Turkey's Erdogan trails behind opponent ahead of election

One of the most powerful figures in global politics, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is on the ropes apparently, with polls showing him trailing a top opposition leader. Just as voters are about to head to the polls on Sunday for high-stakes elections there, the latest polling average is showing Kamal Kelleck Darulu ahead by a couple of points over Erdogan, the man who has led Turkey for more than two decades now. Erdogan being heard hard by a third-party candidate who dropped out and who opposes him. The two out on the campaign trail late this week in a final push in that country, and who ends up running the country of 85 million people could matter big time here in the US too. Why? Well, Turkey has the second biggest military in NATO. It's home to millions of refugees, many of whom are from Syria, not to mention 50 American nuclear warheads, and Turkey is a key player in the peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. Matt Bradley is following the election for us from London.

So Matt, let's start there. What kind of impact will this election have on something like the war in Ukraine? We know that Erdogan has often been sort of a thorn in the West side here, right? Yeah, Erdogan was a thorn in the West side ever since before the war. Erdogan long wasn't playing by NATO's rules. He purchased that S-300 signature anti-missile system from the Russians, which caused a huge row with Washington and Brussels. So this is something that he's continued into the war now. Actually investment and trade between Turkey and Russia has been expanding rather than decreasing because Turkey's been taking advantage of the fact that so many other Western countries have been shutting down their trade opportunities with Moscow. So we've already heard, as you mentioned, that opposition leader.

He has said that if he gets elected into power that he's going to put an end to all of the anti-Washington, anti-American rhetoric coming out of Erdogan. He's going to try to move westward, try to cozy up a little bit more with the West. And that's something that is reassuring not just to Western leaders but to markets. And it really just goes to show that there is an appetite in Turkey to try to get away from the Bellicose rhetoric that Erdogan has been lobbying towards the West and has cozying up to Moscow. Aaron? Alright, so you just laid out there what some of the outside factors are here. Turkey's relationship with the West, with NATO. But there are some really significant local issues at play here too, right? We have Erdogan's government's response to the earthquake.

Fifty thousand people dying there. You saw some of that up close. I know you were reporting in that region for a while. We also have soaring inflation in that country to talk about. Those are all issues that people care about, right? Yeah, no, these are the issues. These are the issues that people care about. When we talk about these lofty foreign policy things, yes, those matter for those of us who are outside of Turkey.

But for your average Turkish voter, this is just a bread and butter election. This is about local issues, money in people's pockets, and the big thing that is a real issue. And you mentioned the earthquakes just a couple of months ago in Turkey. Yes, that caused a lot of anger. More than 50,000 people were killed. And of course Turkey's president Erdogan had been out there before this earthquake, championing some of the construction projects that ended up collapsing because he was trying to affect what looked like some sort of real estate or development boom ahead of these elections. Well, that backfired hugely.

But the real issue for most Turks is inflation. And that has gone way out of control ever since Erdogan took power, really in the last five to 10 years, but he's been in power for 20 years. And we've just seen the Turkish lira has dropped by 77% since 2018. Inflation just last month hit a year-on-year rate of 44%. And now the highest level, that was back in late 2021 of inflation, that was nearly 90%. But I got to tell you, Aaron, these are just the official numbers, the real numbers, according to economists, could be hovering about 100% inflation. And that's something that has really been a huge problem for your average Turk.

So again, the issues that really matter are not the ones involving lofty notions of foreign policy and international relations. They're just about money in people's pockets. And that's how they're going to be voting this Sunday. Aaron? All right, that is the case in so many places around the world these days. Matt Bradley for us tonight in London. Matt, thanks.

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