The tactic that is believed to have proved to be most effective was an almost total control of Turkey’s important media outlets. Erdogan asked the Media and Communications head at the Presidential palace, Fahrettin Altun, to ensure that he got a good press and his principal opponent, Kilicdaroglu, was projected as a poor administrator, who would take Turkey back to the days when there was different kinds of curbs imposed to keep the country’s secular character intact. People got scared that rigorous restrictions on religious practices would be reimposed once the Kemalist party came to power.
The fear psychosis affected the thinking of women more than men as the former thought that they would not be able to use hijab again in public places as they do now. Kilicdaroglu and his party did not highlight the Kemalist secular ideology’s achievements in modern Turkey because the masses dread the persecution they suffered in the name of secularism in the twentieth century. Yet there was a massive campaign that if Kilicdaroglu got victorious in the Presidential election, the government might resort to persecution in the name of secularism with the help of the army, and Turkey would be back to where it was before the Erdogan era began in 2002.
Religion has a tight control on the Turks’ lives as a result of the freedoms allowed during Erdogan’s rule despite the Kemalist forces having remained in power till 2002, when the AKP led by Erdogan won the elections for the first time and began to change the system according to his own scheme of things. The most important step that he took was clipping the wings of the Turkish army, till then the ultimate guardian of the constitution. This meant that whenever the army saw a threat to secularism as outlined by Kemal Ataturk, the military could legally overthrow the country’s elected representatives and run the government till it wished. Through a country-wide referendum, Erdogan got the constitution amended to take away this most significant power of the military.
Keeping all these factors in view, Erdogan focused more on media management than anything else to win the crucial election. His party (the AKP) did not face much difficulty in media management as most major newspapers and TV channels are owned by either Erdogan’s family members or his relatives. It was, therefore, not surprising that he was allowed more air time to express his views on TV news channels than Kilicdaroglu. Erdogan’s media department effectively managed social media platforms like Twitter, most popular in Turkey, to make him appear as the messiah of the masses. He was described as a world leader, who was responsible for massive infrastructure development like airports and highways. Kilicdaroglu was made to appear that he was an inept administrator, whose rule may take Turkey backwards, resulting in a loss of the confidence of the countries like Russia, China and most West Asian nations which had invested heavily in Turkey.
