The group of young men brushes them off, and the woman with the dark headscarf doesn’t want to either: Not everyone wants to talk when they leave Munich’s currently most remarkable glass case on Saturday. You have just cast your vote for the presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkey on May 14 in the emptied and converted Kaufhof am Stachus. In front of cardboard booths with the national flag printed on them between two golden pans of scales, five representatives of different parties usually sit in a row as if on a chain – as observers. Employees of the Turkish Consulate General in Munich point this out during a tour. And the shop windows, which can be viewed openly, are also intended to signal that everything is transparent here.
120,000 German-Turks can vote in the heart of the state capital until Tuesday. The number is given by the Turkish consulate general for its area of responsibility, which includes Upper Bavaria, Lower Bavaria and Swabia. This time one expects a greater rush than in the past, when the turnout was only 50 percent. According to forecasts, incumbent Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of the AKP and challenger Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) are neck and neck.
Erdoğan Güneş, 51, and his wife Melal, 44, came from Waldkraiburg to vote.
(Photo: Catherine Hess)
Erdoğan Güneş, 51, is torn. He and his wife Melal, 44, just ticked the box. “We don’t want to add salt to the soup of the people who live in Turkey and tell them how to live.” The model builder and proud world champion in computer chess speaks of Erdoğan’s autobahns: “They cost 15 euros, which is fine for tourists. But nobody down there can afford it on their own earnings.” On the other hand, he wants to return to Turkey to retire, “and then the environment should be good too.” His wife shakes her head: “My four daughters, who all only have a German passport and want to stay here, said: ‘Please, please don’t vote for Erdoğan’https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/.”
The couple came to Munich from Waldkraiburg to vote. How ever, busloads of German-Turks from half of Bavaria, often organized by parties, are dropped off in front of the polling station. 20 ballot boxes are ready for you at the weekend from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. And if necessary, an improvised prayer room.
The siblings Deniz, 27, and Meltem, 25, came from Augsburg as members of the Alevi community. They are more comfortable appearing without a last name. The student describes it as wrong to live in Germany and as an EU citizen to decide on “the suffering of the Turks”. “But I’ll do it anyway because the votes are against Erdoğan.” Her brother calls the incumbent President charismatic. “He knows how to influence people. To me, he’s a modern-day dictator.” More important to him than the outcome of the elections is “that they go off correctly.”
It is important to Yusuf Bulut from Wolnzach that the elections take place without coercion and disputes.
(Photo: Catherine Hess)
Yusuf Bulut, 58, from Wolnzach, who teaches Islam in German at middle and elementary schools, sees it similarly: “It doesn’t matter who wins: it’s important that it takes place without coercion and disputes.” In doing so, he relies on the presidential candidate of the right-wing nationalist Ata alliance: Sinan Ogan. His reasoning: “He has no chance, but I want to show that we have alternatives.”
Erhan Lale (left) campaigns for the Turkish Workers’ Party TIP in front of the Palace of Justice.
(Photo: Catherine Hess)
A stone’s throw from the polling station at the corner of Prielmayerstrasse and Karlsplatz is Erhan Lale at the small stand of the Turkish workers’ party TIP. The big competition has built up to his left and right, the AKP with flyers and a towering likeness of Erdoğan mirror-inverted to the opposition bloc with the Kılıçdaroğlu banner on the other side. Erhan, a computer scientist from Augsburg, talks about the protests at Istanbul’s Gezi Park in 2013. He was shot at, lost twelve teeth – and decided to emigrate to Germany. “I don’t want to go back to Turkey until I can have a human life there again.”
What could he do with his micro stand here? Lale shrugs: “There are people who don’t know how the votes are counted when they come from abroad.” They would be concerned that smaller parties would not achieve anything. Lale tries to convince her otherwise.
How many Munich Turks are currently allowed to cast their votes at the Stachus? Hard to say. According to the Consulate General, it has no available figures. The city’s statistical office offers this: 46,258 adults who have Turkish first or second citizenship are registered with their main residence on the Isar.
When Cumali Naz, an SPD city councilor who grew up in Turkey, is asked about the outcome of the Munich election, he goes for Erdoğan, “because the milieu of Turks living abroad is conservative and religious.” Five years ago, the AKP was in Germany at over 60 percent. “But the lead is getting smaller.” And: “It will be exciting to see if he makes it in the first ballot.” If not, the consulate general will announce the second round of elections from May 20 to 24 in the glass box at Stachus.