Türkiye
Kilicdaroglu wants to “send all refugees home”
Wants to replace Recep Tayyip Erdogan as President: Kemal Kilicdaroglu. photo
© AP/dpa
If he is elected as the new Turkish president, he wants to send all refugees out of the country. Kemal Kilicdaroglu will face Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a runoff election on May 28.
The Turkish presidential candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu struck a much sharper tone towards refugees a good ten days before the presidential run-off election.
“As soon as I come into power, I will send all the refugees home. Period,” said Kilicdaroglu, speaking of ten million people in the country. It was not immediately clear what data he was relying on. According to the United Nations, 3.9 million refugees live in Turkey. Most of them come from Syria.
In last Sunday’s presidential election, Kilicdaroglu ended up behind incumbent Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who narrowly missed out on winning the first round. Because neither candidate received more than 50 percent of the votes, Kilicdaroglu and Erdogan will face off in a runoff on May 28. Against the background of allegations of manipulation in the election on Sunday, Kilicdaroglu stated that he wanted to send at least one million election observers to the polls.
Observers assume that the votes from the nationalist camp in particular will be decisive in the election. The third-placed right-wing candidate Sinan Ogan got a good five percent in the first round. He ties an election recommendation for Erdogan or Kilicdaroglu to assurances. He stands for anti-refugee politics and calls for an intensified “fight against terror”.
It is doubtful whether his voters will follow his recommendations. Election researcher Özer Sencar told the German Press Agency that he assumed that the majority of them would switch to the Erdogan camp anyway.