Erdogan Faces New Challenge From Anti-Immigration Firebrand
Erdogan Faces New Challenge From Anti-Immigration Firebrand
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is facing a new challenge ahead of next year’s elections from a nationalist politician who has vowed to send millions of refugees home, prompting the government to rethink its immigration policy.
Turkey hosts the world’s largest refugee population, most of them Syrians fleeing the war next door. Years of economic turmoil have made it harder to find work in Turkey, however, fanning discontent over Erdogan’s immigration policy just 14 months before key presidential and parliamentary elections.
Umit Ozdag, the 61-year-old leader of the Zafer Party, says it’s time to stop spending taxpayer money on foreigners he says add to demand for food and housing, exacerbating runaway inflation that’s left many Turks struggling.
More prominent opposition parties have also called for refugees to go but Ozdag’s is making immigration the centerpiece of its election campaign, tapping a politically explosive issue that’s helped propel right-wing leaders to power in Europe and beyond over the past decade.
“We will send them away to secure our home and revive the economy,” Ozdag said in an interview in his office, decorated with maps showing the density of refugees across the country. “Turkey will cease to be a route to Europe for refugees from the Middle East, Asia and Africa and use its resources for the good of its own citizens.”
That’s a radical and politically-divisive solution that would be tough to implement. It has nonetheless found appeal among some voters who increasingly grumble about overcrowded classrooms and longer waits at hospitals, where refugees receive free medical treatment.
Growing Cost
Turkey has spent about $100 billion on housing, medical care and schooling for about 3.7 million Syrians who began arriving weeks after the war began in 2011. It’s also home to some 2 million refugees from Iraq and elsewhere, with the whole refugee population totalling about 6 million people. More arrive daily at its southern and eastern borders.
“We’re taking every security measure to prevent another 6 million” from crossing into Turkey, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said in a television interview last week, referring to hundreds of kilometers of concrete border walls that have been equipped with thermal cameras.
Turkey has granted citizenship to more than 200,000 Syrian refugees including engineers and doctors, Soylu said, but is trying to persuade some to return to areas secured by Turkish and allied forces in northern Syria.
Erdogan had largely avoided blowback over his immigration policy because his intensely loyal base, largely rural and conservative, concurs that the country has a moral and religious duty to take in those fleeing war. But the welcome is wearing thin as living standards deteriorate, giving right-wing politicians an opening.
“That’s simply a tactic to contain the anti-immigration sentiment in the run-up to elections,” Ozdag said of the government measures, adding that his party was initiating dialog with Damascus for a long-term solution.
Political Ascent
An academic-turned-lawmaker, Ozdag has risen to prominence since urging an alliance of six opposition parties to back the nationalist mayor of Ankara as a presidential challenger to Erdogan, who has concentrated power in the executive branch during his two-decade rule.
He described Mayor Mansur Yavas, whose popularity is rising across Turkey, as “the only candidate with a real chance to beat Erdogan and make sure there is a smooth transition back to the parliamentary system.”
Ozdag will run for re-election to parliament but has so far said he doesn’t intend to put himself forward for the presidency. Though small, and a relative newcomer on the political scene, his party has attracted outsize attention with its focus on immigration.
“I admire him for his backing of Yavas who is working to alleviate the economic woes of the poor,” said 52-year-old Yigit Ergin, an Ankara resident who plans to vote for Ozdag instead of the main opposition CHP. “I’m extremely disturbed with the presence of Syrians and Pakistanis in the street, with Arabic signs on their shops that pay no tax.”
‘Fair Trial’
Beyond refugees, Ozdag wants to restructure the government and restore the independence of the central bank and judiciary, which have been eroded in recent years.
He criticized the verdict against businessman and philanthropist Osman Kavala, a day after he was sentenced to life in prison for his alleged role in organizing the anti-government Gezi Park protests and a 2016 coup attempt.
“Everyone must receive a fair trial,” said Ozdag, who disagrees with Kavala politically. “The verdict amounts to the abolishment of Article 34 of the constitution that recognizes the right to hold peaceful meetings and demonstrations and that’s unacceptable.
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