Erdogan cancels election rallies due to upset stomach
Health issues aren’t the only thing plaguing the president, as several opinion polls place the opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu in the lead
By
News Desk
– April 27 2023
https://media.thecradle.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/99e5150c-7771-40e5-9a11-8675b206b481_16x9_1200x676.jpg
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the Grand National Assembly of Turkey in Ankara, 21 April, 2021. (Photo credit: AFP)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan canceled his election rallies for Wednesday and Thursday due to health reasons, as Reuters reported on 26 April that the president suffers from an upset stomach.
“Today, I will rest at home with the advice of my doctors,” the president wrote on his Twitter account on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, AK Party deputy chair Erkan Kandemir announced that the Turkish president would only attend a scheduled ceremony at the Akkuyu nuclear power plant in the southern Mersin province via video link.
“Our Mersin rally is also planned to be held on a future date,” he wrote on Twitter.
On Tuesday, Erdogan had to cut short a TV interview after being plagued by his upset stomach.
However, the Turkish president’s upset stomach isn’t the only thing plaguing the longest-serving leader in Turkish history; according to the average of opinion polls conducted by ten companies, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the presidential candidate of the main opposition bloc Nations Alliance is leading the race, although it is expected that the election will go to a second round.
In March, Aksoy Research has shown Kemal Kilicdaroglu ahead of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan by more than 10 percentage points.
According to analysts, the Turkish President and his political bloc face their biggest challenge in the past 20 years, with soaring inflation, a cost-of-living crisis, and the effects of last month’s devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake coinciding to weaken Turkiye’s already fragile economy.
Meanwhile, 34.3 percent of Turks have blamed Erdogan’s government for the massive losses during the earthquake, while only 26.9 percent blamed contractors who built the many apartment buildings that collapsed in the quake, according to polling from Metropoll.
“Simply blaming Erdogan for everything that is wrong in Turkiye won’t cut it. Past elections have shown that Erdogan is a phenomenal campaigner, but recent remarks suggest he has lost his popular touch and his ability to connect with voters,” Wolfango Piccoli, co-president at political risk advisory firm Teneo, told Reuters.
