Turkey’s elections take place on May 14, and Kemal Kilicdaroglu has a narrow lead in opinion polls against Erdogan. Kilicdaroglu, backed by a six-party opposition alliance, says if he wins he will bring freedom and democracy to Turkey, whatever it takes.
Kilicdaroglu, 74, is a low-key former accountant known to followers as a clean politician who champions secular values. He leads Turkey’s main secular opposition party, the Republican People’s Party, or CHP.
“The youth want democracy,” he told the BBC. “They don’t want the police to come to their doors early in the morning just because they tweeted. […] I am telling young people they can criticise me freely. I will make sure they have this right.”
In the 1990s, he worked in the Finance Ministry and later directed the social security institution. He was once named “Bureaucrat of the Year”, before becoming a member of parliament in 2002.
Erdogan, 69, is a confident orator and proudly religious Muslim whose Justice and Development Party, or AKP, has roots in political Islam. He is still popular.
