Turkey’s leading opposition candidate has accused Russia of election interference days before the country’s most consequential vote in a generation,
The Guardian reports.
Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu of the Republican People’s party (CHP), the chief rival to the incumbent president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, accused Russia of concocting deepfake videos and false material, seemingly a reference to an allegedly fake sex tape of candidate Muharrem İnce, released a day before he dropped out of the race.
“If you want the continuation of our friendship after 15 May, get your hands off the Turkish state,” said Kılıçdaroğlu, adding: “We are still in favour of cooperation and friendship.”
Turkish voters will go to the polls on 14 May to cast their ballots for both the president and parliament. Re-electing Erdoğan would provide a mandate for him to further concentrate power around his office, crack down on opponents, and use his position of influence on the world stage to harden his control at home.
Current polling suggests a tight vote in the presidential election, where one candidate must secure more than 51% to win outright, or the race will go to a runoff two weeks later.
Erdoğan, who previously lashed out at the US ambassador Jeff Flake for publicly meeting with Kılıçdaroğlu, has declared that “Turkey will give a message to the west with this election.” His interior minister, Süleyman Soylu, went even further, describing the vote on 14 May as “a political coup attempt by the west”.
