The politicization of refugees in Turkey’s elections is not yet over with local elections on the way...
2023 Parliamentary and Presidential elections was held on May 14th, 2023
by: Zeynep Mencütek, BICC | Musa Kurt (Intern), BICC
Turkey recently left behind the 2023 Parliamentary and Presidential elections in which the refugee issue was among the top agenda items in the campaigns of the parties. The refugee issue is not a new one in Turkey. It was on the table in the 2018 national and 2019 local elections, but it was only extremely politicized recently when parties took explicit anti-refugee stances in the recent election. Several party campaigns were marked by promises to repatriate Syrian refugees. It is important to examine these stances closely, because the issue will likely retain its political salience in the upcoming local elections, scheduled for 31 March 2024. The politicization of the refugee issue may be even more vivid in the electoral competition for mega-industrial cities like Istanbul, Gaziantep, Mersin, Adana, Mersin, and Bursa which are hosting large numbers of Syrian refugees.
For example, to gain public appeal and in order to fight against the long-running populist discourses of the ruling party AKP, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) has embraced a populist position since the 2019 local elections. One strong element in the CHP’s populism is an anti-Syrian stance narrated as one reason for the economic hardships experienced by Turkish people. The domestic audience was attentive because anti-Syrian sentiments and populist narratives have been rising in recent years through a deepening recession, soaring unemployment, and inflation.
The 2023 election campaign also saw the emergence of a purely anti-immigrant and populist political party the Zafer Party, which centered its election campaign on the slogan: “When the Zafer Party comes, all asylum seekers will return.” In a similar vein, Sinan Oğan, the president candidate of the nationalist ATA Alliance, also used an explicit anti-refugee discourse. Although both party’s share of the vote was tiny, they propelled the anti-refugee narrative and pushed other parties to embrace more radical discourses and build alliances with the main blocs in the second round. While Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the joint candidate of the opposition bloc (CHP together with 5 other parties), took a relatively moderate stance on the return of Syrians before the elections, he embraced more anti-refugee narratives and did not hesitate to sign a protocol with Ümit Özdağ (Zafer Party) in the second round of the elections. Sinan Oğan who received a critical 5.1 percent of the votes in the first round of the election, placed a conditionality over the refugee issue. His party promised to support the candidate who would take radical steps on refugees.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who managed to get the support of Sinan Oğan, signaled that he would adopt a policy encouraging the voluntary return of Syrian refugees, and he reiterated the Government’s earlier plans for reconstructing Syria for return. He said that "they are preparing projects for the construction of housing in Syria for the return of nearly 1 million refugees to their lands". Just two days before the second round of elections, Turkish authorities announced the construction of 240,000 housing units in Jerablus for facilitating the return of the one million Syrians with the financial support of Qatar Development Fund. The project is officially called “voluntary, safe, dignified return” by the Minister of Interior Süleyman Soylu. This was a clear message to the Turkish public showing that the government is taking concrete steps and mobilizing resources to speed up returns and prepare the ground for mass repatriation and resettlement back to Northern Syria.
We must acknowledge that the Government party has a much better framing than the opposition in that it underlines that returns would be in line with humanitarian concerns and would respect the main principles of voluntariness, safety, and dignity. Once again, the governing party sought to manage the sensitivities of different audiences, through its discourses: the international community, Turkish citizens and Syrian refugees. President Erdoğan's election as president for the third time with 52.18 percent of the vote, according to the final data released by the YSK, was welcomed by Syrian refugees. Erdoğan's election victory was celebrated in the streets of refugee-populated areas plus in northern Syria, Lebanon and in many Arab countries. As some Syrians told us, “Many Syrians are well aware of how the refugee issue is politicized in the election periods by all Turkish parties. These are frightening times for them. They pray for the victory of the Government party because Erdogan is still much more supportive of Syrians compared to other politicians.”
Upcoming Local Elections and Refugees
Although the refugee issue has fallen off the agenda for now with the conclusion of the 2023 elections, the issue seems likely to be one of the boiling topics in party politics before the upcoming local elections. The 2019 election resulted in the first loss of a majority in two large provinces, Istanbul and Ankara, for the governing AKP party. The government annulled the first local results in Istanbul based on arguably unlawful grounds. The second consecutive defeat in the Istanbul mayoral election was attributed to the Turkish constituency’s reaction to the high number of Syrians in the city, although refugee inflows did not have a significant impact on election outcomes during the 2012–16 period even in areas with high refugee presence.
For the 2024 local election, it is expected that all parties, including the governing party will try as hard as possible to take metropolitan cities. This may also include taking a relatively more hardline stance about refugees. There have been some tensions between the host community and refugees in some places, particularly related to the resource sharing and competition in the low paying sectors like textile and construction. Under current conditions in Turkey - marked by economic crisis, high inflation and competition in the shrinking labor market - there is a high tendency among people to scapegoat Syrians for all structural problems and to consider mass repatriation as the only solution. According to surveys, more than 80 percent of the Turkish society wants Syrian refugees to be repatriated. The government's open-door and flexible refugee policy was perceived as a safety and security problem, especially by opposition parties’ constituencies, which led to an increase in the popularity of populist parties as mentioned above. This perspective seems unlikely to radically change or turn into pro-refugee public attitudes in the coming months. No doubt, public attitudes matter a great deal for the discourses and acts of politicians in times of elections. Until now, the general anti-refugee attitude has not substantially influenced (or decreased) the voting share of the governing party and President Erdogan, as ideational concerns, expectations, and economic considerations played a more important role, and the refugee issue has not been a top priority for voters. However, the AKP will not be likely to underestimate their constituency’s anti-refugee attitudes in the local elections. It is likely that they will continue to propagate the "1 million voluntary return" project, albeit symbolically, before the local elections. With this in mind, there is a possibility they will try to empower this discourse by targeting unregistered/informal refugees in cities such as Istanbul, Adana and Mersin where the government is likely to win. To secure more electoral gains, parties may seek to make promises to favor of conditions of Turkish citizens and at the expense of refugees or they make take some measures in this direction, such as increasing controls in work places, issuing fines to employers hiring refugees, increasing checks and restricting mobility of those having registered in other cities, and relocating Syrians working in the seasonal agricultural sector.
All of the possible return measures carry legal, normative and humanitarian risks. Although the aforementioned formal project on voluntary, safe and dignified return seems promising on paper, it raises many concerns. The absence of armed clashes in the controlled areas does not alleviate the security concerns of Syrians, so it is difficult to claim there is a sustainable safety situation there. Moreover, areas considered "safe zones" have many health, education, social and legal problems, making them less prone for a dignified return. Many Syrians are not yet ready to voluntarily return. Increasing surveillance in the cities or keeping the issue at the center of election campaigns may have also implications for social cohesion. Unfortunately, these may trigger violent incidents and hate crimes against Syrian refugees locally, if not nationally. The risks attached to the further politization of the refugee issues is higher than any potential electoral gains, hence actions should be carefully calculated by all political parties.
Contact:
Zeynep Mencütek | Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies | zeynep.mencutek@bicc.de