opportunity to any party to form a single-party government, will be assessed healthily and realistically by every party,” the statement read.
Ilhan Tanir, a Washington D.C.-based Turkey analyst, says that the Turkish leader’s decision not to appear publicly has offered opposition supporters the opportunity to laugh at his expense, bolstering their confidence after a result that “gives them new hope”.
“People certainly find new courage to speak up in this mocking,” he says. “People have been mocking president Erdoğan one way or another, so it is another part of the fun story of the election for the opposition groups and people.”
“He is president and he is supposedly impartial but he ran this campaign [for the AKP party],” Tanir adds. “Right after the election, he stopped going on TV, stopped giving interviews, so people are asking why he is not appearing anymore. The answer is he is disappointed.”
The AKP party’s loss of its majority in the Turkish parliament was facilitated by the entry of the Kurdish-majority People’s Democratic Party (HDP) into mainstream Turkish politics after passing the 10% vote threshold required.
Erdoğan was seeking a majority in order to further strengthen his presidential authority by rewriting the constitution, but decisions made by the AKP party will now have to pass through the parliament if the party decides to proceed as a minority government. This scenario is also likely if it forms a majority government with a coalition partner.
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