Reuters. Turkish presidential candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu on Wednesday (May 17) accused President Tayyip Erdogan of cooperating with a network Ankara considers terrorists and allowing unchecked migration, marking a sharp turn in his rhetoric ahead of a runoff vote.
Kilicdaroglu, who led a more positive campaign in the lead-up to presidential and parliamentary elections on Sunday (May 14), suffered an upset when Erdogan came in ahead.
Erdogan's ruling Islamist-rooted AK Party and its nationalist allies won a comfortable parliamentary majority, while in the presidential vote, Erdogan fell just shy of the 50% threshold needed to win outright.
Kilicdaroglu, chair of the Republican People's Party (CHP), received 44.9% in what was seen as the biggest electoral challenge to Erdogan's 20-year rule. A third candidate, Sinan Ogan obtained 5.17%.
The presidential election is now headed to a runoff between the frontrunners on May 28.
In a video posted on Twitter on Wednesday, Kilicdaroglu accused Erdogan of cooperating with the network Ankara accuses of orchestrating the 2016 coup attempt and allowing migrants to come into Turkey unchecked.
"We did not find this homeland on the street. We will not leave our homeland to this mentality that allowed 10 million irregular migrants to come amongst us," he said, warning the number could go up to 30 million.
"Those who love their homeland, come to the ballot box," Kilicdaroglu said, referring to the state's "perpetuity," a word commonly used by Erdogan and his nationalist allies.
He did not give any evidence for the number of migrants. Turkey hosts the largest refugee population in the world, which stands at around 4 million according to official number.
More than 285,000 irregular migrants were caught in 2022, according to Interior Ministry data, and that number is at nearly 50,600 as of May 11 this year.
Kilicdraoglu's turn to harsher rhetoric in Wednesday's video suggests his campaign for the runoff could be marked by a more patriotic stance than a more moderate attitude.
It could also be seen as appealing to those supporting Ogan, whose main message to voters was that he will send back migrants, including some 3.6 million Syrians.
