Erdogan's bid to extend his grip on Turkey

Elections in Turkey's presidential runoff are set to begin on Sunday as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan fights for a historic third term.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a 74-year-old bureaucrat and leader of the left-leaning CHP, is heading head-to-head. In the first round of voting, Erdogan secured a nearly five-point lead over Kilicdaroglu, but fell short of the 50% mark needed to win the presidential election.

On the same day, the president's parliamentary bloc won a majority of seats in the parliamentary race.

The third-place candidate, Sinan Ogan, winning 5% of the first-round vote, publicly endorsed Erdoan last week, further boosting the strongman's chances of winning Sunday s second and final presidential round.

Many polls had inaccurately predicted that Kilicdaroglu would lead in the May 14 vote, which resulted in a high turnout of nearly 90% across the country.

Seven opposition groups have formed an unprecedented unified bloc behind Kilicdaroglu to try to wrest power from President George W. Bush. The opposition has accused the government of a final stand for Turkish democracy, accusing Erdoan of corrupting the country s democratic institutions during his 20-year rule, eroding the power of the judiciary and repressing dissent.

A floundering economy and a shambolic initial response to a catastrophic earthquake on February 6 that killed more than 50,000 people in Turkey and neighboring Syria.

The government has apologized to the public for its mistakes in its rescue operation.

The criticism of Erdogan s government also highlighted loose construction standards presided over by the ruling AK party, which turbocharged a construction boom since the early 2000s and exacerbated the death toll. They also said the earthquake response underscored Erdogan's alleged hollowing out of government institutions in his bid to consolidate power.

The nation's financial crisis, which saw the currency plummet and prices skyrocket, is also partially blamed on Erdogan's policies. The president suppressed interest rates, leaving inflation unfettered.

But the election results on May 14 showed a continued support for the president in his conservative strongholds, including in the devastated earthquake zone.

In an interview with CNN's Becky Anderson yesterday, Erdogan vowed to double down on his unorthodox economic policies, claiming that interest rates and inflation were positively correlated. He also hailed his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin as exceptional and vowed he would continue to block Sweden's entry to NATO despite Western criticism that he was obstructing a unified front against Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Erdogan, who has the second-largest army in NATO, has accused Sweden of harboring Kurdish terrorist groups and has preconditionled Stockholm's admission on the extradition of wanted individuals. Sweden has refused Turkey's repeated requests to extradite people Ankara calls terrorists, arguing that the issue can only be decided by Swedish courts.

Since Russia's takeover of Ukraine in February 2022, the Turkish strongman has emerged as a crucial powerbroker, adopting a crucial balancing act between the two sides, known as pro-Ukrainian neutrality. The Black Sea Grain Corridor Initiative, a key agreement that unlocked millions of tons of wheat captured up in Russia's invasion of Ukraine, has led to a worldwide hunger crisis. The agreement was extended for another two months last Wednesday, a day before it was set to expire.