Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in reality lost the June 2023 presidential election to the then joint candidate of the opposition Kemal Kilicdaroglu, former MP Bulent Kusoglu on June 1 claimed to local news outlet T24.

Kusoglu is currently among the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) members that support the court-ordered reinstatement of Kilicdaroglu as CHP leader, with Ozgur Ozel two weeks ago deposed from the helm by legal order.

In the presidential poll of three years ago, the official result showed Kilicdaroglu with 44.88% of the first-round vote, Erdogan with 49.52% and third candidate Sinan Ogan with 5.17%.

The official second-round result gave Erdogan 52.18% of cast votes and Kilicdaroglu 47.82%.

Raising the issue

“By the way, regarding the 48-percent vote [for Kilicdaroglu] in 2023 that you just recalled, I actually think it was over 50%. Something happened there,” Kusoglu said during an interview.

He was then asked: “Do you think the votes in the 2023 presidential election were manipulated by the state in favour of President Tayyip Erdogan?”

He replied: “Yes.”

Didn’t speak about things that they couldn’t “definitively prove”

An obvious follow-up question was then put to Kusoglu: “In that case, why did Mr Kemal come out and not utter a single sentence on your suspicions and straight away accept the election result?”

Kusoglu responded: “We didn’t speak about the things we could not definitively prove.”

Same story as in 2017 referendum

Another obvious question was then put to him: “Couldn’t you have mounted a legal battle to prove it [your claim]? Didn’t Kilicdaroglu display the same kind of acceptance in the 2017 referendum that changed the [parliamentary system to the current ‘Turkish-style’ presidential system]?”

Kusoglu said: “No, as far as I know, they went all the way to the ECtHR [European Court of Human Rights] in 2017.”

In need of a quick reminder

Kusoglu had obviously misremembered the process that followed the 2017 referendum. He was given a quick reminder: “Atilla Kart [another former CHP MP] always said that he was given power of attorney to annul the Supreme Election Council [YSK] decision [that accepted into the vote count ballot papers that were not officially stamped by ballot box commissions], but Kemal Kilicdaroglu and his staffers deliberately derailed the case, stopping it from passing through to the ECtHR stage, preventing him from filing the application.”

Another follow-up question was posed: “Anyway... If we return to the 2023 election, you just made an allegation that has never been voiced by Kilicdaroglu. In your view, how was the election stolen from Kilicdaroglu?”

“The state” conducts elections

Kusoglu replied: “Without going into too much detail, let me put it simply. The state conducts the elections, meaning state officials. In the presidential government system, there is only one person in the executive branch as regards the state, especially concerning high-level officials: the president.”

“Meaning, 40,000 to 50,000 people at the top level would have to change within a few days in the event of a change of president. I believe there are 1,800 people who would have to change immediately along with the president. When we take into account the deputies of these 40,000 to 50,000 people, the provincial organisations, and so on, we are talking about a few hundred thousand people,” he added.

“Exists all over the world”

“Now, if the state is conducting the election on a change of government, it can affect the parliamentary election by one to two percentage points. This exists all over the world and it gets put into effect here too,” Kusoglu also said.

“In the presidential election, its impact becomes greater. At the very least, this is a factor. Beyond this, there are many issues such as influencing the relatives of detainees, influencing votes in the southeast, counting the votes of citizens who have sought asylum, and so on,” he added.

Two percentage points “very easy”

“In other words, it is actually very easy for the state to manipulate 2 percentage points. Turkey is a country capable of holding elections, but election manipulation is also carried out in Turkey,” concluded Kusoglu.

“Playing the role under Erdogan”

The interview continued with a long follow-up question: “What you are saying is very, very striking. It means you think the 2023 election was stolen from Kemal Kilicdaroglu by the state governed by Erdogan. I understand from your words that Mr Kemal believed this at the time too. And today, he sees no harm in playing the role carved out for him in a move of political engineering that will open the way for the same Erdogan to consolidate his power and even win the next election. What I think doesn’t matter, but I ask because your voters will think this way. Aren’t you saddened by your image? Or are you at least in a state of questioning yourself, thinking ‘I guess we are failing to express ourselves’?”

Kusoglu replied: “How could we not be saddened? Someone like Mr Kemal, who reached up to 48% [48% or more than 50%? –Ed.] in this country, who built the Nation Alliance [the name of the opposition alliance that supported Kilicdaroglu in the 2023 election] as the head of a left-wing party. And three of those five other parties [in the alliance] were Islamist parties that broke away from the [ruling Justice and Development Party] AKP. For the first time in the history of the republic, we were able to act together as six dissimilar parties.”